Diamond in the rough

Cartoonists jumped on the ‘roid revelations like Hank Aaron on a hanging curve. WHAP! BIFF! SMACK! read the cartoon balloons. The “say it ain’t so” panels were so-so, and we wore the cover off the asterisk jokes. We struck out at baseball, mom, apple pie, the commish, even bat boys and good ol’ Charlie Brown. We needled athletes, owners, agents, drug companies, fans, presidential candidates and America itself, all without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball. And we were rude, rude, rude to the home team. OK, so HGH isn’t WWIII, but Nick Anderson’s little-boy-of-summer sums up why it matters.

-- Joel Pett