The juice

Why does the NFL receive a blind eye to steroid use while baseball is vilified for it?

Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and the rest of baseball's alleged junkies are publicly ostracized for using performance enhancers. Yet these three have never failed a test for steroids, nor have they admitted use. McGwire all but admitted use by exercising his fifth amendment rights before Congress, Clemens was named in the infamous Mitchell Report, and all you need is to compare Bonds from his days in Pittsburgh to when he broke the home run record to have ample evidence for anabolic steroid use.

Time and time again in the NFL steroid use is forgotten, and even seems to be justified at times. A federal judge in Minnesota stepped in to prevent the suspensions of the Vikings' Kevin and Pat Williams (and several other NFL players) when they tested positive for a diuretic used as a masking agent for steroids. A judge defends the NFL players while a former US Senator names names in Major League Baseball. Perhaps someone needs to investigate the judge to see if he had money on the Vikings, knowing they'd be vulnerable to losing to the Lions without their two best players.

The reason the suspensions were halted is that the players allegedly did not know the substance they were taking contained the diuretic. This argument has been voiced to deaf ears by just about every baseball player who's been busted for steroids. Shawne Merriman was suspended four games for a failed steroids test in the NFL. After his return later that year, fans and pundits had made his drug use a distant memory and proclaimed him the NFL's best, most ferocious, most physical defensive player. His excuse was, again, that he didn't know there were steroids in a supplement he was taking. Why shouldn't he be held responsible for what he puts in his body like we expect baseball players to be? Doesn't he - just like Bonds - make his millions by his athletic accomplishments? It's foolish and irresponsible of them not to know exactly what they are putting into their bodies.

I don't buy professional athletes in the NFL or MLB telling me they didn't know what they were taking, and it's insulting if they expect me to believe them or be sympathetic. They know they'll be tested and that they are under a microscope. However, guilt or innocence for Williams et al is yet to be determined. The judge claims that the substances taken did not list all of the ingredients. But why else are these guys taking a diuretic - are the Williams' trying to lose weight?

While both the NFL and MLB have taken huge steps toward cleaning up their sports, the NFL needs to sack up and show some accountability. Shawne Merriman's secret is in the needle. Just have a look at him now, all juiced up, versus years ago before he went Jose Canseco.