As has been pointed out elsewhere, if you think Bud Selig and baseball writers couldn't have reasonably known about the performance-enhancing professional athlete culture, check out this 1969 article from Sports Illustrated.
To sum up: Professional and collegiate athletes were using whatever they could get their hands on back then. Most of it was legal (and provided by team physicians), many drugs which are now illegal or against the rules of the game.
So let's stop with the 'sanctity of the game' rubbish. If Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle had access to the PEDs back in their day, they probably would have lined up behind Bonds, A-Rod and Clemens. Did modern baseball players cheat and break federal law? Yes, some of them. But we have no idea what actual effects the PEDs had on individual performance, and this isn't a problem that started in 1998.
So please, Bud and you sanctimonious sports writers, lets not let a good story get in the way of some good facts.
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