| Article: | Diehard Jock: All-Star game and steroids Here we are, still in the midst of the steroid era, and the problem doesn’t seem to have changed much. The Los Angeles Dodgers finally have Manny Ramirez back in the lineup after his 50-game suspension. But it wasn’t a true 50 games because he was allowed to play in what Major League Baseball calls a rehab assignment. What was he rehabbing, couch sores? I guess the MLB took a page from our judicial system and gave Ramirez an early release from his sentence. When will all this end? Maybe when the league puts a cap on salaries and players are not making a bazillion bucks. I think that is the whole problem. A guy gets this huge contract, millions of dollars to play the game. Then he is under the pressure of living up to that money, and, when the game slows down for that player or the numbers begin to dip, they turn to a chemical savior. Not because they want too, but because of the expectations put on them when they signed their lives over to that multi-million dollar deal. Next comes those players who are seeking the big bucks — you know, that once-in-a-lifetime contract. So they start juicing it up to increase their numbers and performance so they can move into the “Super Star” rankings and land that big deal. |
