It's All Up to the Players
Can any of us remember when steroids were not the major topic of any baseball conversation? It has been a while since the grand jury testimonies of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were leaked to the public, and even longer since I first wrote a column about the steroid scandal. These testimonies clearly tied some of baseball's greatest stars to BALCO, the San Francisco-based laboratory that is infamous for developing the most technologically-advanced steroids. Sadly, because the confessions were supposed to be kept private in a closed courtroom, the illegal leaking essentially provided immunity to the guilty athletes. Baseball was prohibited from taking any action and the players refused to make a public confession -- citing their pending legal issues as their reason for maintaining silence. Thus, we were left in a situation in which everyone knows the truth, but no one wants to talk about it.