The gloves, bats and balls are out again in the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues of Arizona and Florida, respectively.

Mitts are popping. Wood cracking echoes across spring training facilities. Groundskeepers are back on their tractors.

The national pastime has again scraped off the hibernation of winter and arisen with the chirping of the birds.

For a kid that grew up with the game, this has to be one of my favorite times of year. Unfortunately, that love slowly fades with every mentioning of the word steroid.

After taking what little talent He gave me to the college level coupled with working as a photographer for a baseball magazine, I have seen first hand how the evolution of the athlete that sprints out between the lines is separating itself further and further away from the rest of society.

I busted my tail and gained close to 20 pounds of muscle after high school in order to compete with more talented and genetically-gifted ballplayers, but I did so over a two year span. Now, we see offseason workouts producing 30-pound weight gains in guys. I am not talking just about big leaguers either.

Even in Division II baseball, steroids were everywhere. Not once in the 2 1/2 years that I played was I ever tested for anything. Sure, we all had to turn our heads and cough once a year like any kid does from the middle school level up. But, at no point in time was any fluid drawn from my body and sent to a lab.

This all makes me wonder. Do coaches even care as to whether or not their athletes are competing unnaturally? Never did we even see any back-to-school specials or old film strips on the effects of steroids.

Multiple teammates admitted to me that they used performance-enhancing drugs. After working in a weight room for a couple of years, I saw my fair share of high school kids pony up as well. What makes it worse is that none of the high schoolers even competed athletically. They just wanted to get their bench press numbers up to a level that impressed their buds.

I have to admit that I was jealous seeing other guys get their educations paid for because of baseball. The few that gambled their futures to get to that level paid the price though.

None of the college baseball players I suited up with ever played out a pain or injury-free career. In fact, a couple cannot even rotate their pitching arms 360 degrees even today without pain or discomfort.

Was their gamble worth it? Definitely not. Few of my teammates on scholarship busted their tails in the classroom and got college degrees. Most had plans of more of a blue collar lifestyle in place before post-secondary education even began.

So here we are in 2005. Seemingly every report ESPN does from spring training complexes has nothing to do with the game and more to do with subpoenas and big names like Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. What the heck has happened?

To tell you the truth, with the "new and improved" steroid policy the owners and players association agreed to merely hands out slaps of the wrist. They only deterrent for big leaguers not using performance-enhancing drugs is the media.

No one wants to be that on that poster being burned at the stake that places an asterisks an the end of every stat line that particular player ever had.

For college and high school athletes, that reason for doesn't exist. I doubt the Times-Gazette would be notified if a youngster tested positive. And, let's not kid ourselves, who's really gonna sporadically test all their athletes?

That's the whole point. There are no hurdles in place to successfully educate and keep our young people away from performance-enhancing drugs.

With more and more scouts looking for "tools" instead of gritty kids with better fundamentals, the message is simply echoed. The 6-foot-3 youngster with the 88 mile per hour fastball is signing on the dotted line while the 5-foot-11 kid hitting 81 on the gun that actually throws strikes and gets people out is hanging up his spikes.

Young people that pay any sort of attention know that the Braves are much more impressed with projectability than statistics. If Joe Smith goes out and runs the 60-yard dash in 6.3 seconds, that alone may get him a phone call in June. Meanwhile his teammate that hit .394 with nine home runs is having to send out tapes and flyers to colleges to even get a glimpse of the next level.

One kid that competed collegiately with me did make it to pro baseball on talent alone. It was not until he got into the minor leagues that he started using steroids. His own brother admitted that he has become "brain-washed" by his new teammates.

"You see Esteban over there? He'll move up later this season. You know why?"

"Nah man. Why?"

"Because the organization knows that the Dominican kids are so afraid of getting cut and sent back to their third-world countries, they will sign long-term deals at a bargain basement price where you and I know better.

"You see Mike in the bullpen? Keep in mind the $2.1 million investment the club put in him a couple summers ago when he is your competition for a spot with the Double A club next March."

Seven miles per hour here. Three tenths of a second there. Veins bulging out of bodyparts you didn't even know had muscles. It all seems worthwhile.

Think about that the next time you hear about a pitcher having to have a ligament pulled out of another part of his body and stitched into his elbow.

Think about that the next time you see SportsCenter close out a show with news of a 43-year old former pro athlete found dead of cardiac arrest and survived by a wife and three small children.

Think about Ken Caminiti, the 1996 National League MVP, who openly admitted to using steroids. He passed last fall at the age of 41.

The human body has its limits. There is a price for everything.