So Much For That Fresh Start!

We're actually pretty big fans of Sports Ilustrated's Tom Verducci — who never gets enough credit (or blame, depending on your perspective) for being out front of this whole steroid story from the get-go — but we feel maybe he's gotten a bit too caught up in it all. He's become such an anti-steroid activist that he appears to be losing his head a bit. Witness:

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 3 April 2006

"We stand now on the cusp of not just another season but of another era, as vulnerable as lovers on the rebound. ... A glowering Barry Bonds, closing in on Babe Ruth while under review of the commissioner's office for alleged steroid use, is our daily reminder — like the ex who works a few cubicles away — of the betrayal. And you know what? It doesn't hurt one bit. We are so over it. In fact, now we're falling hard for a game that is cleaner, more nuanced and more competitive than it has been in a generation. It's a young man's game, belonging to new stars who, certified by the sport's tougher drug policy, have replaced their juiced-up, broken-down elders who aged so ungracefully. It is baseball as it ought to be. A fresh start."

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 15 May 2006

"It will be a long time, if ever, before the kind of happy delusion that was 1998 can take us on a blissful, unquestioning joyride again. We know and suspect too much now. ... [B]aseball can't be the same anymore, not when Bonds can hit his 715th home run and it superiority to 714 lacks absolute clarity. No wonder so many people are booing."

Well, it has been a month.

15 May 2006, Sports Illustrated [SI.com]