The truth about steroids. (The Closer).

Baseball is a reflection of society. A story about steroid use in baseball came out last week. Fifteen years ago, there were reports of steroids in football. Every Olympics has some kind of drug scandal. In sports, there are people who will do what they need to do to perform.

You want your heroes to play forever, put up numbers and win games, and then when something happens like this, you cry foul. The media make these guys out to be supermen, then crush them when they think there is some foul play going on.

I'm not here to justify the use of steroids. Steroids, in fact, is not the right term. Performance enhancers is better. No one sits in the clubhouses today and shoots something into their bodies with a needle. But there are a lot of guys who have found out there are things that can help them become stronger and give them the ability to recover better than once was thought.

Baseball has taken on a big change in the past six to 10 years. Every team has a full-time strength and conditioning coach. There are unreal weight rooms in every ballpark except Minnesota. Guys work year-round to stay in shape. There are more blenders than hairdryers in clubhouses. All kinds of companies send us packs and packs of powder drinks that are filled with things to help your body recover. Next to the Reese's I eat, there are protein bars to supplement my diet. As far as diet goes, the clubhouse now has healthy offerings. Teams figure if they're going to pay guys a lot of money, they need to do the best they can to get the most out of every player on the team.

But here is the problem: Steroids are in ...