What Am I Supposed To Tell My Kids, Mr. Howard Bryant?

Howard Bryant: I hate you. I hate your earring in your ESPN profile picture, and I hate your opinions.

Please stop talking about steroids. No one cares except for you, as your brain can only muster false outrage stories instead of intriguing ideas.

Keep that in mind as you consider the New York Times report that Sammy Sosa is one of the 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in baseball's 2003 survey testing because the news should not be met with an indifferent yawn, as if Sosa is just another in a long line of Hall of Fame-caliber talent biting the dust: Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and now Sosa, all in the first half of the 2009 season alone. Instead, this news should be greeted with the kind of outrage reserved for the worst breaches of trust because you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, have been taken for a very special kind of ride.

Yeah, I did fucking yawn at the news, HB. Why? Because who cares? If you actually put some thought into it instead of standing on a pulpit and condemning these sluggers as frauds, you would realize that in the '90s we also had relievers and starters throwing 95 when they threw 90 the year before. Two wrongs don't make a right, but two wrongs definitely cancel each other out in this equation.

It was a different era. It was an unnatural era, and a chemically enhanced, cheating one, but I don't give a shit.

The only reason why people care is because of the numbers. Sixty one. Sixty five. Sixty six. Seventy. I don't remember any of that anymore, except when ESPN forces down montages of the homer binges. I remember the '97 Marlins-Indians World Series. I remember Luis Gonzalez and his 'roided* up forearms fisting one to center. Would a pre-steroid Gonzalez* be able to muscle it to center? Probably not. Nor do I care. It was a great ending to a great series in a sad year for baseball and the country.

And now all I care about is curing Daisuke's woes, seeing if Clay Buchholz will be the stud I think he is, and whether or not my fantasy team can continue to ride Tulowitzki's hot streak.

Let me enjoy this era, the late '00s. Keep your didactic, self-serving columns to yourself or share them amongst your sportswriter brethren and scream about Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds together in your own time.