Since the baseball's steroid scandal "broke" in late 2003, the argument has been and continues to be that steroids--and steroids alone--are to account for the rise in home runs and the shattering of records. If we are to believe the myriad baseball writers, critics, fans and Joe pundits, there can be no other explanation form it other than steroids. Not raw physical skill, not residual factors, not even being touched by the hand of the baseball Gods for a season can explain the monstrous years of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Brady Anderson, Brett Boone and, of course, the Dr. Evil of baseball himself, Barry Bonds. No, it's all thanks to the wonder drugs that are steroids.

But that is a myth because neither life or baseball are that simple.

There's not a lot to support the opposition to steroid use, or a player's use of it for that matter. There are a host of reasons that explain the increase in home runs and enough statistical baseball evidence to suggest that steroids do very little, if anything, to help a player. Am I advocating it's use for baseball? Absolutely not. Do I think it's cheating? Not any more so than some other factors (more in a minute). Just what role have steroids really played? Not as much as you think or are lead to believe. And do I think this controversy is so overblown and over dramatized that all relevance, context and facts have been bizarrely rendered meaningless or patently ignored? And do I think players and their careers are being unnecessarily and wrongly vilified, destroyed and demonized by sportswriters and fans with little or no proof? You bet I do, on both accounts.

First, is the use of steroids "cheating"? In sports, cheating is to receive an unfair advantage over an opponent. If we are to build a valid and fair statistical foundation for baseball stats--that is, accounting for stats across the ages--we make a large assumption that baseball has not changed over the last 110-plus years. But of course the game of baseball--for better or worse, depending on your point of view--has changed. There is also the perception, I think a false one, that baseball stats are somehow sacred, constant and fair through the ages. Sacred, perhaps. Constant and fair, decidedly no and a myth. The lines of what defines baseball greatness are constantly shifting and moving higher.

Do players have an unfair advantage over players from 50, 40, 30, 20 or even 10 years ago? No question about it. Are steroids one of those factors? Yes, possibly. Are they the only advantage? No way.

Consider the following "performance-enhancers" over the last 20-25 years: video-taping and reviewing at bats and pitches in real time; more technological and dense wood composites in bats; advances in physical training; advances medical techniques that allow players to recover from devastating injuries (taking a ligament from a cadaver and replacing a pitcher's ligament, aka: Tommy John surgery; reattaching hamstrings to done, etc.); physical rehabilitation techniques and programs; performance-enhancing surgeries (Lasik eye surgery); and advances in nutrition and vitamin therapy. None of which were around 20, even 30 years ago and, in some cases like Lasik eye surgery, just barely over 10 years ago.

It would be disingenuous not to call these performance enhancers, but it would unfair to call them cheating. Or would it? After all, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, even players in the early 1990s didn't have access to these sorts of medical advances; thus "modern" players have a unfair advantage over players from the past. Just imagine for a minute if doctors had the knowledge and technology to replace the frayed knee ligaments of Mickey Mantle. Tony Gwynn, arguably the best hitter of the last 30 years, utilized videotape to review and dissect his at-bats just after games. Imagine if Ty Cobb had that ability. What if Harmon Killebrew or Mike Schmidt were able to use a stronger, more dense composite maple wood bat like Bonds uses instead of weaker, less dense ash composites, how many more homers would they have hit? How many more games would Sandy Koufax have won? Robin Roberts? Today's players do indeed have an unfair advantage over their opponents from the past. Is it cheating? No, but all these things contribute to an undeniable statistical imbalance over the ages of baseball.

But there are other factors that are equally important, too.

We must account for the considerably smaller ballparks that have cropped in just the last 16 years--no less than 21!--almost all of which feature significantly reduced power alleys and foul lines than their predecessors. Where once the right-field foul line at Candlestick was 335', at AT&T it is now 309', a huge, easily measurable difference maker in home runs.

On top of that, league expansion--3 new teams since 1990--has helped dilute baseball's talent pool--at both the major and minor league levels. The depth of talent simply isn't there. Guys who were once no better than Triple A talent are now in the major league team's starting rotation or lineups.

Team earned-run averages have been also shooting through the roof for the past 25-30 years--it's a rarity if a team posts a team ERA under 4.00 these days. Because of steroids? No, they were doing that long before this scandal ever began. Videotaping pitchers, scouting reports on pitchers and their tendencies, lower pitching mounds, a reduced strike zone which helps hitters be more selective and on and on have all helped contribute to higher ERAs

Given just these obvious and simple examples, do you really still believe that steroids are the still the main and predominant culprit? I know, I know, you're not satisfied.

Mr. Bonds' stats, please step forward.

