A-Roids

At the end of a long catalouge of exposed transgressions cnnsi's Tom Verducci writes, "The 2003 list of players who tested positive in survey testing may become public and five of the top 12 home run hitters of all time and two-thirds of all MVP awards from 1995-2003 have been linked to performance enhancers [where'd he get those numbers? Why'd he pick those years?] But it's important to remember that what is going on here is the cleanup from that storm, the discovery and cataloging of a dirty era. The headlines do not reflect current events."[emphasis mine]. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/tom_verducci/02/18/spring.parity/index.html?eref=T1

How does he know? What we know is that baseball still does not test for all of the known banned substances. Any conviction that the game is somehow clean now is wrong headed. Cleaner? maybe, but prove it. What we do know, is that we have owners (how could Tom Hicks employ A-roid, Juan Gonzalez. Jose Conseco and Raffy Palmero AT THE SAME TIME and not have an idea baout steriod use?), GM's,managers, agents, reporters and fans willingly looking the other way. Speaking of A-Roid, aparently he might not have merely taken tic-taks for 3 years.

"He [ Angel Presinal,] has been thrown out of clubhouses in Cleveland, Anaheim and Texas.

"He's an unsavory character," said a source.

Another source said Presinal accompanied A-Rod for the entire 2007 season, staying in the same hotel as the A.L. MVP, but in a separate room with the "cousin" Rodriguez pegged three days ago as his steroid source from 2001-03"

But in one sense Verducci is right. Pitchers and Catchers have reported, spring is about to be sprung, and once real pitches are being thrown, steriods and the topic of PED's will be dismissed to the sidelines until the next offseason. it has happened the last five+ years and it will happen this year.