Yes it is the same thing as sacred, you just don’t want to use the word. I will maintain that nobody who isn’t at least a part time baseball fan knows what ANY of those numbers mean.
In some ways roids are just like any other kind of exercise that works, people that use it have an advantage. Especially when roids weren’t even against the rules. If doesn’t really matter if fielders are doing it, but pitchers doing it does. On the one hand roided pitchers are going to have faster pitches which are harder to hit, on the other hand they’re going to have faster pitches which when hit go further. So it’s hard to really tell if it should be holding down or promoting the offensive numbers.
I ignore polls because polls are stupid. Especially for something like this where we have the ultimate pol: revenue. If what people say when asked doesn’t jive with how they spend their money then you should ignore what they say, it’s the money that matters. And baseball revenue has gone up during the steroid era. They were recovering since the last strike, but there was a MAJOR increase during the home run derby year, that’s simple irrefutable fact. There’s no spin there, it’s simple fact, at no point during the roid era, not when it was being discussed by reporters, not when it was being ignored by the MLB, not when the MLB finally put their first silly rules in, not when the MLB finally put in rules that included punishment, has baseball’s number dropped. If the fans gave a good damn about roids the numbers would have dropped during some part of that, the fact that they not only didn’t drop but CLIMBED shows they don’t care.
No it isn't. This is a matter of basic English, Stu.
Steroids were against U.S. law, and a prohibited drug in baseball since at least 1991, when Commissioner Vincent added it to the list (see Mitchell Report). What kind of exercise is like that? Yeah, it's hard to tell the exact percentage of effect steroids has on offense, but that's part of the disruption of fair play that steroids brings. Never have to consider that if they weren't there.
You can ignore surveys of opinion on the subject if you want, but the reason why is fairly clear and it's not what you're saying. I'm one of the people who came back with my money in 2000 after being turned off by the strike, and my money reflects my enjoyment of the game, not my perception of the problem steroids presents. Your interpretation of what attendance says about people's views on steroids is a reach, to put it pretty mildly.