By Matt Aveni

With every team in the major leagues reporting to spring training, the top stories are not about who will win the World Series this year or if the Angels’ huge offseason moves will bring the title back to LA. The biggest conversation around the MLB is performance enhancing drugs.

We no longer can focus on the game we all grew up loving, but just who is cheating and who is not. Ryan Braun has been linked again to PED’s.  A more recent report has come out that he owes Anthony Bosch (well known supplier of PED’s) money for the performance enhancing drugs he received from him. Braun was not the only name on the list that was reported by yahoo.com. CY Young contender, Gio Gonzalez was mentioned along with Alex Rodriguez, Francisco Cervelli and Melky Cabrera.

I am tired of players saying that they haven’t and will never take steroids.  Rafael Palmiero lied to all of our faces.  Barry Bonds claims he did not know a steroidal cream he was taking had steroids in it. Sammy Sosa apparently didn’t even know English when he was asked about his use of steroids.  It kills me a little inside knowing that one of the biggest juicers and ignorant players of all time, Jose Conseco, is the only player to “completely” tell the truth about PED’s in baseball.

With that being said, the last few years steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have stolen the headlines from every other aspect of the game.  As fans, what can we conclude from all this?

Unlike many other fans of the sport I am no longer surprised to see some of the best players in the world being caught taking PEDs or having their names associated with taking these substances.  Not one circumstance can surprise me anymore.

There is no way we can sit and judge these players.  Cheating has been going on in baseball as long I can remember: corked bats, too much tar on the bat, tar on the inside of the pitchers hats, trapping baseballs in the outfield to make it appear as if they have been caught, base runners stealing signs from the catcher and worst of all, players lying about their age.

Performance enhancing drugs is just another way of cheating that we seem to frown upon more than anything.  As fans we need to accept the fact that players take these substances and that it is not just one player.  It is one of those things that we need to talk about as fans in the media, it is a part of sports.

When we see a scrawny, scrappy player put on twenty pounds of muscle or a guy hitting ten homeruns in a month when he had a total of ten the year before, we all question inside whether he is cheating. But no one really brings it up or discusses whether that player is cheating.

Blood testing is finally being put into effect for baseball this season.  If players want to claim they do not take these drugs and do not cheat the game then they should prove it.  Stop sitting behind the players union and take the drug tests that they take in the Olympics.  It is the only way to take your name away from the list that categorizes questionable PED users.

People who love the game say they would never take PED’s and cheat the game they love regardless if it is the difference between playing in A ball your entire career, or making it to the Big Leagues and making millions.  The thing is, no one knows what they would do until they are put in that situation.

Until baseball takes the next step and drug tests the players like they do in the Olympics, I will sit and watch history being made every day.  We shouldn’t judge the players, we should take PED’s for what they are and not be surprised about who fails these drugs tests.  For all we know Derek Jeter and Mike Trout could have taken them. Accept the fact that your favorite player could have taken them and enjoy the game you love and always remember the period of sports that we are in.