Baseball Is Fine, Steroids or Not

Of all the talk over the past 48 hours about A-Roid and his positive steroid test in 2003, there's one thing that I just don't understand: this notion that somehow this news will deter people from watching baseball or that the steroid era will cause people to stop following baseball.

That's never going to happen. People will continue to watch baseball, just as they always have.

The steroid problem in baseball is bad. There's no question of that. And there's no question that this most recent era of baseball has had more villains than heroes. But baseball will survive, just like every sport survives scandal and scrutiny. People love sports, and they're not going to stop watching them just because controversy and scandal surrounds it.

Think about all the problems in sports just over the last few years. An NBA referee was caught fixing games for the betting line. Ron Artest jumped into the crowd in Detroit and brawled with fans. Countless NFL players have been arrested on criminal charges. One of the game's biggest stars in Michael Vick, went to jail for criminal dogfighting. Somehow basketball and football have survived.

And in the past: college basketball survived a point shaving scandal. Baseball has survived many players corking bats, applying too much pine tar to bats and hats, and most importantly, Pete Rose's admission that he bet on the game. Football has survived having players at the scene of murder and actually committing murder (Rae Carruth). And hockey, basketball, and baseball have all had lockouts over the last twenty years that have either shortened or cancelled full seasons. All these leagues, of course, have survived.

So let's all stop claiming that somehow baseball will lose fans due to the steroid scandal over the last ten years. The only "fans" the game will lose are people that aren't truly baseball fans to begin with.

Sports have survived many difficult scandals and many PR nightmares as bad or worse than this. The integrity of every sport has been question at some point or another, but fans continue to watch the games and enjoy them with the same passion despite the games' pitfalls.

Sports fans love the games they love because they are live entertainment that helps us escape our everyday lives. As long as they continue to serve as just that, no matter what the problem, we'll all keep coming back.

No matter who else gets named for taking steroids over the last few years in baseball, whether the names are as big as A-Roid's or not, we'll all be back on opening day, loving every minute of it. Baseball is fine, steroids or not.