Would the Babe have juiced?

Here we go again...A-Rod's admission has that carousel of moralizing columnists and talking heads moving again. Sigh.

This is one sticky wicket, and honestly, at this point, Bonds, Clemens and A-Rod seem victims of MLB's catastrophically flawed approach to steroids, with Clemens and Bonds also victims of their own hubris to the extent that they are likely going to jail for perjury. This the nub of the issue: An illegal, performance-enhancing substance was not banned in baseball until 2004. If we're to believe Canseco--and at this point, why shouldn't we?--steroids were rampant in clubhouses for well over a decade before that.

It's hard to believe that Selig et al did not make a conscious decision to keep the issue at an arm's length for as long as possible. Perhaps they reasoned that the data was not clear, that the facts were not all in, that previous generations had been hopped up on speed to get through 162 games. As likely, I think they feared the repecursions of placing the issue on center stage. McGuire and Sosa's battle for the home run record brought the game back to life. And that little bottle of andro in McGuire's locker? Well, you'd have to ask him about that.

Am I alone in thinking that the tax dollars we're spending to put Bonds in jail, send IRS agent Jeff Nowitzky scouring the seedy world of Houston bodybuilders and hold Congressional hearings could be better spent elsewhere? Certainly, something that can give you an extra ten feet of lift on your fly ball, or a few extra MPH on your fastball may not be equivalent to Mantle popping greenies to get up for the game. But are the steroid users of this era of clearly lesser moral character than previous generations?