Baseball fans have reacted hysterically to Jason Giambi’s admission of steroid use. Steroids permeated the American weightlifting scene in the 1960’s, about 40 years before we hear the complete naiveté about steroid use expressed by many.

Fans and writers are naive to think that Jason Giambi "cheated"…. We will never know how many ballplayers are using steroids, but it has to be plenty. The stakes are just too high. Case in point: local bodybuilders, competing for the title "Mister Queens", are avid steroid users. The title awards the winner a lovely trophy, a little less than the $84.5 million Jason Giambi makes. He didn’t cheat. Jason Giambi had no unfair advantage over his peers. How can you play at that level without taking steroids?

Major League Baseball must love steroid use; steroids saved baseball. McGuire and Sosa made us forget about the strike season the year before. We want to see freaks! Look at the covers of the Muscle Magazines these days. Two hundred and sixty-pound monsters with one percent body fat and 32-inch waistlines. It is just not possible to get there naturally. Yet the magazine editors abhor steroid use and endorse "natural" training techniques; just like MLB, but we know the fans want to gawk at the 25-inch biceps and the 500-foot home runs.

It would be great if a big expose came out of this, and we found out who all the steroid users are. Mark McGuire is built like a world champion weightlifter. He sure left town fast. In one year, Lenny Dykstra went from a hustling, scrappy player to a hulking, thickly muscled player, amid abounding rumors. Gary Sheffield mentioned Roger Clemens. Governor Schwarzenegger admitted to "experimenting" with steroids in the sixties. He was a pioneer who ushered in the steroid age. His partner Franco Columbo from "Pumping Iron" is pictured in a latter day comeback to win Mister Olympia with protruding growths on his nipples, a side effect of reckless steroid use, removable through surgery.

A problem with steroid use is that when you go off, you lose everything, and it blows your mind. Lyle Alzado claims to have been on steroids constantly, without any break in the cycle. Usually athletes or weightlifters go on a cycle before big competitions, but baseball is a 6-month season, not counting the pre-season or the post-season. This would be a long time to go while using steroids. Who knows how the players use them? Maybe Balco?

"Steroid rage", aka "roid rage", was recently used in the courtroom as a line of defense for a convicted murderer. Some of the behaviors exhibited in the big leagues may be steroid related. Wasn’t that berserk when Roger Clemens threw a bat at Rod Piazza?

It is easy to tell if a ballplayer uses steroids. If the athlete looks "unreal" or accomplishes something that is "unreal", then it isn’t real. Barry Bonds insults us with his admission of using a cream. Most likely he was on a complicated and carefully planned regimen of items, and he knew. Your sexual mechanism either doesn’t work or doesn’t stop working. Today these guys and gals look like weightlifters and bodybuilders. If it sounds like I’m making accusations… I am! I am saying that these players with bodybuilder bodies are users. You’d have to be with someone 24 hours a day to know for sure. If you ever saw these athletes up close or were in the same room with them, you’d be shocked at the thickly muscled bodies these athletes have. It’s beyond credulity, it’s not believable, and it is unbelievable that fans and the New York Yankees find Jason Giambi’s confession so shocking.