The Roids Strike Back

Are you remotely surprised?

MLB tests for steroids. It doesn't test for Human Growth Hormone. So this week we hear allegations that Gary Matthews, Jr. was purchasing form of HGH from a pharmacy in Alabama.

We also read that Barry Bonds’ foot increased two-and-a-half sizes since 1999. You know what they say about guys with big feet.

The solution to all this is simple. Save the samples. Test them every year for five years. End of story. Oh, it’s expensive, but if baseball can spend $21 million on Jason Marquis, can’t they spend a few million to store some blood?

Of all professional athletics this side of weightlifting, baseball has had the weakest steroid testing program. Of all professional athletics, baseball has the most to lose. If a black fly in your chardonnay is ironic, then what do you call that?

It’s not that steroids in football, track, basketball, tennis, and hockey isn’t bad. Cheating is cheating. But other sports involve like skill vs. like skill. They involve speed vs. speed, strength vs. strength. If all are cheating, all have the same unfair advantage.

That’s why there isn’t the indignation when the Carolina Panthers go the Super Bowltm just after going to the pharmacy.

But baseball is different. Baseball involves one guy throwing the ball and another guy hitting it. The skills are so different, that only one player in baseball history what truly fantastic at both.

Since steroids arrived in force during the 1990’s, as many pitchers have taken them as hitters. But the steroids simply don’t help a pitcher throw as much as they help a home run hitter hit the ball a long way. I’ve the home run increase here in more detail. The increase is striking.

So now 60 home runs in a season means little, fifty means less. No one knows what 500 means. They were magic numbers in baseball. Now they aren’t.

You can’t tell me how many yards Emmitt Smith rushed for, or how many career TD’s Jerry Rice scored. Give us a generation, and I fear no one will care how many home runs Albert hit.

That’s what we’re losing.

Your move, Bud.