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Steroid Overload

espnBy: Bones

Today, it was leaked to the media that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are on the list of roughly 100 players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, along with the previously reported Sammy Sosa, A-Rod, Bonds, etc etc. All the sudden it’s like my life and my TV have been rewound to 2 months ago, 5 months ago, a year ago, 4 years ago. I am so sick of having my blissful and endless sports watching interrupted by this bullshit every few months. For the next week I have to watch ESPN trot out a long line of anchors, commentators, and athletes screaming down at us from way up on their high horse about how the game has been disgraced, blah blah blah….over and over. Gammons, Phillips, Kurkjian, Kruk, Player X…rinse, and repeat. How does this affect their Hall of Fame chances? Will you vote for him? Polls, followups, E:60 and Outside the Lines with Bob Ley. Same questions, same answers, over and over. It’s like a bad nightmare that keeps repeating once you fall back asleep. Finally, you aren’t scared anymore, you are just bored. I am not surprised anymore, nor do I care in the least little bit. I do not fucking care. At all.

All I care about is that I am forced to listen to a multi-media blitz of bullshit. It’s making my favorite channel unwatchable, and it pisses me off. The thing that really gets me is that someone is leaking this information strategically; every couple of months new names come out that should not be out, as the ‘list’ is in the hands of the FBI and supposedly is on double top secret probation. Except that someone who has access to the list is doling out one or two names at a time. Whoever it is obviously is very smart, and and very vindictive. They know that the best way to hurt MLB and each player on the list is to give them the slow drip of Chinese water torture every few months. Someone didn’t happen across the list in Stu Scott’s trash can, and it’s not written on bathroom stall wall- otherwise all the names would be out, and whoever it is hasn’t been fired or caught, or left a trail, or anything. Different sources get the scoop each time, so that tells me that they don’t even know who is leaking the information to them.

The most amazing thing is that the people who are getting outed are the ones who have most recently came out and said something to the effect that they didn’t do ‘roids, or that people should be punished who did do them, etc. Sosa, Ramirez, Papi, ARod, Bonds…all of them denied it, and this guy is obviously trying to make them look silly. It makes you wonder whether the next bomb will be Pujols or Ichiro. But really, I don’t think I am the only one who is sick of it, or has stopped caring who cheated and who didn’t. You can’t keep an entire generation out of the HOF. There was the live ball era, the dead ball era, and now there’s the steroid era, and stats and records fluctuated as such each time. I think its pretty dumb that record holders, players with great careers steroids or not, are not in or may never get in. The records stand as far as MLB is concerned, so the voters should recognize those who set them.

Ugh. I am tired of writing about this, or thinking about it, or watching it on TV. Why doesn’t ESPN come out with an ESPNLegal channel for all this shit? Keep the games separate from everything else- ‘roids, trials, Vick, Burress, and Brett fucking Favre. See which one has the higher ratings. I bet I know which one

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Anonymous doesn’t mean Anonymous anymore.

steroids-needlesBy: Billy BeerSlugger

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz names were just released as persons who tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs back in 2003.  SHOCKER!  However, this was an anonymous test and I’m not sure how anonymous test results can be traced back to a person.  Apparently this is the same anonymous testing that led to the outing of A-Rod as a doper.  There are 100 names on the list and I’m not sure how many names have gotten out or how they were leaked but if I were an MLB player and i submitted to an anonymous drug test by my employer then was subjected to scrutiny about said drug test I would be a little pissed off.  “Hey XYZ player we’re doing random drug tests and we’d like you to submit to one and no one will ever know the results.  We just want to see the extent of players using PED’s as a whole.”.  Well that shit got out. Someone’s responsible and needs to be held accountable.  I think the public is pretty tired of hearing that this star or that slugger was on roids, it’s been covered, reported, been to Congress and it’s abundantly clear that the MLB has had a problem with steroids and such.

