Steroids as "Cheating" is the WRONG focus

While I understand and support the need to get steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that were illegally obtained out of baseball, and I am glad they are now against the rules, I have a quibble, and it's a big one. 


How do you consider it cheating when there were no rules in place at the time? If Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, et. al., were using steroids in the late-90s, and setting aside the fact they were illegal, how is it CHEATING when it's not against the RULES??? Everyone who discusses this issue comes off all sanctimonious and judgmental about the "cheaters" who used 'roids, but they all seem to forget that there was not a single rule in place that prohibited steroid use in the Major Leagues until 2004-ish. NONE. If you want to get all haughty-taughty about the bad men who used steroids, for crying out loud talk about the REAL laws they broke, not the bull-snaps about wrecking the "Spirit of the Game" or the "Sanctity of Baseball." Hell, if you sports writers had reached down and grabbed yours then wrote about the problem BACK THEN, it could have been cleared from our plates almost twenty years ago.

The bottom line for me is this: They were illegal. That should be the focus, as well as the potential long-term harm that can result from use. Stop acting like it was an inherent harm to the game and making that the more important issue. It isn't, and it never was.