I agree with a lot of what you say, including the Big Red Machine! Morgan, Foster, Griffey (Sr.) and sometimes even Geronimo didn’t need roids to hit homers.
I also don’t attend games anymore, but not because of the strike. It’s the cost. (I wouldn’t say no to a free ticket, and I’ll admit I WOULD go if I lived near Cincy.) 90% of the games are on TV in some fashion; and the cheapest seats are $10-15, which almost always are terrible. The half-decent seats I’d otherwise bother going to sit in, are at least $30-50 nowadays.
And steroids really hurt the legitimacy of the game. I don’t directly blame Selig; I blame the darn cheaters. But Selig was too cowed by the “Players” “Union” to do much of anything about it. I’m afraid it’s going to take a Lyle-Alzado-type tragedy before anything serious is done.
Meanwhile, Bonds cheats.
‘And steroids really hurt the legitimacy of the game.’
Steroids were at the heart of the faux Rose ‘betting scandal’ in my opinion. Everybody around Rose was selling the stuff as the movie ‘Charlie Hustle’ demonstrated.
And I’ve always wondered about Foster’s 58 (?) homers in 1979.
Never saw anyone hit so many meaningless home runs in a single season in my life. Never.