The baseball world exploded a few weeks ago with the announcement that New York Yankees first baseman, Jason Giambi, admitted he used steroids during the previous few seasons.

It also came out that Barry Bonds confessed he used steroids without realizing it.

I consider myself a traditionalist and I believe most true baseball fans are traditionalists at heart.

The rules of baseball are the same as they were a century before. It still is 60 feet, 6 inches from the pitcher?s mound to home plate. It is still 90 feet between bases and there are still three outs every half inning.

I know many things have changed (different size ballparks, the designated hitter, etc.), but the basics of baseball haven?t changed.

I say all this because it made me think if I care about high profile players using performance enhancing drugs to make them stronger.

There is an argument baseball fans have about the most exciting play in baseball. Is it a triple, an inside the park home run, a triple play, or an outfielder making a sensational diving catch?

In my mind a home run is still the most exciting play. I still oooh and ahhh whenever I see a 450 foot home run.

I still get chills when someone on my favorite team hit?s a key home run in a big situation.

When I go to work and talk about baseball, the conversation usually involves home runs of sort.

Maybe that says something about me as a fan. Maybe that says something as a person.

One of the travesties of the steroids issue in baseball is it taints history and I think it taints some of the greatest home run hitters of all time.

If Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron?s mark 755 home runs, than Aaron?s career achievement isn?t as special as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Roger Maris? 61 home runs in the 1961 season fails in comparison to Bonds? 73, Mark McGwire?s 70 and Sammy Sosa?s 66, all of which were recorded since 1998.

Fans don?t view Roger Maris as an icon as they did several years ago.

Maris was known as having the sexiest record in all of sport for 37 seasons, but that is now diminished and barely remembered by most fans.

The use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs in baseball takes individualism to a new height.

Any player who takes these drugs makes a decision that he is more important than his team is.

In a given season, the teams that often times hit the most home runs don?t win the most games.

Baseball is still won because of pitching and defense. Just ask the Atlanta Braves who have won 13 consecutive divisions with pitching.

The only thing hitting a lot of home runs does for a player is to help them make money.

Granted money is a strong motivational tool, but today in sports it is often more important than winning, or playing the right way.

For the first time, Commissioner Bud Selig has leverage in a major issue concerning baseball, and union leaders Donald Fehr and Gene Orza simply don?t have a leg to stand on. I just hope

Selig and the owners now have leverage to create a legitimate drug testing system and one with severe punishments.

They were aided in this when Senator John McCain recently stated that Congress would get involved if a more stringent system wasn?t put in place by the first of the year.

The new system simply has to have punishments for it. If a player is suspended for 5 or 10 games for violating the new system, than what is the point of testing for steroids?

I was talking to someone at work recently about this issue, and he didn?t seem to understand why someone would want to take steroids and endanger their health.

I asked him if he had a chance to live out his dream and make a seven figure a year salary, but would lose 10 years off of his life would he do it?

He said he wouldn?t very quickly, but I can?t say that myself.

If I could wake up tomorrow and be given the chance to have a nationally acclaimed book, millions of people knowing who I was, and a million dollars in my bank account, I?m not sure if it wouldn?t be worth a few health problems down the road.

Maybe me and Barry Bonds are alike in some ways.

Maybe I?m a weak human being. Maybe I just want to achieve my dream more than anything else in the world.