Here we are, once again finding ourselves in the midst of spring training. In about a month the 2005 Major League Baseball season will commence and when it finally does many questions will be answered.

What seems to be the biggest issue of the off-season and of spring training currently is the steroid fiasco that has been plaguing Major League Baseball over the past 10-plus years.

With the release of José Canseco’s autobiography, in which he cited many big names, including Mark McGwire and Pudge Rodriguez, as using steroids, more and more questions are being raised about Major League Baseball’s credibility.

Although no players have admitted to the outright use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, many have not denied it. In a recent press conference, New York Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi apologized for “mistakes in my past” but never specifically mentioned what these mistakes were.

Barry Bonds, possibly the player under the most suspicion of steroid use, completely denies any use of steroids throughout his career. Furthermore, Bonds refuses to believe that steroids can “help a player hit a ball with a bat.”

Along with the players, Major League Baseball itself, as well as Commissioner Bud Selig, have come under public attack. Many reports, including one from an FBI agent, accuse Selig, as well as other MLB officials, or being aware of possible steroid use but not taking action against it.

Critics accuse MLB officials, as well as Selig, of turning a blind eye to the steroid problem because of the popularity jolt that baseball received during the memorable 1998 season in which Sammy Sosa and the aforementioned McGwire chased, and both eventually overcame, Roger Marris’s single season home run record of 61. Sosa and McGwire hit 66 and 70 long shots, respectively. Sosa went on to be the only player in baseball history with three 60 plus home run seasons.

With the steroid question up for debate, baseball purists are calling for asterisks next to, if not outright deletion or, these “juiced” records in the record books. Major League Baseball has yet to decide what to do about these records. Commissioner Bud Selig and the players union have, however, instituted a new steroid policy that includes random drug tests of all players, something that has never been done in baseball before.

With all these questions arising about baseball’s credibility, many fans have been left with a deflated, cheated feeling. Regardless of what Major League Baseball officials do now, the damage has been done, but let’s not forget all the good things baseball has brought us over the last decade.

The past two seasons have yielded arguably two of the best and most memorable postseasons of all time. What baseball fan will ever forget the 2003 LCS match-ups between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in the American League and the Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins in the National league, both ending in dramatic game sevens? Who will ever forget, baseball fan or not, Boston’s backdoor sweep of the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, which lead to their first world series in 86 years?

Steroids or no steroids, asterisks or no asterisks, baseball will provide even more memories this season. Let’s not let the few who may have cheated their way into the record books hinder us from enjoying one of the great American inventions. Baseball season is indeed upon us.