Come to think of it, how much less cartoonish is the game today? Not that anyone's making any accusations, but there's an awful lot of Sosa and McGwire in the rockets launched by Adam Dunn, Ryan Howard and Richie Sexson...
At the dawn of 2006, 1998 was less than a decade in the past and crusades were ongoing all throughout baseball. Everyone was in a hurry to shift blame or cast judgement due to the steroid epidemic that had fueled the game's power surge and made sluggers like Ryan Howard so enthralling.
As a young first baseman - yes he did play a position other than "hitter" - in 2005, Ryan Howard's monstrous ways at the plate were inevitably going to attract attention.