amen Dave and Rob!

I guess you're right. I don't pay to be friends with the guy. Still stings a little. Thought this dude was clean.

While the odds of it are very low, why is everyone ruling out that this could've been a false positive?

Thanks, Dave!

Do you think that drug testing will now be excluded from the 2011 CBA? Probably.

Wat happens to every existing employee assistance plan if the government gets to keep the Quest/CDT tests?

What is the legal definition of "plain view" - an entire computer and its contents?

Selena Roberts is coming out with a book in May according to Amazon - this is part of the pre-tour.
http://www.amazon.com/Hit-Run-Many-Lives-Rodriguez/dp/0061791644/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234037488&sr=8-6

This entire incident is going to seem silly and stupid in twenty or thirty years when athletes are taking drugs that boost performance and don't have any negative side effects that make steroids look like a pack of sweet tarts in regards to performance. Sports medicine will continue to evolve and humans will continue to perform better than their predecessors whether on or off the field of play.

A-men to that!

Shilling dopes up his ankle to play--which is what the fans want, isn't it?--and is called a clutch gamer because he's "bleeding." Kenny Rogers fills his glove with pine tar and pitches the game of his life--which is what the fans want, isn't it?-- and nobody remembers. Bonds took some supplement (legal, illegal, and cutting edge) cocktail to get his body ready for peak performance--which is what the fans want isn't it?--and he's the anti-Christ of baseball. I have a problem with these things. And I have a real problem with guys like Bob Costas lecturing me on what is and what isn't a story here.

On the flip side. Don't let anyone tell you that baseball isn't America's past time any longer. Jeez, "everyone" turns a blind eye to the NFL and people go apoplectic when their hero's records are approached.

The one that bothers me is that Gaylord Perry is in the goddamn Hall of Fame because of his ability to cheat. He is loved for his cheating. Shit like that makes me think that Bonds was on to something when he identified racism as a big part of his problems.

A-Rod is the worst loser of them all and he's never won a championship.

I disagree. Pete Rose should be admitted to the Hall of Fame. He only bet to win and he might take your head off if it could help the Big Red Machine win, but what he put on the field was pure Charlie Hustle and not performance-enhanced. He earned every one of his 4,256 hits. To ban him from baseball is a sin that even a moralist like you should recognize.

David, I think you miss the point here. Anyone reading your blog has most likely competed in amateur team sports (baseball let's hope!), where the greatest motivating factor should be the collective desire and effort to do what it takes to win. True, most of us haven't played professional sports, and therefore may not understand the psyche of a highly paid ballplayer, but it is not rocket science to see what pushes some of these guys, and it is not a desire to win, as most of us would define it.

What separates Bonds/Clemens/ARod from the rest of us is their ability to make gobs of money and establish their ongoing fame and eventual legacy by their individual efforts within the construct of a team sport. Let's not confuse competitiveness with greed. These men knew what they were doing to get a competitive 'edge' was wrong, otherwise they would have been more open and forthcoming about their drug use. Please don't excuse this behavior as a manifestation of their great desire to win; they want money, fame and all the attendant trappings. If they should happen to win a world series on the way, then so be it, but please don't say competitiveness is their driving source.

As far as I am concerned, ALL ML ballplayers are suspect. (Even the so-called "clean players" are suspect, so don't sell me any trash about a certain guy from St. Louis.) The only way baseball will be clean again if it comes from the players themselves and I just don't see that happening.
As far as Pete getting into the Hall, good luck on that. I had sympathy for Pete until he admitted he lied all those years about betting on the Reds. Pete is his own worst enemy. There was a reason that Leo Durocher didn't get into the HoF until after he died- it was because no one could stand the SOB. Pete might have to be 6 feet under before he gets his due.

What does it even mean to you to say that "ALL ML ballplayers are suspect"? I'm serious, it's not like a player hits a solo home run and the score board says "grand slam" or a pitcher winks to an umpire and the umpire says "strike three" when the next pitch is in the air.

My goodness, the players are still playing the game, they ARE better than the players we all (I'm 38) grew up with, and their numbers aren't THAT gaudy if you actually look at them. "Oh," you say, "Bonds and 73." Well, Davy Johnson hit, what?, 40-something once and never before or never again. The sport is extremely hard and varied and the history of the game reflects these points and a host of others.

What's more, the players are being tested now. You don't trust those tests. Why? Hell, if you don't, don't trust anyone or any sport, because nobody's ever going to KNOW what every NBA, NHL, tennis, MLB, NASCAR, soccer, cricket, olympic, etc. athlete is up to. This kind of talk is maddening silly to me, like baseball fans just found out that Santa Claus doesn't exist or that life isn't fair.

I think the biggest item from the latest story is not that A-Rod test positive but that 104 players tested positive. When you consider that many drugs are undetectable by the tests, 104 is a very high number. It's also possible that some users may have been clean at the time of their random test. It's further evidence that the drug problem may be far more widespread than MLB wants to admit. I'd like to see the media present the story more as an industry problem rather than just "oh my God A-Roid and Barroid are cheaters".

So, cheating is ok, and the only sin is getting caught. That's the way you live your life, and that's how you raise your kids. Anything you do in life or business to get ahead is ok as long as you don't get caught. Good luck to you and your kids. And Pete Rose regularly bet on the Reds to lose. He didn't trust Gullickson or Soto and bet on the Reds to lose every day they pitched.

Who's saying that? (Yeah, though, I would debate, by definition, PEDs as cheating before 2004...hell, I'll go out there and question 'em as magic pills even now.) The problem is that few on many levels and for years have even dealt with PEDs in sports (all of them) as an honest debate or with the nuance that they deserve (imo). So now, we're stuck with the Fox-FLASH-News-version-BAM-of-BOOM-baseball-reporting. There are a lot of idiots involved in this mess from throughout baseball and the media.

Make clear cut rules and penalties and enforce both. Players subsequently caught face matter-of-fact rulings. How many here even notice all the NFL-ers or minor league guys who "get caught"?

Beat me to it - Assuming it's true and he doesn't sound like he's denying it - he knew he was cheating, he cheated then he lied about it. He may be a great player but he's a cheater and a liar. Saying everybody else did it or someone else did something else that was worse doesn't make it right and doesn't change what he did. That there's no recourse doesn't make it OK - it doesn't change a thing.

The relevant part of Neyer's piece, IMO, was the excerpt from Verducci's book about A-Rod's insane work ethic and training regimen.

I don't give anyone extra credit for cheating "to win" because that's the whole point of cheating. I also don't put much stock in the Gaylord Perry example because that's in-game cheating, where you have to pull a fast one on thousands of people when they all *know* you're doing it. That's not cool either, but there is a competitive element, where if you catch the guy, he's out. You can't send A-Rod back to the clubhouse and tell him to come back 20 pounds lighter.

And no, I'm not entirely horrified by this because it's clear so many people have been juicing that maybe the playing field wasn't actually uneven. I'm just saying: Cheating is not cool, right? Agreed?