Pro sports are a unique form of entertainment. Literature, music, theater, painting… are all free ranging arts. Would anyone think less of an artist’s work if they used performance-enhancers? I don’t think so. In some ways, in the arts, don’t we want the enhanced performance influenced by any sort of chemical boost - boost to energy, boost to creativity….
Of course, entertainment is in the eye of the beholder - we all get to decide for ourselves what entertains us - but for many, pro sports requires some legitimacy to be fully entertaining. Put aside wrestling which is mostly theater, the major sports rely on at least a semblance of fairness and equality that makes the competition intriguing enough to want to keep watching. When Bonds, Macguire, and Sosa were hitting more home runs than had ever been hit before, it was fascinating. It was even fascinating to me, a long-time non-baseball fan. But what is interesting is that during that time I was still not a baseball fan. I didn’t watch games; I didn’t root for any teams. But… I watched highlights every night and closely followed the HR competition occurring among these players and with history.
Not sure what this means for whether it was good or bad for baseball. But I’m sure it was good for entertainment despite the pall of illegitimacy that hovers over that era.