Kent on 'roids (in a discussing sort of way...)

There is no way that Donald Fehr or the attorneys of the MLBPA will ever allow anyone to draw blood from any player for drug testing purposes of any kind. Besides, I think it's naive to think that the Mitchell report had any effect in dealing with the issue of cheating in baseball.

I'm sure that there are still performance enhancers out there that are in development/available today that no one on the enforcement side is even thinking about detecting, and the drug producers will always be a step ahead of the testers.

Freezing blood for future testing might help implicate/clear today's players for HGH use, but it won't do a thing to solve whatever performance enhancing drugs are going to be in use in the future.

Donald Fehr questioned whether steroids actually caused health problems or would damage a person's body over time...he refused to even acknowledge if they enhanced a player's performance. Given the choice he wouldn't even say the words "HGH" or "Steroids" outloud....He'll say "Supplements" instead. He will remain opposed to anything that takes away a penny from his precious union memmbers. I am sure he is well aware that the surest thing to increase his player's contract amounts are bigger stats.... For Donald Fehr to get caught up in conversation on performing enhancing drugs, or to cooperate in a congressional investigation, is in direct conflict with what he surely must feel is his job: Keeping the members of the MLB Players Union rich. I wonder if he even really loves baseball. The purity of this sport needs to be maintained at all costs....banning Donald Fehr from Baseball would be a good start.

Oh - and I really think Kent's suggestion is part of his utimate plot to get cloned and take over the WORLD.

Sneaky guy.

Good cheaters are always going to sttay one step ahead of the authorities. But bad cheaters--and most people who cheat are not very good at it, otherwise they would spend their time doing things right--will get caught every time. Remember the morons who failed the drug tests in 2003, even though they knew they were being tested?

Taking blood samples or imposing Olympic style drug testing wouldn't catch the professional cheaters, but it would trip up the lazy cheaters. And that's a good start toward revealing just how many guys in baseball are cheating (I tend to believe it's a very large number). Then, and maybe only then, will the players who aren't cheating start, like Kent, to come forward and demand that the union represent their interests, rather than the interests of the cheaters.

But as long as Fehr continues to protect the guilty, he tars the innocence of those who aren't cheating.

And yes, it's cheating. If you have to ask why, you just aren't paying attention. The "Everybody's doing it" excuse doesn't apply, because baseball is the one game played across the ages, where a player from 1908 can be compared to one from 2008.

off topic....but this is a hilarious piece on old pal luis gonzalez. short, too.

http://mlbfleecefactor.com/2008/01/10/luis-gonzalez-an-option-for-mariners/

Steve: My point was merely that it's not fair to let one generation of players "cheat" because we compare Barry Bonds to Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth.

The sprinting comparison doesn't work, because the competition is against the clock or the yardstick. Today's track and field athletes are far better than those of a few generatiosn ago because of improvements in health, nutrition, equipment, and technology, and most of all, because there's money involved in these sports. That allows poor kids to participate, something that was merely a dream generations ago.

But baseball is played against other players, so no matter how improved the level of play, it's always a comparison between a hitter's skill and a pitcher's skill. If Barry had hit 756 hoe runs legitimately, we'd all be saying he's the greatest ballplayer ever. But because he cheated, we all disdain him.

For me, the saddest cheaters are the onew like Clemens and Bonds who were already Hall of Famers before they resorted to steroids, but felt the need to sully the reputations of the top 10 players in history by cheating to get into their company.

In another five-10 years, when everybody is no longer "Shocked, shocked," by the mitchell report, all of the steroid-era cheaters will get into the Hall of Fame, because voters will realize that everybody in this era was cheating, and that it's not fair to penalize some guys and not others, and because the steroid-aided hitters were swinging against steroid-aided pitchers.

Sad, but true about American society these days. We tolerate cheating because we're suffering from outrage fatigue.

Bye bye valdez

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080112&content_id=2344489&vkey=news_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la&partnered=rss_la

Do we get soy sauce with that?

Benzo Jones:

I'm no expert but I would think that the difference stems from the way that vision is thought of, medically, in 'perfect and imperfect' terms, while strength is thought of in 'variable' terms.

One can be 'legally blind', if one's vision falls below some standard, but one can't be 'legally weak', although Jean pierre's throwing arm immediately comes to mind when I say that.

One can have imperfect vision which is 'corrected' to some absolute standard, but we don't think of people as having perfect or imperfect strength, or 'correcting' one's strength.

I'm not saying that this difference is real, because of course strength and vision both vary, but I think the idea that vision has 'standards' is why the wider perception of eye surgery is different.

I'm not sure I can buy the argument that surgery is that much different than taking roids. Both "enhance" the body, they just use different methods of getting there.

It's kinda like when Kent makes the decision, truck or tractor.

BK-

Respectfully, I wasn't "big sexy" until after my Lasik surgery. Trust me, I was improved way past the norm.

It sounds like we're never going to come up with a legal definition to satisfy everybody about why steroids are cheating. But you can ask yourself the following question: do you want your kids doing it? The difference between Lasik and steroids is clear.

Do you want your kid getting a cortisone injection (a steroid, by the way) for unrelentgin pain in his hip? Yes. Do you want your kid taking unprescribed steroids to hit a baseball farther? No, unless you're Bobby Bonds or Bess Clemens.

I've had steroid injections under a doctor's care for back pain. Doctors caution patients not to have more than three injections every six months. There are serious consequences. Taking them when not prescribed by a doctor is cheating no matter how you slice it.

And, since 2003, it's against the rules of baseball, which makes it cheating no matter what you think.

And no, Gaylord Perry shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, because he cheated.

Oh, YAHTZEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/
article.jsp?ymd=20080116&content_id=2347204&vkey=news_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la
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