Cecil Fielder Questions Blind Eye to Steroids

If there's any player who probably didn't take steroids -- besides Rafael Belliard -- it's probably Cecil Fielder. He was fat, out of shape, and naturally powerful. He joined the 50 home run club when it actually meant something -- you know, before Brady Anderson went out there and sullied the accomplishment with his abnormal burst in power. So Fielder came out and said baseball could not use ignorance as a defense for allowing performance-enhancing substances to run rampant throughout the game:

"If we didn't know, we ought to really slap ourselves if we didn't think something was going on in baseball - from the commissioner's office on down," said Fielder, the manager of an independent league team. "Guys were getting too big and too strong. Little guys turned into big guys. Baseball was doing so well at the time, everybody was turning away from it and letting it go on."

Fielder was getting set to make his exit from baseball around the time that the steroids issue became most prevalent -- 1998. So it's almost safe not to lump Cecil in with that crowd. I understand where he's coming from and agree with him. I was just as suspicious as the next person when skinny slap hitters started cranking 30 homers -- believe me, it messed with my fantasy baseball draft strategy. Fielder hit 51 in 1990 -- at Tiger Stadium no less. If anyone should be taking issue with the blind eye to steroids, Fielder certainly is well within his right.