Were Steroids Good For Baseball?

The former Major League Baseball pitcher John Rocker attracts controversy like a moth to a flame.

While pitching for the Braves in 1999, Rocker shot off his mouth about the rival New York Mets and the inhabitants of New York City in an interview with Sports Illustrated in which Rocker managed to offend just about every possible group.

Recently Rocker has made headlines again with the statement that baseball was better with steroids. According to Rocker, the home run race of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire in 1998 provided entertainment for fans. Rocker, who has admitted using PEDS told CBS Sports Radio in Cleveland:

At the end of the day when people are paying their $80, $120 whatever it may be, to buy their ticket and come watch that game, it’s almost like the circus is in town. They are paid to be entertained. They wanna see some clown throw a fastball 101 mph and some other guy hit it 500 feet. That’s entertainment. You’re paying to be entertained.

Whatever you think of Rocker and his comments, he is not in bad company when it comes to his assertion that taking steroids was simply keeping up with the Joneses. The philosopher Alva Noe has also questioned whether a player using steroids should be considered cheating when “a whole generation of the best and most promising athletes has been doing it.” In an article for Salon, Noe argued that steroids is a natural “extension of our technological lives.”

What do you think?