Another baseball player tests positive for steriods how shocking was that?

Somebody lying to Congress? No, that can't be...

I have never seen an athlete's stock and cred drop so far and so fast than Raffy. Maybe O.J. Simpson rivals him, but killing people is not sports related. I always had difficulty coming to terms with Raffy. He was an accumulator of stats -- lots of hits, homers, etc. But no freaking World Series, no MVPs, never led the league in anything important. Was he the kind of guy who got most of homers in the ninth when his team was down 9-0. Even before the scandal, I would not make him a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. Raffy violated the Cardinal Law between Men: Never dime out your colleague or teammate. He'll never wear a baseball uniform again.

Big story because he sure fooled me. . .do ballplayers have some genetic disorder that prevents them from telling the truth? It's like listening to Bush explain Iraq or Clinton talk about. . .anything.

All Palmeiro had to do was get off steroids, have a couple sub-par years late in his career, and he comes out a baseball legend, with a very established record-breaking stat book. After all the scandals that came up during this past offseason, Palmeiro still decides to stick with steriods, even though he knows that he'll be tested during the year. What exactly did he think would happen?

I guess it's a pretty big story. Here is a guy who was a lock for the Hall of Fame, who might not get in anymore. Palmeiro also had a pretty good rep around the league - a rep which took a severe hit after his dramatic and passionate denial of steroid usage at the congressional hearings followed by a postive test for steroids just months later. Today I read that the steroid that Palmeiro tested positive for is a potent one not found in dietary supplements, and most known as the one that sprinter Ben Johnson used. So his cries of accidental intake would appear to be bogus as well. Back during the hearings, it was McGwire that took all the flak for refusing to deny steroid usage. Who's the bigger man? Someone who refuses to deny (McGwire) or someone who shrilly and passionately denies (Palmeiro), only to be found he was using one of the more powerful steroids on the market? Big Mac doesn't look so bad anymore.

This is a big story, but it is being covered way more than it should be. At this point I don't find steroid use in baseball that controversial. Everybody knows it has gone on, but it didn't make Rafael Palmeiro, or Jason Giambi, or Barry Bonds great players, because they already were. Rafael Palmeiro getting his 3,000th hit is a bigger story than this as is Greg Maddux's 3,000th strikeout. However, sports journalism is just as sensational as the rest of the media, and the public is inundated with controversy instead of more meaningful stories.