The most telling bit of baseball news to emerge during these past weeks of steroids coverage is this: Major League Baseball’s revenue has more than tripled since Bud Selig took over as commissioner in 1992.
The sport hauls in $6 billion annually, and attendance has set records for four straight seasons.
That says more to us about why the sport’s so-called Steroids Era has flourished than anything we’ve heard out of recent congressional hearings.
Baseball’s problems with performance-enhancing drugs are long- standing and self-serving. After the 1994 strike, a surge in home runs brought fans back to the game. During that time, allegations of steroid use were rampant. Yet, baseball waited until 2002 to ban steroids, and it wasn’t until 2004 that the sport began penalizing players who tested positive.
Congress was helpful, in the beginning, by raising public attention on the issue as a way to push owners and players to regulate themselves. But enough already. It’s hard to look at the steroids hearings on Capitol Hill and not be repulsed by what seems like an awful lot of self-serving grandstanding.
We’ve also learned in this day of bloated baseball statistics that the one that matters most in this game is the bottom line.
Until the sport takes a hit in the pocketbook, it seems unlikely that there will be meaningful change.
