Richard Justice writes a great column today about Miguel Tejada, who can be thankful that he is burried in Texas away from the major media sources.  Justice hits him hard, but makes some excellent points.  Why should a guy making $13 million only have to pay $5,000 as a fine for lying to Congress.  Certainly doesn’t look like a bad thing to do, if you have money anyway.

Bet Alex Rodriguez would gladly pay $5,000 to forget he took steroids, even without ever having lied to congress.  Bet it also cost the government much more than the 5 grand to prove he was lying, too.

Though I am a big proponent of steroids not being the major story, I agree with Justice that the only way to differentiate between right and wrong on the whole issue of steroid use in the game of baseball is how they handle it after they are exposed.  Did they learn lessons?  Are they honest?  I don’t even care why they are honest.  The truth is that at the time, the effects of steroids weren’t well known.  But now we do know the effects of adolescents.  Those who want to save their face, and do the right thing, owe it to those young people, who are modeling themselves after the pros, to stand up and be clear about what they might do differently now.

$5,000 and 100 hours of community service is hardly worth writing about, and that is really the problem.