by Jimmy Flatbush

Created on: June 01, 2010   Last Updated: June 02, 2010

2010 has become the year of the pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). Roy Halladay recently recorded the young season’s second perfect game, a feat last accomplished during the 1880 season.

Ubaldo Jimenez’s earned run average (ERA) is currently under 1.00, which gives the Colorado Rockies ace a legitimate chance of breaking Bob Gibson’s 1968 ERA record of 1.12.

As the MLB season reaches the one-third mark, not only is home run production dramatically lower than in years past, but overall run production is at a level not seen since before the steroids era.

The return to baseball normalcy has swept the steroids controversy under the media’s radar. Once the nightly lead topic on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) only enter a play-by-play telecast whenever a camera catches Mark McGwire strolling through the St. Louis Cardinals’ dugout.

Has the steroids controversy in baseball finally died? If a recent national baseball telecast is an indication, then the answer to the question is a resounding no.

One of the announcers brought up an interesting point during a discussion about the dramatic decrease in run production. He mused aloud whether the decrease was directly the result of players “getting off the juice.”

The announcer obviously did not read the talking points memo distributed before the game, because the silence that followed his musing spoke volumes about whether the steroids controversy has died.

The announcer’s legitimate point demonstrates the steroids controversy will not only remain alive this year, but will continue to be a hot topic for years to come.

For years, the steroids controversy was predicated on mere speculation. Then, George Mitchell and his team of investigators spent the better part of three years uncovering rampant steroid abuse in MLB.

Commissioner Bud Selig declared the Mitchell Report to be the final authority on twenty years of wanton player cheating and evasion.

Ownership tried to sweep the Mitchell Report findings out of the nation’s conscience, but incessant hounding from the media-especially online bloggers-kept the steroids controversy from disappearing into a historical footnote.

The United States Congress did its part in keeping the steroids controversy alive by hosting a number of horse and pony shows on Capitol Hill. The charade did little to eradicate steroid abuse in baseball, mostly because the players who testified under oath did so

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