Saturday, January 12, 2008

Stop Sign Put Up After Crash

Major League Baseball has established an investigations unit to investigate illegal drug use in the sport.

The Lords turned a blind eye when the gate receipts were rolling in, the mainstream sports media kissed up to the home run heroes and forgot to be journalists (then again, perhaps they never were, but Red Smith would have called everyone on the carpet), and the players' union decided to protect the bad boys.

So, is it about time? Or is it way too late?

Also, I saw where many of the major sports leagues were going to pitch in to develop better drug testing. Is that the right idea, or should they invest in better ways to heal their players faster? In baseball, wouldn't it be great to spend more money on helping avoid throwing-arm injuries? How about in football, where we ask the players to take a pounding and then are hypocritical because we do not help them when they are old and disabled? Wouldn't that make sense? It probably makes too much sense, and it probably costs too many cents, so they won't do it. Which means, of course, that the players will continue to look for the next best wonder drug -- not from a prescriber, but from someone in an alley behind the gym.

Because the same way vaccines can't keep up with new strains of diseases, the tests won't be able to keep up with new types of drugs. And the elite athlete will want to heal faster and train better. She/he will continue to look for the edge, especially when it's cutting edge.

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