ESPN is reporting...

[Sports Guy]

I don't think it matters much....These guys are getting tested now and are showing to be clean.

I don't think it hurts Miggy's trade value if it turns out he was roiding back in 2004.

[JTrea81]

I don't think it matters much....These guys are getting tested now and are showing to be clean.

I don't think it hurts Miggy's trade value if it turns out he was roiding back in 2004.

But the Mitchell report isn't just about steroids, it's about HGH which can't be tested for right now. Anybody in baseball could be on HGH as it doesn't have the same side effects as steroids.

Like I said I'm not worried about Tejada. I'm worried about our American players, specifically Roberts. He came back awful quickly from that Tommy John surgery. If Roberts is implicated his trade value goes to zero and his performance will likely suffer after he comes back from his 50 game suspension. We don't have a 2nd baseman in the system yet to replace him.

[Moose Milligan]

I don't think it hurts Miggy's trade value if it turns out he was roiding back in 2004.

It will...

[davearm]

Why are we worried about Tejada? The names that are going to be released are from American pharmacy rings. Tejada if he was smart would just get his "stuff" from the Dominican where the Feds can't trace it. Heck anybody could walk into a store down there and get PEDs off the shelf...

You're being awfully naive here JT.

I have no clue what that report is going to contain, or how the investigators have obtained evidence. But I strongly suspect that they left no stone unturned, and the probe is going to go a heckuva lot deeper than just domestic pharmacy records.

The notion that any ballplayer that got their smack from the Dominican is going to walk away from this mess scot free is highly dubious.

[Greg Pappas]

You're being awfully naive here JT.

I have no clue what that report is going to contain, or how the investigators have obtained evidence. But I strongly suspect that they left no stone unturned, and the probe is going to go a heckuva lot deeper than just domestic pharmacy records.

The notion that any ballplayer that got their smack from the Dominican is going to walk away from this mess scot free is highly dubious.

You beat me to it. Well said.

[Greg Pappas]

It's not far greater than I realize.

If you all think this is just limited to Tejada, you better find another hobby now, because you're going to be crushed.

As far as cheating goes, there's always been shady methods of gaining an edge, in baseball especially. From spitballs/scuffballs to corked bats to cocaine to amphetamines, to steroids to HGH.

It wasn't banned by MLB until a couple seasons ago when Congress breathed down MLB's neck about doing something about their policy. Before that they were complicit because no one (i.e. the fans like you) were the wiser, and everyone was enjoying record revenues.

Now, most players will either get off or more likely the bigger stars who can afford it will find ways around the tests or just use high end stuff like HGH/insulin stacks that are undetectable, until that becomes discoverable and then science will advance and something new will be all the rage.

I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying, that's the way it is. It's a shame because it creates a situation where all the players who want to keep up will use the same stuff. Don't think it doesn't help with injuries, pain management and all that in addition to whatever performance/muscle gains.

Whatever was in the past should be just be given amnesty. From here forward, players should be aggressively, randomly tested (I don't believe they are. It's easy to "cycle" if you know when the tests are coming), and if they're caught, punish them.

But as a great homerun hitter once said, "let's not talk about the past". Because if you really want to cast stones at all players who have used something, we're going to have to field replacement players again.

Throughout your post you make some fine points, but this bolded part strikes at the very heart of the whole HR record debate. I imagine that if Bonds is found to have taken steroids that you will give him a free pass and honor his record, while I will always scoff at his "record" and consider it a fallacy. McGuire, Bonds, Sosa, Giambi... all embarrassments to the true nature of the greatest game in the world. I am not naive enough to believe that many others couldn't have juiced and tainted records and such, but wrong is wrong. I will not let it slide, and many others like me won't either.

Your post takes a stance, and I appreciate that we may just view it differently.

[Rockbird]

We're coming from different perspectives. I believe just about every ball player in the last couple decades was on something, but players like Bonds had special talent that caused them to rise above the rest regardless of juicing. And he still really did actually hit those homeruns (irrespective of what may have aided him. It's not like notorious spitballers, corked bat users, amphetamine and cocaine users are not in the HOF too) for better or for worse. You can't ignore history.

You (and to be fair a large amount of sports fans) believe its just Bonds and a few other "big fish" who were users, and its completely unfair and an affront to the vast majority of players who did it "clean".

My amnesty comment simply means you can either go back parsing records, erasing stats, setting double and triple standards, completely screwing up the history of a record keeping intensive game, or you can say "live and let live" for what happened in the past and become smarter, more stringent and more effective in the future to rid the game of PED, by more random tests, more banned items like masking agents and various harmones, strict doctor and pharmacy supervision, etc.

Ultimately what needs to be done is a universal Olympic like committee that monitors all professional athletes in all the major sports so they must answer to an independent, efficiently run, no nonsense committee with strict, universal penalties, but that will never happen. There's no easy solution.

It's a mistake and a waste of time to try to parse through past records of who did what with the aid of what because it's never going to be totally fair and will do far more to ruin the integrity of the game than letting history stand.

[Gurgi]

Remember the incident with Penn last year? When he was scheduled to start a game in springtraining and forgot his bag? He then drove all the way back to the headquarters to pick it up instead of telling another player or manager to get it for him. It always made me wonder. Crazy thing to do really unless you really couldnt let anyone see what was in the bag. The Orioles really got steamed over it. Much more angry than I would of expected for a simple mistake. I always figured there was something left unsaid.

I hope and pray for a day when this issue will be over. When I dont suspect every player. But I give no one the benifit of the doubt anymore. You would have to be a fool too now. The fans have been lied to too many times to trust anyone's word. Even to trust anyones urine test. Now I just assume they all could be cheats. If they have break out years like Cust. I just assume he figured a good way to cheat this season.

