Like It or Not, Steroids Saved Baseball
Steroid-Infused Summer of '98 Re-Energized Game
By BEN WALKER
AP
Sports Commentary
So Barry Bonds will hobble toward the home run record, heading down a tarnished path toward a mark Major League Baseball and many fans prefer he never reach.
Free from indictment - for now - Bonds always will walk under a cloud of suspicion. He'll forever be the very symbol of the Steroid Era, a time when everything good about the game came under attack.
Which makes this hard to say: Steroids saved baseball.
Cal Ripken's streak helped. So did the family-friendly ballparks that sprung up. Add interleague play, the wild card, the rise of the Yankees and, in a curious way, the death of Mickey Mantle and how it made baby boomers nostalgic about their childhood.
All that played a part in baseball's renaissance, especially after the players' strike wiped out the 1994 World Series.
But when it came to making baseball popular again and turning it into a booming business, nothing did the job like home runs. Particularly 500-foot home runs.
2006-07-21
20:05:16
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