The top story in the sports world on July 31, 2009 was that Red Sox slugger David Ortiz tested positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs … in 2003!  Such a disclosure begs the question:  what was the second most significant sports “news” story of the day?

Following similar revelations regarding baseball superstars Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettit, Alex Rodriguez, and Manny Ramirez to name a few, the news of Ortiz’s positive test results comes as no real surprise.  To all but the most naïve of onlookers, it has become apparent that the use of steroids, human growth hormone, and other performance enhancers has been rampant in Major League Baseball for more than a decade … and not only by the sport’s highest profile players!

For those of us who grew up regarding baseball as our National Pastime, who romanticized the game and its participants, it is time to face the stark realization that Major League Baseball, as it has been constituted for quite some time now, is neither game nor sport – but business.  And in business, the participants will seek to gain an edge over their competitors by whatever means possible, regardless of its ethicality.

That some of the sport’s most accomplished, highly compensated players chose to seek a pharmacological performance edge demonstrates that whatever our vocation and level of competency, we are all basically insecure in our own abilities.  Rationalizing, as I’m sure many of them did, that “everyone was doing it” and they “needed to keep pace,” they have permanently tarnished the sport that brought them fame, glory, and wealth.

As a fan, I can never again, as I did in my youth, believe in the integrity of the sport or the purity of athletic competition.  I will not regard with reverence Major League Baseball’s “hallowed” career records, nor see its greatest athletes as anything more nor less than entertainers in “pinstripes.”  I will, however, always long for the day when baseball was just a game.