craig, no commentary on the idea that mlb turned a blind eye during the mcgwuire/sosa fairy tale and thus perpetuated the idea that steroids should adapt the army’s “dont ask dont tell” policy?

maybe its fodder for a separate post unless you disagree.

Eric:  I file that under “Whatever you say about the testing and the union and the blowback and the implications for the future and history and everything else.”  I agree that MLB was complicit in the culture, but if we’re ever going to move forward, we have to look forward. While we can’t ignore history, I’d like it if we all spent more time thinking about how the world is now:  there is a testing program, the league is serious about it, the players say they are too and seem to want to limit the influence of PEDs, and everything else stems from there.

CC - i whole heartedly agree with your point. i guess what i have a hard time with is hearing these words come out of selig’s mouth.

a-rod will pay a certain price for his transgressions.. certainly higher than his peers who are guilty of the same thing.

but what price will selig pay? i find it disingenuous to even do a minor bit of grandstanding from his position given the history.

TC: I didn’t mean to make some broad moral statement about steroids. It was wrong for A-Rod to do it because it was against the rules, he knew it, and he did it anyway.  This doesn’t make him a villain or some unethical sleaze, but it does make him a rulebreaker in the most literal sense, and that’s a problem.

That said, I’d be more than prepared to see people have a wide-open informed debate about the pros and cons of steroids.  If it turned out that the rule made no sense in light of what we knew about them, by all means, change the rule.

I’m with TC, I got no problem with the juice.  As has been widely discussed, not every juicer was a jacked up Incredible Hulk type - see the list of players in the MR, particularly pitchers.  A lot of the benefits are as TC says, recovering more quickly and staying on the field.  When A Rod talked to Gammons he alluded to this, the comments about playing in 100 degree heat in Texas.

@ Craig - did A Rod break rules? hmmm…not sure about that.  We know that MLB wasn’t testing (save for the survey testing) during that period…although it was illegal to take steroids.  But what if he tested positive from garbage purchased legally at GNC?  He mentioned GNC a handful of times to Gammons and as we all know, it’s a crapshoot what is in “supplements”.

I think fans are gonna buy Bud’s BS.  It’s in the past….positive tests are down…if he whacks Bonds’ pee pee and gets another deal with the PA sans labor interruption he retires a hero.