Off his Rocker?
The former Braves reliever John Rocker says baseball was better with steroids, and I know he’s not alone.
I like home runs, too. But I also like moving runners over, tactical pitching changes, no doubles defense, infield in, etc., etc.
When the scores are higher, you often lose the game within the game and many of the fine subtleties that make baseball special.
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baseball is business, not necessarily a sport and professionally, the game has changed with the many rule changes. in order to sell, the game has to be exciting and offense (high scores and many home runs) excite the fans of today. ball parks are being built smaller to create more offense and rule changes also appear to create more offense. All of professional sports have moved to speed up the game with offense to create more fan interest. If you want “pure baseball” you need to watch amateur baseball. agree with rocker but not steroids – not good for the individual in the long run.
It’s kinda getting to the point in all sports where PED use as a no-no doesn’t matter anymore, except to the vanishing purists and the league office occupants. Seems like the public’s reaction to this sort of stuff is ADHD. When the athlete performs spectacularly, the fan says, “WOW! Classic!” When the media outs the athlete for PEDs, the fan says, “WOW! Busted!” When the athlete gets suspended, the fans says, “WOW! Losing a million a month!” (or whatever the athlete loses). When the athlete goes to court, the fan says, “WOW! Nice suit!” When ESPN shows the PED prosecutor’s grandstand news conference, the fan says (looking at the sidebar on the ESPN screen), “WOW! There’s a story about a hot dog eating contest coming up!”
I say open it up because it is difficult to police infractions. And random sampling seems unfair. Using PEDs as an infraction seems a lot better than gambling on games or even worse, influencing games because of gambling.