Good PED rant, Eric.

This Romero thing is weird and, assuming all the facts here are true, I feel bad for the guy. Why should he be the one to pay for the union’s error? And what was he taking, anyway (I like how, in the article, he says he doesn’t want to name it so that young athletes don’t go out to buy it)? It all smells a little strange to me.

Furthermore, the supplement in question was supposed to have a warning on the label telling you that it was no good for athletic competition. He brought the bottle into the arbitration hearing and it had no warning.

You do kind of have to feel bad for Romero, who really seems to have just been thrust into a horrible situation. Provided it’s all true, and I think I believe it. It doesn’t make sense for the MLBPA to say it screwed up if it didn’t, and Romero has a lot to lose if he’s determined to be a liar.

The MLBPA screwed up here. They told him something was okay, and it wasn’t. And even if Romero’s lying, this situation with the MLBPA giving bad advice clearly happened, and there was little to prevent it from happening to any particular player. MLB can’t be lenient in a situation like this, regardless of Romero’s intentions, because if they don’t it provides an out for future cheaters. They have to puruse “negligence” just as hard as “cheating.” So this union error is costing Romero 50 games and $1.25 million.

i never understood the PED outrage, especially from fans. MLB didnt test for it, so why WOULDNT you take them? as a fan, i’m more disappointing in the players that DIDNT juice, since they were blowing an opportunity to make the team better.

i’m being slightly facetious but add to the argument the fact that the line between legal supplement and illegal steroid is an extremely fine line that is not adequately defined (and probably completely obtuse to anyone without a chemistry PhD) and i find the moral condemnation laughable. moreover, some of these idiots were taking HGH, which from what I read doesnt affect performance, just literally inflates your muscles to cartoonish degrees.

the whole thing is a whole big, meh whatevs, to me. it never made me like baseball ball any less, not by the slightest bit. the only thing changed in my mind is my opinion of congress was lowered (you’d think my estimation would have bottomed out by now) and i read MSM columnists even less, to the point of pretty much nil right now. oh, and the MLBPA, they look like a bunch of jerks too.

and of course we should all be thankful for the mitchell report for revealing paul lo duca’s thank you note to his steroid dealer that he wrote on dodger stationary. what a clown. that really made my day.

Good article Eric.

Regardless of what any player says they did OR did not do, take OR did not take, they will always be viewed with suspicion due to the actions of their peer’s in the past.

Can we please remove the pic of JC with a needle in his ass. I think if we can all agree on something its that JC Romero wasn’t shooting up.

Also, you are missing some things on your timeline:

7/+a few JC Romero asks the Phillies trainer to take a look at the drug. The Phillies trainer says it looks ok, but sends a sample to MLB, and tells JC to seek a 2nd opinion.
7/+ a few more days JC asks his nutritionist if there is anything wrong with the supplement, the nutritionist agrees with the Phillies trainer that the supplement is OK.
8/?? Bud Selig allegedly has a report on his desk from the sample of the supplement sent to MLB from the Phillies trainer. Selig neglects to inform the Phillies or JC Romero that he will test positive if he takes this supplement.

The following Link is a good read on what allegedly happened

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20090106_Phils__Romero_denies_wrongdoing_on_eve_of_suspension.html

is getting screwed royally, but the players brought this on themselves by they handled the roiding issue in the first place. The NFL is going through the same crap with StarCaps thing. You broke federal and state laws to use PED’s now these are the breaks sorry Charlie. We now know why JC can pitch 8 million days in a row and not get hurt now.

is that we don’t know who used them with any kind of certainty (other than the guys who admitted to it, b/c even the tests are apparently not airtight). I believe it was far lower than the 90% you cite, but even if it was 99.999, we don’t know who that .001 was, and how to judge what they accomplished in comparison to those who used. What if Ken Griffey Jr. or Greg Maddux were the only two players not to juice…wouldn’t that make them by far the greatest players of all-time, considering the competitive disadvantage they were at? But we don’t know and likely never will.

I like to look at the “steroid era” as a kind of reverse deadball era, where the offensive stats were highly inflated (and therefore, regardless of PEDs, Barry Bonds isn’t as impressive as Babe Ruth or Ted Williams). The only problem with that is that everyone in the deadball era was playing by the same rules with the same dead balls (ouch), something that we can’t say with any certainty was true over the past 15 years. And that’s a shame, for a sport with such a rich history and where half the fun is comparing players across eras.