Let me start this posty with a sincere and hearty apology for once again deferring to steroids "news" (and by "news" I of course mean "ongoing story that simply refuses die... like a cockroach") as a topic of conversation/blogging, but let's face the facts: it IS somewhat interesting, and there really isn't much else going on. There's only so much "will Santanamania come to New York?" or "should Jobamania be a part of the rotation?" a person can handle, especially because there ain't nothing new to say about it (wooooot grammar!).

Now that I've said that, let's start chatting about the whole debacle. In my opinion, I'd say the whole mess started somewhere around the time that Bonds started hitting 2349802348919 homers per season and his head went from the size of an average humanoid cranium to a size more akin to the world's largest pumpkin - not because that was the first time steroids had ever been used in baseball (shocking newsflash: it wasn't! shh... don't tell Senator Mitchell... no need to get him more riled up...), but because it was around that time that the general public upped their interest in the matter. Since then, we've seen everything from juicy juice books to indictments to sit-downs with Mike Wallace, and you know there's no end in sight. Just for kicks - and as a reminder to us all of how far we've come as a society over the past few years (lies) - I've put together a little timeline depicting the juicy (get it?!??!?! GET IT?! I'm a humorology genius) details of the journey!

Sometime before 2001: Regular Barry Bonds transforms into Balco Barry
2001: Balco B hits 73 homers
2003: Barry testifies before a grand jury that he never used any illegal substances. I have a feeling that will come back to haunt him later on in this timeline...
2004: President (it hurts me just to type that, my liberal compatriots) Bush calls for a "crackdown" on steroids during his State of the Union address. 4 years later, he's made more progress on that than he has in Iraq, so I guess that's a feather in his cap. That and learning how to successfully consume a pretzel.
2004: MLB announces new steroids policy, complete with off-season testing. It works like a charm.
2005: Jose Canseco's tattle-tale book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big released. He alleges that MLB was well-aware of the drug-use all along but since the 1994 strike dampened the public's enthusiasm for the game, they turned a blind eye to keep things exciting. I agree.
2005: McGwire, Sosa, Canseco, and Palmiero chat with congress. Poor Sosa has a hard time remembering how to speak English and McGwire has a hard time remember anything at all.
2006: Senator "politics is my name, but steroids is my game!" Mitchell launches his 20-month investigation into the wild world of juicing.
2006: Game of Shadows published, outing Balco and a bunch of their "customers", including - you guessed it! - Balco Barry
2007: Bondsy indicted on 4 counts of perjury and 1 count of obstruction of justice. Woops! Oh wait, innocent until proven guilty. DON'T JUDGE HIM.
2007: The long-awaited Mitchell report is released! It contains a gazillion boring pages and a list of 88 players who have used steroids... according to a couple trainer dudes, anyway.
A few days later: Dandy Andy Pettitte admits that the report is true in his case and that he did use HGH in 2002.
Then: Congress calls for Rocket, Dandy Andy, McNamee and some others to join them for a delightful hearing in January '08.
And then: Roger Clemens begins his Straight Talk Express Denial Crusade with statements from his lawyer, followed by a Yankees Chick-esque video blog on his site, an appearance on 60 Minutes, a super-emotional press conference, and, finally, a defamation lawsuit against McNamee. Oh yeah, then McNamee contemplates a countersuit.
2008: Hearing gets pushed back to February, meaning we have to sit through another month of talking about this without having anything new to say.
Future Onward to Eternity: Regardless of the hearings, lawsuits, Canseco sequels, denials, yada yada yada, this will never die down.

Ever.