Maybe it's my sense of semantics, but I don't know how I feel about hearing that "Giambi cheated" or "Canseco cheated" or "Bonds cheated." What rule did they break?

Were the drugs illegal? Yes.

But they were illegal under the law, not under the rules of baseball.

Did any drug users break a moral code? Yes.

Since baseball had no way to penalize drug users until 2004, it just strikes me as wrong to call all these guys "drug cheats." Bad guys? Sure. Fallen idols? Almost certainly.

But the only way you could have cheated with steroids until last year was to go out to the mound, rub some of Barry's "flaxseed oil" on the ball and let 'er fly.

Just my two cents.