Baseball, we have a problem!

Disclaimer: I am a fan of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and since they play the San Francisco Giants as a division rival, my views and opinions of the Giants are not necassarily fair and objective. What I am meaning to say is that I am enjoying all this hoopla surrounding Barry Bonds and drug-use in the sport of baseball.

Those of you who follow American sports closely, probably know by now all the issues relating to BALCO (the Bay Area Labs Cooperative or some such moniker) and its supplying performance enhancing drugs to various US athletes. Primarily suspected are track and field athletes and baseball players. Anyway the point of this all is that Barry Bonds claims that he used substances provided to him by his trainer and that he did not know they were steroids. Yeah right!

For those not in the know, Barry Bonds, one of the better baseball players to play the game, and a graduate of my school ASU, went from being a spindly (in comparison to his bulk now) frame when he debuted in the Major Leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates to a rather bulky/hulky frame. Conventional wisdom, and the talking heads on all sports shows that have dedicated themselves to yapping away at nothing (ESPN and FSN, take note!) would have you believe that it was all because of Bonds dedication to his body and work ethic, especially his strenous off-season regimen. And that may be the case too. But can that explain this sudden spurt in his body after the age of 35? Can this explain how a guy who never hit more than 45 home runs a season suddenly exploded for 73 in 2001?

US law has it that anyone is innocent until proven guilty. And it is nigh, but a good value to adhere to. But circumstantial evidence, emanating from the time of Ken Caminiti admitting to steroid use, to the sudden increase in the body mass of these superstars, which amazingly enough, coincided with their increased power production, has left many with questions in their minds - are Bonds achievements that of a supremely gifted super-star athlete? Or is it a Ben Johnson-esque flash in the pan fueled by steroids?

I will admit, we are living in an era when there are a bunch of super-star athletes around. World-wide, almost all major sports - team and individual - are seeing newer blood and talent, challenging the way we conventionally thought about the games.

We have 40-plus year old pitchers still pitching in the Major League Baseball like they were in their 20s and 30s.

We have a 35-year old quarterback leading a history-laden franchise of the National Football League (American Football) and still celebrating every score like a 5 year old kid on a playground, and this after having set some amazing records of durability and endurance.

We have bowlers who have set and reset records for maximum scalps in a career in International Cricket, and we have teams setting and erasing and re-establishing records for runs scored and chased to win Limited-Overs International matches.

We have tennis-artiste par excellence Martina Navratilova, at age 47, still competing in Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

So maybe it is just our lucky timing that we are getting to see tremendous offensive output in baseball. But it is still disturbing how callous the players union and the league have been treating the premise of drug-use and abuse in the sport. The National Football League has become pretty good at enforcing the substance-abuse issue and as a result, been able to establish itself as a league that is currently enjoying tremendous popularity amongst the American masses.

Hopefully, the league and the players union realize the hurt being put on what is a tremendous product. Baseball as a game, is a delight. No time constraints whatsoever, and hence the exquisite game generates pressure the unusual way - outs. Hopefully, this storm will come to a pass too, and Major League Baseball would be back up with a straight-face and claim that its atheletes do not use performance-enhancing drugs.

In the meanwhile though, I am going to sit back and enjoy the obvious discomfiture that these allegations must be causing to the fans of the San Francisco Giants. Hey, payback is often sweet you know! You should've known better than to put down the Diamondbacks franchise during our heydays from 1999 through 2002. Well, enjoy your currently rotten luck.