I will never forget the summer going into my senior year. There were so many things to be excited about, my last season of high school football, spending time with my friends before college took us down separate paths from the ones we have traveled together for so long and the excitement that was going on just 90 minutes from my home where the Cleveland Indians were making the movie Major League come to life as they challenged for a Division title. But then something happened that lessened the excitement when every ballpark from New York to San Fransisco went dark on August 12, 1994. Now I still had my friends and I still had football to look forward to as well as my senior year so all seemed right in the world. But with that work stoppage which lasted 232 days until April 2, 1995, the game I loved was going to go into a tailspin that has not come to an end almost 19 years later.

When the players and league settled their dispute the league would play a shortened schedule in 1995 however attendance dropped that year by 20% of fans, who more than likely were disgusted by the lack of a

World Series in ’94. Baseball would struggle with attendance for three seasons until two stars suddenly became super human. In the summer of 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa stole the summer as they chase down the single season Home Run record set by Yankee great Roger Maris in 1961. This was huge for baseball as these two stars had television stations all over the country breaking in to regularly scheduled programming to update this epic battle. What many forget is that there was another man who was a part of this race as Ken Griffey Jr. who I was rooting for in this sat at 41 home runs on August 8th, just 5 off of McGwire and 3 behind Sosa. But this race just took off between the other two. By September 7th a record that had stood for 37 years was tied and by September 13th the record which no man had come close to had now been broken by 2 men in a couple of days. This was huge for baseball a game that had lost it’s tarnish after the cancellation of the ’94 World Series. Fans would flock to stadiums and root root root for their home teams again. All was right in the world of America’s favorite pastime. Then came the 2001 season just three years later where a little more abrasive fella by the name of Barry Bonds would break the 3-year-old record of McGwire by hitting 73 in a season. Something did not seem right here. Kind of like the way seeing Rick Flair grab something out of his boot and rub his forehead then all the sudden he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Rumors and accusations were running rampant about steroids being a problem. A few years after Bonds was breaking a record by hitting 23 more home runs than he had ever hit before, McGwire and Sosa were sitting before Congress along with Rafeal Palmeiro wagging their fingers at such accusations. Of course by this time America knew they were all liars and promptly started to lose interest in the mess baseball had become.

Baseball started losing it’s fans who did not want to see their stars like Roger Clemens have to defend themselves against people claiming to have injected them with steroids. People did not want to try to fathom a guy who was maybe on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a five tool player who suddenly bulked up and had their hat size grow substantially. Even the two men that had restored the glory of baseball past were clearly lying about their God-given talents. Then in 2005 former bash brother Jose Canseco called out his MLB counterparts in the now famous book Juiced where he spilled the beans including that more than 85% of baseball players were on the juice. At a time when every other baseball player associated with PED’s was claiming stupid or ignorance the one guy claiming the truth was made out to be an idiot and a rogue player who had an axe to grind. For the record Canseco is a nutcase but so far has been perfect in naming the players that were using such as Alex Rodriquez who denied the writing adamantly. Of course A-Fraud has admitted the use now.

Baseball faced with dropping attendance hired George Mitchell to investigate and cracked down on the rules. The aftermath of the Mitchell Report was a great one as baseball started to resemble the game many loved. More and more players were found out such as Andy Pettite, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and many more but even though the stars of the game found themselves answering some pretty tough questions the game seemed legit again. Then it hit rock bottom again when new broke that MVP Ryan Braun had failed a test. After a battle before the season started the results were thrown out due to negligence and tampering. The Braun defenders argued that Dino Laurenzi Jr., a working man just like most of you reading this had tampered with the sample in his home. Looking back on it now this rich baseball guy who had friends like Packers star Aaron Rodgers coming to his defense pretty much ruined a working man’s life to cover up the fact that he cheated. Fast forward to last night’s news that MLB will attempt to suspend the former MVP for 100 games along with 21 other players connected to a clinic in South Florida and this makes Braun look even more like a monster for his actions against Laurenzi.

Here we are as baseball fans and instead of talking about bunting, sacrifices, steals, balks and the great history of this wonderful game with our kids, we sit and talk about things like BALCO, Biogenisis, HGH, PED’s, and who is to blame? The players? The management? Sure they are both to blame but the number one has to be Major League Baseball as a whole. After that strike in 1994 baseball was on the mat down for the count. Then Sammy and Mark lifted them up with their hormone induced bodies and made baseball come to life again. Baseball had to of known but until a Congressional hearing no laws existed for cheaters, no punishment was handed down. Many records were broken by men that should have never been close and many fans were left to wonder who was good and who was enhanced. Now with this latest news it is clear that baseball as I know it died on August 12, 1994 because the leaders let cheaters save the day.