Hank Steinbrenner: Steroid Problem Worse in the NFL

Hank Steinbrenner is fed up with all the scrutiny that the MLB is under these days regarding steroids and HGH. The NFL, Hank claims, has a much higher frequency of players taking banned substances. For the New York Yankee exec, it's fairly obvious. "Look at the speed and size of those players," he told the AP.

Steinbrenner may have a point that steroid and HGH use in pro baseball is talked about and investigated far more than steroid and HGH use in pro football. People forget that one of the NFL's premier linebackers, Shawne Merriman, was suspended four games for failing a test. Rodney Harrison, the notorious New England safety sat out the first four games of this past season, and yet few, if any, remember or mentioned this minor detail during the Patriots' run at a near perfect season.

What Hank failed to mention, however, is that the NFL has had random, year-round testing since 1990, complete with numerous suspensions since that year. Steroid testing in the MLB, on the other hand, was not a major issue until 2005. Prior to that year, testing was ineffective and punishments were light, at best. In the 1990s and early 2000s, while the NFL was cleaning up its image and at least attempting to rid its sport of steroids, the MLB, its commissioner, and its owners turned away as baseball players took performance enhancing drugs. The league began to prosper, as home runs became plentiful, and MLB continued to avoid the subject. That is, until the matter began to spiral out of control.

Hank also has to come to grips with the fact that football players contain a sort of anonymity that baseball players simply do not have. Furthermore, because of their natural size, violent nature, and covered faces, NFL players are not as easily relatable to fans as baseball players, who enjoy plenty of face time during games and appear to be normal people like you and me. Naturally, when these players start to exhibit bulging biceps and growing heads, people are going to notice and begin to wonder what is going on.

So, Hank Steinbrenner has two things to realize. First, the massive problem that is steroids in MLB is partially the fault of people like his father, who turned a blind eye in the late 90s and on as revenues increased along with players hat sizes. Secondly, the immense scrutiny experienced by baseball simply comes with the territory. Seems like someone is just jealous that the NFL has become far and away the nation's most popular sport.