Yesterday reports surfaced about testing for HGH in both baseball and football. The continuing media coverage of the issue of steroids reminds SLT about a Saturday Night Live skit dating back to the 2008 Democratic primary season. The skit focused on the debates between then-Senators Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the favored treatment the media bestowed upon Obama. The highlight of the skit came when one of the moderators asked the actor playing Obama if he would like another pillow.

We get the feeling that the media and the public treat football in the same way the skit on SNL treated now-President Obama. Whereas baseball gets the tough questions and continuing scrutiny from the media, football gets off easy.

For the last decade baseball has faced a continuous barrage (and rightly so) from the media on the steroid issue, while football has not received anywhere near the scrutiny. We do admit that baseball was much later getting involved with a testing program. But why should football get close to a free pass?

Is there a public perception that some football players do use performance enhancing drugs and that is a part of the game? Maybe the best example of this double standard occurred in 2005. Luis Castillo, now of the San Diego Chargers, had just come off his senior year in college in 2004. He bravely played his final season with an elbow injury that would require Tommy John surgery. After the end of his season he decided against the surgery and started to prepare for the combine. He noticed that with the injured elbow he was making little progress in some areas of his combine preparation.Would he just go to the combine and watch his draft grade plummet because of his weakened condition? No. Part of his prepartion for the combine involved the use of PED's. Castillo went to the combine and had a lights out performance and reclaimed his first round grade. Remember that PED's allow one to recover quicker and in turn to be able to do more in the weight room.

Prior to the draft, news broke that Castillo had tested positive for PED's. Castillo and his management team then embarked on a campaign to say how sorry he was for the whole episode.The media embraced Castillo for his honesty. On draft day Castillo was a first round pick of the Chargers after all. Castillo had beaten the system. He was able to turn in a great combine performance because of the PED's, and then publicly apologize for it. What would his combine numbers have been if he had just let nature heal his injury? Would he still have been a first rounder?

The point is, Castillo was treated as more of a hero, and was able to reap the rewards of being a first rounder. If this had been a baseball player under similar circumstances, the outcry of the media would have been deafening.

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