MLB.com has an article which poses the question: "Will anyone hit 60 home runs?" It's certainly possible, and there will be contenders . With that said, the first person to hit 60 home runs in '07 will be congratulated first, then scrutinized heavily afterwards by fans and the media.
The "S" word won't go away for a very long time; and those who dare to show off their talent, God given or otherwise, will have to face district-attorney style questioning before the press due to the sins of others and the sins of omission committed by Major League Baseball for it's light-hearted attempts at policing their sport over the years.
Oh well. The individual players may not deserve such treatment; but baseball on the whole needs to be sat under a hot lamp in the interrogation room and grilled on why it let this scourge go on for so long, virtually polluting this great game, it's records, and it's history while souring a generation of true baseball fans.
Bud Selig and the Player's Union can come out tomorrow and swear on a stack of bibles that the steroid issue has been resolved and that none of the players on any team are on steroids and I won't believe it. Not, as long as their are unscrupulous chemists and scientists out there willing to make money formulating performance enhancing drugs which glide in under the radar of current testing methods. I won't believe it because the amount of money to be made playing baseball is so mind-blowing that any extra edge a player can get will mean a bigger payday come arbitration or free agency.
In this fan's view, the game will be ruined for the next decade or so until some real policing is done to ensure that no other fancy, designer potions, lotions, powders, and supplements find their way into baseball locker rooms or player's bodies. It's a tough job, but enforcement of any policy worth enforcing isn't easy. It's marvelous how the Olympics manages to keep it's eye on the athletes involved in their games, and there are far more Olympians than major league baseball players, and from all corners of the Earth.
It would probably be naive to suggest that there aren't any athletes at all cheating in some way or another in Olympic sports; but I appreciate the way the officials for the Olympics pounce on athletes who do violate their drug policies. Good for them. Bad for baseball.
