The Dust from the Clemens Scandal

The Roger Clemens scandal was supposed to change everything in baseball. It seems to have done very little, aside from wreck the legacy of one of baseball's most prolific and impressive pitchers. The Major League is testing its players more aggressively, but even admitted steroid using players like Jason Giambi have managed to reform their image before their fans and get back into baseball as respected members of the community. It's likely that Clemens will not be able to do that because of the public perception that he has lost his integrity by lying before the public about his steroid use.

It's undeniable that the use of steroids has extended the careers of aging players like Clemens in many different instances. In just about every case of steroid use by an older player, they see an almost instantaneous boost in their statistics, even during a time in their career that you might otherwise expect that they would enter a decline. This has made the current era of baseball one of the most record-breaking. In the bygone era, players didn't have access to performance enhancing drugs that would give them a new lease on youth - they just had their own crumbling bodies to work with.

The scandal has also set a greater precedent for Congressional meddling in sports. As steroid usage in baseball has likely decreased after all of the attention, Congress might claim a sort of victory for their efforts. It's difficult to say whether it was that or just the public outcry over steroids that has pushed the Major League to take the issue more seriously.