Willful Ignorance

By John McMullen

According to the self-righteous -- the Major League Baseball steroid scandal is the biggest story in sports.

And things heated up this week when a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Government investigators are now entitled to the names and urine samples of about 100 big league players who tested positive for illegal drug use in 2003.

The court's ruling is expected to fuel the Feds' witch-hunt against Barry Bonds, especially if his name is among those who tested positive.

The slugger has been the target of a perjury investigation since he testified before a grand jury that he didn't knowingly ingest illegal drugs. Meanwhile, Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, is currently in prison for refusing to testify in the perjury probe.

Understand you will not be getting any spin in this column -- Frankly, Bonds is an obvious abuser of performance enhancers, as was Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. That said, you may be asking why I think the investigation into Bonds' "alleged" wrongdoing is a witch-hunt.

It's simple -- no one cares that Bonds broke the law. They care that he is about to break the most storied record in American sports.

You will see no uproar to convict Rafael Palmeiro of perjury and few can even muster a yawn over the Jason Grimsleys of the world.

Yet, the Philadelphia Daily News' Bill Conlin recently opined "that the use of of performance-enhancing, illegal, anabolic steroids and human growth hormones should have dwarfed the 1919 Black Sox Scandal both in scope and impact."

Make no mistake, Conlin is dead on -- problem is, his words are hollow and lack credibility. It he and his ilk truly believed what they are now writing, then why did they ignore it for so long?

I'd like to believe I'm smarter than the grumpy one and hundreds of other print reporters since I first tackled the steroid issue in the early '90s. And heck, I believe I am but that's just the egoism talking. It's certainly not because I recognized the scope of this problem before most.

You see, I am well aware that Conlin and his print doppelgangers knew that hundreds of baseball players were "cheaters" long before they let you in on it.

They ignored it because they didn't care -- it was willful ignorance.

You see, at their core, most media members are just like you -- fans. And they love the 500-foot bombs as much as any season ticket holder.

So forgive me if I yawn while these same frauds now feign outrage in hopes of capturing acclaim.

They cheated you -- just like Barry Bonds.

-You can read John McMullen every Saturday at The Phanatic. He can be reached at jmcmullen1@comcast.net