Over the past several months, the spectre of steroids has placed a heavy shadow on Major League Baseball and a phantom in the corner of professional sports in the United States.

Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi — three big-time baseball players whispered about by fans, media, other players as being "on the juice." Others in baseball, football, track & field, swimming, other speed-timed sports are also marked as "juicers," truthfully or not. Any sport associated to the IOC has testing programs that are accurate and true, getting the cheaters out of those sports.

But steroids isn't a big deal to me, because I've heard all of this before. I'm a pro wrestling fan.

It has been a little more than 10 years since the WWF and chairman Vince McMahon was on federal trial for conspiracy to distribute and possessing steroids illegally. Hulk Hogan, the Wrestler of the 1980s that brought the WWF from Northeast promotion to a world-wide phenom, pledged on The Tonight Show that he didn't take steroids. In court, as the government's main witness, he admitted he took steroids and that it wasn't his prayers, vitamins and hard work that gave him his Adonis-like body.

McMahon liked bigger-than-life wrestlers to lead his company on television, in house shows and in pay-per-view events. Steroids were a short cut for some wrestlers to keep their bodies bulked up in the face of a 300-day work schedule that the WWF put its wrestlers on a year. Wrestlers like Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior. Randy Savage. The Legion of Doom. The British Bulldogs. Sid Justice. Rick Rude. The Powers of Pain, were bigger and bigger as they walked through the WWF doors. Then they shrunk or were injured in other promotions.

It is hard to think of the WWF, now the WWE, without thinking about steroids. You wonder what new big man who steps out of the curtain and into the ring if he worked his ass off or got that rock-hard body from a bottle and a needle.

USA Today ran about steroids and pro wrestling, but didn't do much more than just spout off generalities and stereotypes. Drug use is more rampant in pro wrestling in the public view than steroids. Just ask Elizabeth, Crash Holly, Ravishing Rick Rude or Louie Spicolli, if you can. They died from drug overdoses or drug/alcohol-related causes.

But steroids? The true face of steroids is Lyle Alzedo, who attributed his brain tumors and cancer to the steroids and drugs he took as a member of the Oakland Raiders. Lyle's story shook up many who heard him talk about what he went through and what he took to get to where he was — dying younger than he wished.

Pro wrestling is connected to steroids because of McMahon's trial and acquittal. Baseball is now connected, because players tested positive during the players' union testing. Wrestling has proof from Hogan, baseball doesn't.

Does that make baseball's shadow less heavy to carry? No. Baseball doesn't have their federal trial and Hulk Hogan yet... and that may just be around the corner.