Prince Albert in a can
On the heels of my mention of Albert Pujols, universally beloved baseball white-hat, Deadspin reports
that Jason Grimsley, the Diamondbacks pitcher heretofore largely known for once crawling through a drop ceiling to steal Albert Belle's illegally corked bat from the umpires' room after it had been confiscated, has coughed up some names in an investigation of human growth hormone use. One of them is Pujols' long-term strength trainer, dating back to his junior college days. Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but I owe David
an apology for insisting that everyone said that Pujols was squeaky clean (except on the age question).
Comments
If MLB doesn't crack down on all forms of 'enhancements' immediately, two things will happen: The government will (wasting our tax dollars) and they (being the organized sport of professional baseball) will lose all credibility with the fans. One way to solve this is to have every player from division A all the way up to the majors immediately submit to an Olympics/Tour De France level drug test (then quarterly and randomly). Let the chips fall where they may.
I haven't watched a MLB game since this whole BALCO thing started and TV ratings and attendance numbers tell me I'm not alone in that.
John, I think you're wrong. It's a fad issue that's going to go away. Do you really want to see Baseball with 100MPH fastballs and home runs? Do you want to see the NFL all slow and flabby? No one does, not even congress.
If we can keep Congress out of it, I'm looking forward to the cyberchembionic future of pro sports.
I almost added a tag about perhaps the future of sports is in unregulated enhancements. But until that point, everyone should be made to operate under the same rules.