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Professor Nutbottom:

Baseball has been so lax in testing for steroids, Congress recently threatened to step in if they don't institute a more stringent drug-testing policy. I always thought baseball didn't need to test, because it's just such a clean sport. I'm crushed to find out otherwise. Why are baseball players stooping to that level?

Marty, Chicago

Dear Marty:

You sound like a really nice guy. And you're right. Baseball is rooted in being a really nice, clean sport.

But the scandal with steroid use in the major leagues has been a wake up call to all of us. We are in crisis.

The problem is that the benefits of steroid use outweigh its penalties. So the solution is simple. Take away the benefits, eliminate the steroids. Are you tracking with me? Since you are such a nice person, I just want to make sure I'm not getting out ahead of you.

And so what do we need to take away?

Winning. It's that simple. Winning. That's all you hear. Winning, winning, winning. Baseball has developed an undue emphasis on winning.

Really.

I don't know how far back you go with baseball, but I go way back. I'm basically the fan's Fan. And baseball didn't start out being about winning and losing. It started out as just a bunch of guys hitting a ball around, tossing the old rubber core back and forth, hanging with buddies. Sure there were winners and there were losers. But no one was paying attention. Everyone was just having a good time.

Then, we had the 80's. You know, voodoo economics and let's make a quick buck. And somehow, without anyone really noticing, baseball morphed into a monster that was all about winning and losing. Since that time, the pressure to win grows more intense every year. To some, it seems to serve the game well. But it's a facade. Behind that silky smooth exterior of winning and losing, lies a tangled mess of disappointment and despair, doldrums and downheartedness, dastardliness and drugs.

Each day untold numbers of players spend tremendous energy in pursuit of a dream - a dream to make it to the World Series. And every day, for most of them, their dream crumbles a little more.

Then, after a season of struggles and strife, sorrows and sadness, skepticism and soreness, reality hits - there will be no time in the Big Series for them. Their aspirations crash on the rocks of shattered dreams, hounded by the ghosts of roaring waves of national obscurity.

But the league does not need to operate this way. If baseball could just give up the notion that winning is everything, baseball could be restored to its former glory.