If there’s 100 names on the list, either release all 100 at the same time or release none (like you told the players that you would). Don’t leak out 2 or 3 names every two months to drum up ratings for sports news so we can go over the steroid issue again…. and again….. and again.  I’m don’t pretend to be an expert on the situation but if the players were told the results were anonymous and now names are being attached to those anonymous results then the players union should sue the MLB. Do what you say and say what you mean.

The MLB had no problem making billions of dollars during the steroid era and looking the other way, now the MLB is vilifying players that it once championed in an atmosphere that it created or allowed to happen.  Where is the accountability of ownership for letting the problem spiral out of control?  Where are owners and GM’s in front of Congress testifying?  Where is the scrutiny upon the MLB labor agreements during the steroid era for not putting in steroid testing when the NFL and NBA had them.

This isn’t just the players’ fault and in a time where players are being disected for saying one thing and doing another, where is the outrage over the MLB allowing names to be leaked from an anonymous test.

Get past the “Who did steroids/hgh” question and ask the more important question, “Why was it allowed to happen and why wasn’t anyone in the MLB willing to stop it?”.

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Mainstream Media on MLB Steroids/HGH… Double Standard?

Sports with Bob McFlurry

So yea, one of my first picks in my Fantasy Baseball draft, Manny Ramirez,  is now suspended for the next 50 games as a result of a positive “Performance Enhancing Drug” test result.  Now before you get all, “You’re writing this article because you’re pissed that your Fantasy Baseball Team is going to hit the shitter.”, please read the rest of the article.

So what’s up with the Espn’s and other Major News outlets coverage of MLB players failing drug test as opposed to the NFL, NBA and NHL?  When is the last time you heard of an extremely visible NHL player or NBA player failing a drug test (Besides Weed in the NBA)?  Are you really going to tell me it’s because it doesn’t happen in those sports?  Please give me a break because you’re living in the same denial of those sports now just as you did in the late 90’s and early 2000’s of Major League Baseball.

Now I understand that the NHL is not as popular as the other of the 4 major sports, but when was the last time you have even heard of a player getting suspended in the NHL for anything other than roughing someone up more than a 5 minute major? Ever? Might have happened but it’s not running across the bottom line of ESPN as breaking news while you’re trying to hit on underage girls at Finnigans Wake.

And then you’ve got the NBA.  I’m not about to accuse the newly crowned NBA MVP, but when he came into the league as an 18 year old rookie he looked a whole lot older and bigger than anyone I have known when they graduated high school.  Freak of Nature, completely possible.  More shocking is that I haven’t heard of any problems in the NBA in terms of Performance Enhancing Drugs.

Now a brief ,and a little suspect, Google Search of “Steroids NHL” and “Steroids NBA” returned the following results on the NBA Steroid Problem and the NHL Steroid Problem.  Both commisioners claim not to have a problem with Steroids.  Again, possible yes, there’s a great chance that there’s not as much rampant use of PED’s in the NHL and NBA as there is in the Home Run obsessed MLB.  However, it’s certainly plausible that someone of high regard in either of these leagues has used  and tested positive for PED’s.

Don’t even get me started about the NFL.  I’m not saying that the NFL does a completely terrible job of policing their players intake of PED’s (because apparently people do get suspended), I’m just saying why does the American Mainstream Media make Rodney Harrison getting busted for HGH in 2007 not as big a deal as say Manny Ramirez or Alex Rodriguez?  Or what about the whole Carolina Panthers Offesnsive Line being on PED’s (allegedly) in 2003 as they steamrolled our Philadelphia Eagles on the way to losing the Super Bowl.  Where’s the outcry in that? Seriously?

The MLB has Senate hearings and calls an obscene amount of people/players to the witness stand and wastes Millions of taxpayer dollars to fix a problem that they have no business fixing. Yes the federal government should be going after  Steroids and HGH, however they should go after it the same way they do other drugs, get the distributors and manufacturers.  I’m not saying that taking down a major pubic figure who uses PED’s won’t help discourage their usage.  I’m just saying don’t kill my Fantasy baseball Season in the Process.