March 31, 2008
Angell's Take
Roger Angell writes a properly sane comment in the New Yorker on steroids, records and why people used PEDs:
The game is about to move on, and Commissioner Selig, who voiced distress over Major League Baseball's failure to impose strong penalties against steroids long before it finally did, in 2005, cannot expect to take sensible action now against a panoply of bygone juicers. Instead, M.L.B. and the Players Association may shortly agree on a plan that would add more off-season tests to the game's existing and effective measures to detect and punish steroid use. In time, perhaps, they will move toward blood testing for HGH. If we fans need an image to connect us to the departing era, I would pass up the tarnished Clemens or the unpleasant Bonds and, looking back five years, focus, rather, on some imagined Class AAA infielder who has just been called up to a major-league team as a midseason defensive replacement. He doesn't have to carry his bags anymore, but at twenty-seven he's a gloveman with a lifetime .269 average who will now be looking at world-famous sliders and heat. Sitting a couple of lockers away there's a celebrated but tired-looking shortstop in his late thirties, with two gated-community houses, a nanny, a nutritionist, a trainer, a motivational coach, two lawyers, a divorced wife, three foreign-marque cars, an agent, two chefs, and a part-time veterinarian on his payroll. Our rookie may be competing against this icon for a steady job next spring, but for that to happen he'll need two additional base hits a week, starting right now. The word "Help!" floats into his head, perhaps from not far away.
Baseball, we've discovered once again, is always better as a sample of American business life than as a place for moral lessons. It's still the national pastime.
Posted by David Pinto at
10:59 AM
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Aother missed opportunity.
MLB should have granted amnesty for players to talk to Mitchell to avoid MLB punishment. if players were still within some statute of limitations for legal action, thye should have been left alone.
Trainers and facilities used for workouts should be certified by MLB. if oyu use an uncertified trainer or frequesnt a facility that has been deemed unsavory, you will be fined and/or suspended.
No personal trainers in any MLB stadium.
Like the NFL, there should be a list of sanctioned supplements that are OK to use and have been tested for appropriate content. Use of any other (considering 25% of all otc supplements are tainted) will be grounds for suspension.
Congress will re-visit the 1994 DSHEA which caused the supplement mess and tighten standards to avoid tainted pills being given to any American, not just athletes.
Iirc, Mitchell didn't have the authority to grant any amnesties, nor was his proceeding legal enough that confessing to a crime (e.g., interstate transport of a controlled substance) would have kept anyone from being prosecuted.
Those of you who want to delude yourselves that Bud Selig didn't deliberately set it up to be that way are welcome to believe so, but please list (1) the drugs you are currently taking and (2) the dosage required to achieve such an Altered (from Reality) State.