A-Fraud? Ster-Rod?

Saturday morning Sports Illustrated broke some (really not very) shocking news:

Before Yankees third baseman and Barry Bonds heir apparent Alex Rodriquez did Madonna, he did steroids.

*This is not A-Rod but clearly he was into this kind of thing.

In fact, according to the story he did at least two of them, testing positive in 2003 for both testosterone and primobolan.

News of the positive test taints the MVP award he won that season, and threatens to damage the legacy of the guy many people hoped would knock (accused) steroid user Barry Bonds from atop the all-time home run list.

The scandal only promises to widen and deepen as more facts about the test are revealed.

...

Yawn.

...

Seriously, am I supposed to care that A-Rod and 103 other guys -- probably more when you include the guys who beat the test -- were flagged as steroid users during an era when MLB didn't punish drug use? Given the laxity of MLB's drug policy back then I'm surprised more guys didn't test positive.

Four years ago Jose Canseco's first book outed Mark McGwire's steroid use, just a few weeks before Big Mac himself pleaded the fifth before congress rather than confess that a steady diet of fastballs and andro wasn't all that contributed to his astronomical home run totals.

A year later Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams let us in on another poorly-kept secret:

Barry Bonds had a little chemical help in transforming from this





to this.




Then last year came the Mitchell Report, which confirmed our steroid suspicions about Roger Clemens 88 other less accomplished MLBers.

So how many more times are we supposed to act surprised, insulted and disillusioned when we learn some baseball star took steroids during an era when MLB took no concrete steps to prevent doping?

Look, we live in uncertain times. None of us knows how much when the price of gas will skyrocket for good, or whether the local newspaper has enough cash to publish tomorrow's edition, or how many hours before Michael Phelps embarrasses himself in public again.

But of these three things, I'm certain.

Republicans have artificial hearts.

Porn stars have fake boobs.

And if you don't deter athletes with severe punishment -- fines, suspensions, the singing Obama Brats -- for doping, then some of them dope.

Have any of you looked at a track and field record book?

Notice how most the world records in the throwing events and women's sprints are from the 1980s, when athletes weren't tested for drugs outside major competitions. They could take whatever they wanted while training (and plenty of them did) knowing they only needed to pee clean a few times a year. And honestly, if you know months in advance the doping control guys will be there, it's not longer a drug test -- it's an I.Q. test. Either way, aside from major meets athletes had little to fear.

And in the late 1990s and early 2000s, neither did players in Major League Baseball.

I'm not saying everybody playing between 1998 and 2004 was dirty. I'm not even saying most players were. I'm just saying that after Game of Shadows, the Mitchell Report, and this latest news about A-Rod, we shouldn't have to act like any new steroid revelations shock or offend us.

I'm finished acting surprised to learn about any baseball star's past doping, and if MLB didn't care enough about steroids to enforce its own ban, then I refuse to feel bad for MLB as old drug tests expose steroid era stars as a generation of cheaters.