Stepping up to the plate, the southpaw is throwing fire tonight. It's only the 5th inning, and he already has eight strikeouts. Your team has men on second and third, and is already trailing in the game. You need to center the ball so you can hit it up the middle and score two runs and get your team back in it. Would anyone be excited about any of this if not for the baseball boom in the late 90's to now? Would the game be dying or dead right now? Thanks to young, up and coming players like Ryan Howard, Ryan Braun, Dustin Pedrioa and Joba Chamberlain, the game has seen a big boost in excitement, and that leads to a huge boost in attendance. Clubs are making so much more money now a days not only with ticket sales, but by marketing these up and coming stars.
These players are also very important in promoting the post-steroid era in baseball. They represent a clean slate of new popular players that are as good as the steroid abusers were. Growing up in the 90's playing baseball, the role models and superstars I admired like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGuire all turned out to be doping steroid abusers. They let me down and probably a lot of other players my age at the time. But thanks to these new stars, gracing the cover of SI and ESPN the magazine, the sport is in a revitalization. Baseball is back.
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