There's no doubt that much of the high dudgeon has a rather hollow ring. You're absolutely right that baseball looked the other way as fan support returned after its nadir following the '94 strike. However, I don't think that it's simply a witch hunt. While the owners ought not to be absolved, many of those players clearly were cheaters who lied about what they were doing and violated the spirit (if not always the letter) of the rules and the game.

In any event, the ones who took steroids have likely sentenced themselves to some rather profound health problems down the road - and maybe not too far down the road. I also have no problem with players and owners being slammed in the court of public opinion, and I hope what happened to McGwire (rejection in his first Hall of Fame vote) is repeated many times.