New York Times - Nov. 3, 2009

Well, if there's one story that the media have certainly beaten to death in this decade, it is quite obviously the use of steriods and performance-enhancing drugs in major league baseball. The front page of today's NY Times does include a story on the world-wide scandal, but in a different light than all of the typical "so-and-so is using steriods, he's a cheater" articles. This article was about how Alex Rodriguez, third baseman for the New York Yankees, and Andy Pettite, pitcher for the Yankees, both took a different route than most others when they were accused of using steriods. Instead of choosing to do one of the two main things when accused: deny it or hide, they chose to admit their guilt and came clean almost as soon as the news began circulating. The article is about how that strategy really paid off for the two of them, because now they are in the limelight of the baseball stage: the two are playing in baseball's World Series which goes on as we speak. That's apparently the right strategy to take for anyone who is either looking to come clean or is accused of using the banned drugs; come clean fast and get it over with so you can get back to playing and prove that you don't need to use steroids to play well. That's what Pettite and Rodriguez did, and both are playing marvelously in New York this postseason, especially after that metaphorical monkey has been lifted off of their backs. The same cannot be said for Mark McGwire, however, who was jusr recently hired back into baseball after disappearing just months after his failure of a defense at the Congressional hearing years ago. Coming back into baseball for McGwire will only raise those questions all over again, along with new ones since he vanished from the scene. He's in for a whole new battle.