Juice anyone?

While surfing around tonight I clicked on the "random blog" button on Baseball News Blog (I'm not savvy enough yet to steal this code and add this fun feature to The Book of Mike, but keep your eyes open for this change coming soon. Today I was fortunate enough to be taken to Only Baseball Matters which in addition to being a very nice looking blog also has plenty of good commentary (and cool features - like the visitor map, which I was able to steal - see far below on the right).

I found this post about Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and how they are being treated about using steroids and similar substances to be very interesting. There's also a link on Only Baseball Matters to an article by Steven A. Smith (requires free registration with Philly.com to view) about the same subject.

I have to say that I agree with both writers. Bonds doesn't seem to be getting a fair shake in all of this. McGwire admitted to taking andro, which although legal in baseball at the time, was banned by every other reputable sports governing body - even the IOC which isn't so reputable. McGwire never admitted to taking steroids, but neither has Barry. And honestly, as much as I think this is still wrong, if McGwire took anabolic steroids in 1998 and Bonds took them in 2001, it's largely irrelevant. Well, at least to me. It doesn't make sense to go back and put an asterisk next to a record that someone set because they took a substance that was not illegal at the time. Yes, it's illogical that steroids weren't banned in baseball until after both men set their records, but that's just how it is. We aren't going back to adjust the records of Gaylord Perry and other spitballers, so we shouldn't do that to Bonds and McGwire either.