Sad.... state of affairs.

[Rockbird]

Remember the incident with Penn last year? When he was scheduled to start a game in springtraining and forgot his bag? He then drove all the way back to the headquarters to pick it up instead of telling another player or manager to get it for him. It always made me wonder. Crazy thing to do really unless you really couldnt let anyone see what was in the bag. The Orioles really got steamed over it. Much more angry than I would of expected for a simple mistake. I always figured there was something left unsaid.

I hope and pray for a day when this issue will be over. When I dont suspect every player. But I give no one the benifit of the doubt anymore. You would have to be a fool to now. The fans have been lied to too many times to trust anyone's word. Even to trust anyones urine test. Now I just asume they all could be cheats. If they have break out years like Cust. I just assume he figured a good way to cheat this season.

Sad.... state of affairs.

You're reaching. It means the kid is aloof, not a drug user.

[Gurgi]

You know we have to stop the drug cheating because it is a horrible slippery slope.

In China. Yao Mings parents were tall. Not 7'6'" but in the high six foot range. The goverment decided for politcal reasons they wanted to make China good at basketball. The picked a big man and woman and made them mate and have Yao. When he was young they began to give him growth hormone. Until he reached the size that he is today. He is a manufactured human.

If we dont at least make the effort to stop this. Rich parents in countries will do this to their own children. All in the hope of making another Tiger Woods.

Listen. You know the father of the Williams sisters was poor and lived in Los Angelos. He saw on TV one day how much money female atheletes could make playing tennis. So he told his wife they were gonna have two more children. He only wanted girls and he wanted to train them to be tennis stars. What a nut! If he had lived in a time of growth hormone I am sure he would of drugged his kids also.

People are strange out there. We need to slow this down. Before parents start getting the stuff so there kids can play better little league baseball. And they are parents out there that will do it. Belive me.

[mikezpen]

Knowing the Orioles cursed luck, Tejada WILL be named, and they won't be able to get Paul Bako for him.

[RShack]

Throughout your post you make some fine points, but this bolded part strikes at the very heart of the whole HR record debate. I imagine that if Bonds is found to have taken steroids that you will give him a free pass and honor his record, while I will always scoff at his "record" and consider it a fallacy. McGuire, Bonds, Sosa, Giambi... all embarrassments to the true nature of the greatest game in the world. I am not naive enough to believe that many others couldn't have juiced and tainted records and such, but wrong is wrong. I will not let it slide, and many others like me won't either.

Your post takes a stance, and I appreciate that we may just view it differently.

Are you sure you really view it differently? You refer to the fact that you will always think poorly of them and will scoff at their records. Well, of course you will. Many people will. But that is something that amnesty can't do anything about. Amnesty can't change people's opinions. Amnesty is not an attitude thing, it's a legalistic thing. Amnesty only says, "You're caught, but you're not busted, there is no formal penalty." Which is all they can say anyway for the time-period before MLB banned roids. They can't go back and retroactively make it a hanging offense for the people we're soon gonna hear about. So they can't hang them.

But neither can they force anybody to respect them. Reputations will be ruined. Raffy's about to have a whole lot of company. There will be bad press, and popular ballplayers will be named, and it will be a great scandal. The non-sports parts of TV will be all over it. It will be the biggest sports scandal since the Black Sox. It will be bigger. I trust that we all know what the TV people are gonna do with this. Many fans will be broken-hearted. Heroes will be cast out of Eden and sent to the Land of Nod, reputation-wise.

But that's what it's gonna take to get it over with. For the people named, both their good stats and their bad rep will persist. Maybe the guys not-named will be free of it. Better to have the media circus, and the fans' broken hearts, and just get it done with. Until that happens, it won't ever be over, and some of the innocent guys will be tainted by it too. I figure it's best to just get it done and over with. It won't be pretty, but at least it will be over. At least with respect to the 'Roids Era.

There will still be an arms race between the substances and the tests, but the legality issue will be clear. After we get this big media bloodbath done, it will be the end of the era where it was "wrong but not banned". They can't go back and retroactively make it a hanging offense for the people we're gonna hear about, but from now on it will be a hanging offense. Whatever the PED penalties are now, after the upcoming bloodbath, I expect that the penalties will get worse.

[wildcard]

But the Mitchell report isn't just about steroids, it's about HGH which can't be tested for right now. Anybody in baseball could be on HGH as it doesn't have the same side effects as steroids.

Like I said I'm not worried about Tejada. I'm worried about our American players, specifically Roberts. He came back awful quickly from that Tommy John surgery. If Roberts is implicated his trade value goes to zero and his performance will likely suffer after he comes back from his 50 game suspension. We don't have a 2nd baseman in the system yet to replace him.

50 games? Is that what the first offender get? I thought the CBA said 10 or 20 games. I wasn't thinking that Gibbons would get more then that.

[theobird]

I don't think it matters much....These guys are getting tested now and are showing to be clean.

I don't think it hurts Miggy's trade value if it turns out he was roiding back in 2004.

Maybe not. But I would start dealing the second the last pitch of the World Series is thrown. For whatever reaon, the Mazzone firing has me believing that MacPhail is setting the stage to do a total rebuild. And you know I love that scenario. I finally have some faith that a whole lot of young talent is heading to Baltimore. And not a minute too soon.

[Dr. FLK]

Why are we worried about Tejada? The names that are going to be released are from American pharmacy rings. Tejada if he was smart would just get his "stuff" from the Dominican where the Feds can't trace it. Heck anybody could walk into a store down there and get PEDs off the shelf...

If any of these guys were smart, they would have all gotten them from places like you suggest. You're assuming a level of intelligence that probably isn't there in many cases...