What's killing baseball: steroids or dead time?

See the recent posts about all the dead time between pitches.

The inept commissioner and all the owners are at fault. 

The media is also to blame.  It is currently chasing the most recent steroid story, that of former MVP Ryan Braun copping a plea and letting himself be suspended for the remainder of the season.

The media people should be pounding away at the big story of the moment, that near five hour monstrosity on ESPN Sunday night.  Instead they are blathering about stupid steroids.

Which makes baseball more boring:

- steroid use

- dead time between pitches?

Obviously, it's a rhetorical question.  What fan avoids baseball because of steroids?  What fan avoids it because it has devolved into a boring mess?

Has any industry berated its own product for as long as baseball?  The rulers of the Major Baseball League (MBL) are now after Alex Rodriguez as the other big fish to fry along with Braun.  At least they're not continuing to disproportionately target players from the Dominican Republic.  Braun is a star and Rodriguez an all time great.

Today The New York Times quoted Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte as supporting Rodriguez because he is a teammate.  Conspicuous by his absence in specifically supporting Rodriguez was Derek Jeter, who many years ago before they were teammates was best buddies with Rodriguez.

Football and basketball do not denigrate their players as baseball has traditionally done for decades, through different eras.  Baseball owners, as a group, are more primitive, more primal in their view of their charges.

And what about those of us who are baseball fans?  Maybe we are the most to blame.  Most of us follow all three team sports.  Who doesn't think that just about all non-kickers in football use steroids or equivalent?  Were we concerned about steroid use when backs ran for 2,000 yards or quarterbacks threw for 4,000 yards?  No, we were only concerned when baseball players hit 50 homers too often.

Are we really that stupid, that gullible that we blindly follow the media obsession with the steroid story in baseball, almost to the exclusion of football and basketball?  Sure, media people periodically dive into steroids, etc. in cycling and (track and field).  Big deal.  Americans don't care about cycling and only about a few events in (track and field) and even then only in passing.

Baseball is more ingrained in our American culture and for a longer time than football and basketball.  Without realizing it we treat baseball differently even as we let it die a slow death, with players mostly standing around, preening, scratching, spitting, obsessing, ... anything but actually playing.  All this while we fans sit and wait.  Or look for other things to do.

We do other things while we watch and wait.  Then instead of waiting.  Maybe we fans are the ones who need the steroids, just to stay alert enough to follow 17 minutes of action spread over four hours.