The common allegation against Bonds is that he has been a steroid user since 1999, and that this is the cause for his alleged surge in home runs. On the surface, and prior to his record-breaking 73-home run 2001 season, Bonds never hit more than 50 homers (49, to be exact). It was a completely unexpected event. Something foul must be in play, right? Wrong. In 1994 and 1999, when Bonds played in the hitter-unfriendly, wind-tunnel that was Candlestick Park, he hit 37 and 34 homers in 112 and 102 games, respectively. Thanks to injury, he didn't play a full 162-game season in either season. Yet, if you project his home runs numbers out over the average number of games Bonds played, he easily shatters hitting 50-plus homers. Playing a 143 games (missing 20) in 2000--coincidentally the opening of then PacBell Park and its 309-foot right field line--Bonds hit 49 homers, while walking 117 times in 480 at bats. Further, Bonds' walk totals, slugging percentages and on-base plus slugging percentages had all been increasing with only slight fluctuations up and down for nearly 8 years prior to his-record breaking 2001 season--all of which suggests that Bonds was becoming a more patient, selective and dangerous hitter. And patience is not a side effect of continued steroid use; irritability, lack of concentration and restlessness are. None of which are even remotely conducive to being a good hitter and putting up the type of numbers Bonds has been doing.

But that still won't cut it for some folks. OK.

The BALCO scandal broke at the end of the 2003 season when Bonds posted .341-45-90 in 130 games, walking 148 times in just 390 official at bats and playing in 130 games ; his projection home run total in late 50s. Enter 2004. Mired in the BALCO controversy, the media spotlight on Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield is beyond intense for many months prior to the start of the season. Bonds' 2004 year? Eerily similar to 2003, only more impressive: .362-45-101, walking a ridiculous 238 times (nearly 100 more than 2003!) in just 373 at bats, while playing in 147 games (just 17 more). Does anyone think for a second the man would continue using in the midst of huge controversy? If you do, you're not living on this planet.

Lastly, 2005. Steroid testing is in full-swing. Playing in just 14 games due to injury, Bonds posts .286-5-10, which--surpirse, surprise--projects out to be (roughly) .310-53-100. The average slips, the homers don't.

Are these numbers just the residual affects of steroid use? From a medical and physical standpoint, that's highly doubtful. Or is it just because like the rest of us, he's getting older?

So now at age 42, after missing a year due to injury, in the midst of a media maelstrom while chasing Babe Ruth, Bonds is under pressure to put up similar numbers to the past 4 years. Is it possible? Only Bonds knows and only time will tell. If he does not--let's say, he hits .304-29-89--is it because he's (allegedly) not taking steroids, or because he's 42 years old, playing on ravaged knees and has little line-up protection? That's yours to say. Personally, for any 42-year old, those would be damn good numbers. For a guy under the gun like Bonds is? They would be just freaking incredible. And I wouldn't put it past him to put up numbers like this.

Not long ago, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said, "The goal (of the steroid investigation) is to determine facts, not engage in supposition, speculation, rumor or innuendo." I would add: Nor should it be engaged in anecdotal evidence ("he's got acne, he must be 'roids!") or emotional hyperbole ("The players have cheated us all!"). Problem is, that's what nearly everyone has been actively doing for the past 3 years, and speculating about since McGwire's magical 1998 season. And none of it is fair, right or just.

The other day a friend of mind said that steroid use is a moral issue. Fair enough, yes it is a moral issue, but since when did we start judging players based on moral issues? On that line of thinking just how "moral" is it to pay a guy $25mil a year to play a game and expect him not to be on the field? How "moral" are we as fans who continue to pay to see games, despite our righteous indignation that we'll never again attend a ballgame after another strike but come back in record droves when McGwire and Sosa start popping balls out of the park? Whose morality are we talking about here? The players or ourselves as fans? And if we're going to start judging players on morality then you better start kicking these guys out of the Hall of Fame or handing out asterisks to Ty Cobb (a patent racist and a player sharpened his spikes to cut and gash the opponent), Babe Ruth (a bloated, womanizing alcoholic), Mickey Mantle (alcoholic), Wade Boggs (philanderer), Gaylord Perry (a known and admitted spitballer), Juan Marichal (clubbed a man in the head with a bat during a game), Mel Ott (a nasty, cantankerous SOB) and on and on. Clearly, basing one's judgment on the issue of morality is put one's argument on an very unstable pedestal.

In the end, I believe it's intellectually lazy and dishonest to say that steroids are the lone and sole cause for--or even the largest cause of-- the rise in home runs. To an incredibly large degree, there's simply little to support such a viewpoint; there are too many known (and unknown) factors that come into play. Yet we will continue to hear about this until Bonds retires or until time just heals whatever perceived wound that some feel has been been inflicted upon them. In the meantime, I'm going to try and enjoy Barry's run at the Babe. And come June 16-18 at Safeco Field when I go to watch Bonds play, I think I might just be one of the few 47,000 in attendance who see right through the absurdity and ridiculousness of this scandal.