AP/AOL Sports Poll: Baseball Fans Feel Major League Baseball Players' Salaries Are a Bigger Problem than Steroids.

Nearly Half of Baseball Fans Hope Barry Bonds Falls Short of Breaking Hank Aaron's Record

DULLES, Va. -- With the World Series starting on Saturday, an AP/AOL Sports poll (http://sports.aol.com/) released today finds that 28 percent of baseball fans consider high player salaries to be the biggest problem with Major League Baseball, while 26 percent of fans believe that players' use of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs is the biggest problem facing baseball.

Steroids continues to be a hot topic among fans. 51 percent of fans state the League is not doing enough to curb the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, which is similar to an AP-AOL Sports poll taken in April 2006, when 53 percent of fans said the League was not doing enough.

In addition, despite Barry Bonds passing Babe Ruth this season for total career home runs, 48 percent of fans say they hope he will fall short of breaking Aaron's record, while 33 percent are rooting for him to break it. Another 16 percent say they do not really care either way.

Other findings include:

* When asked whether they care if players use steroids or other performance enhancing drugs, 58 percent of baseball fans say they care a lot, 23 percent say they care a little and 18 percent say they do not care at all. These are similar with the findings of an AP-AOL Sports polls in taken in April 2005 and April 2006.

* Seventy-three percent of baseball fans say they will stay up late to watch World Series games, but only 38 percent of fans with school aged children will allow their children to stay up late.

* The New York Yankees have the largest national fan base, with 14 percent of baseball fans indicating they are fans of the Yankees. However, 40 percent of fans say the team they most love to hate is the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox run a far distant second, at seven percent.

* Forty-nine percent of baseball fans attend a game or follow a live broadcast of their favorite teams' games at least once a week.

Survey Methodology

The AP-AOL Sports poll was conducted by Ipsos, an international public opinion company. 2,002 adults and 774 baseball fans were interviewed by telephone from October 10-12 and October 16-18. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for adults and 3.5 percentage points for baseball fans.

About the Associated Press 

The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations. For more information, visit www.ap.org.

About AOL

AOL is a global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs the country's largest Internet access business, and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC is based in Dulles, Virginia. AOL and its subsidiaries also have operations in Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.