The American Spectator

p> PLAYING THE FIELD br> Re: Colby Cosh’s Naming Names : /p>

Colby Cosh is quite right to note that fans and reporters have paid far less attention to the use of steroids and HGH in pro football than in major league baseball. It’s quite obvious to even the casual observer that both baseball players and football players are much bigger and stronger than they were just a few decades ago, and this can’t all be natural.

Why the scrutiny on baseball? I think it’s because, until very recently, an ordinary fan could go to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park and see a lot of “athletes” who didn’t look so very different from him. In the Seventies, there were tiny players (Freddie Patek), scrawny players (Mark Belanger), rotund players (Wilbur Wood), even players smoking cigarettes in the dugout. At most, each team might have two guys with bulging biceps. So, when that fan looks at a modern ball club and sees benchwarmers and utility infielders with six-packs and rippling muscles, he NOTICES immediately and wonders, “What the heck is going on here?”

Even though pro football players have become far more massive in that same period, the fact remains, football players have ALWAYS been much bigger than their fans. Sure, today Bob Lilly and Alan Page would be too small to start for most junior college teams — but fans NEVER looked at Page or Lilly and thought, “That could be me out there.”

p>When little guys get big, it’s far more noticeable than when already-huge guys become enormous! br> — John Leavy /p> p> MUSIC MEN