Washington Nationals manager Frank Robinson said that baseball's steroid scandal is putting a cloud over the sport and that even the new tougher policy introduced by the game this year does not go far enough to protect the game.

Robinson said that fans put up with steroids because they like the 'home runs, the RBIs, the big explosion offensively' but that the illegal drugs cause a serious problem for the game.

'It's a cloud over baseball right now about steroids,' Robinson said. 'My take on that is that it doesn't belong in the game.'

As a player, Robinson won MVP awards in both leagues and finished his career with 586 home runs which now places him fifth all-time behind Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and Willie Mays. He also became the first African American manager in Major League history in 1975 with the Cleveland Indians.

Robinson said the home run explosion will cheapen the game. 'Probably before I take my last breath, I'm going to be about 99th on the list,' Robinson said. 'And I'm afraid people are going to say 'Frank Who?' It's going to be such huge numbers up there at the top, they're going to say, 'You must have been a singles hitter that hit a few home runs.' That's the thing that's going to happen to this game.'

According to Robinson, the new penalties introduced by the league are not harsh enough to truly prevent steroid use. It takes five positive steroid tests to cause a one-year ban for a player under the new rules. 'I just think the penalties are not strong enough,' Robinson said. 'First offense, 10 days? Five times? You'd have to be awful stupid.'

'It's like when they had testing, back when I was playing, for certain drugs,' Robinson said. 'A lot of players took it as an invasion of privacy to be tested. I said I have nothing to hide. I've love to be tested. I wish we all would be tested because that would clear up the ones that are innocent. When you throw a blanket over everybody, that's mud on me, and I'm clean.'

Robinson has managed the Nationals franchise since the 2002 season.