Sounding Off: Alex Rodriguez and Steroids

*Sounding Off will be featured every Sunday morning as we address a hot topic from the past week. Feel free to weigh in and make your opinion heard!*

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal is the endless amount of hours that America will now devote to baseball's steroid era. Seriously, when the hell is America going to be able to move on from all this steroid nonsense? Like me, I'm sure there are baseball fans all over the world who are absolutely sick of the steroid talk and want nothing more for all this nonsense to go away.

But thanks to Alex Rodriguez, this story will not be going away any time soon.

And that my friends, is an absolute shame. Even though the news is still littered with steroid chatter, mainly from the trials of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, the talk of the steroid era had somewhat drifted from the consciousness of America. Yes people care about Bonds and Clemens, but at this point, those guys are old news and come with limited shock value.

Finally! We can focus on baseball!

Or not...Thanks to yesterday's news that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003, I feel as though the steroid issue will be at the forefront of baseball for years to come. It's inevitable. Three of the best players of my generation have now been linked to steroids and presumably have cheated. The issues of hall of fame and legacy have yet to be addressed, and if Mark McGwire has taught us anything, it will get ugly.

Will these guys be remembered as heroes or steroid injected mutants? Hall of famers or cheaters? These are questions that will undoubtedly be debated for decades to come. We will not be having the spirited debates of decades past of who was the best player of the decade, instead we will be asking whether a certain player cheated or not.

How sad is that.

But the saddest part of this ordeal to me is that the shock of hearing who was on steroids has diminished completely, because so many of our heroes and legends have been caught already. After all the media coverage, McGwire, Palmiero, the Mitchell Report, Kirk Radomski, Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds...it would impossible to be shocked that any player was accused of steroids.

How sad is that.

If Alex Rodriguez did indeed take steroids in 2003, then shame on him. He has let down millions of fans and that is something that he will have to live with forever. His legacy will be tarnished forever.

But what Alex Rodriguez did yesterday was worse than anything he could possibly do to his legacy. A-Rod took away the excitement of spring training for this fan because I know every time I turn on ESPN, the main issue will be steroids and not baseball. Baseball is all I want, but steroids is undoubtedly what I'd get.

How sad is that.