Baseball

The American League won last night in what turned out to be a well pitched contest. Mariano Rivera got the MVP based on one inning of good relief and a lot of sentimentality.

I only watched a couple outs here and there. I saw that Nathan got the save and Mauer got a hit, but overall, the thrill of the game has left me over the years. Yes, the winner gets home field advantage in the World Series, but we all know that doesn't matter much when you are a Twins fan.

The Bigenesis case is making more news nation-wide than the All-Star game.

It seems that figuring out HOW to give suspensions for those who look like they've done something wrong is going to be more difficult than expected. The current player agreement only allows for 50 and 100 game suspensions, and then a lifetime ban from the game IF the players fail a drug test. The problem is that none of the 20 or so players being investigated failed a drug test (okay, except for Ryan Braun... but that's a whole story in itself.)

SO that means the commissioner's office is going to have to figure out how to penalize players who didn't do anything specifically wrong, just generally wrong on principle. And then get the players union to agree to those penalties after all the appeals are exhausted. The commissioner does have leeway in these circumstances but there has been no precedent. Treading in new water is making everyone a bit nervous.

Since the players in question may have been using drugs not yet banned or tested for, they could and should have a legitimate issue with any kind of penalty imposed. They could also argue that many other players are doing the same thing and that baseball doesn't know about it because there were no whistle-blowers at other sports treatment facilities. In other words, because testing isn't done and because certain drugs aren't banned, they really aren't doing anything wrong at all.

The commissioner feels something needs to be done so that Washngton "leaves then alone" and civil libertarians are trying to figure out why Washington is involved in any of this at all in the first place. Rights are being trampled for the sake of perceived "purity" in the game. A purity that has never really existed.

It's a mess. And I don't think that anything anyone does is going to make the situation any better. When you pay players  millions of dollars a year to perform at their highest level, some of those players are going to invest some of that money into becoming better players so that they can maintain those million dollar paydays. Investigations like the Biogenesis situation are simply going to lead players to investigate more complicated ways of hiding potential performance enhancing "techniques." The cat and mouse chase will continue forever. Too much money is at stake for the chase to ever end.

Meanwhile, players with doctor's prescriptions, who have "ADD" get drugs that help them concentrate better than everyone else on the planet. It gives them an unfair advantage and its a proven performance enhancer (just ask the hundreds of thousands of college students who take them to pass tests). These drugs, the ones that REALLY enhance performance are legal and widely used by MLB players.

Since baseball is "90% mental" according to anyone who has played the game, it's hard for me to see why some players are allowed this advantage.

In effect, players who can't concentrate are allowed to take performance enhancement drugs that have horrible long-term consequences, but players who are at a physical disadvantage can't take supplements that will help them perform better physically. Supplements that may have no real long-term health concerns.

We live in a society where drugging kids to "help" them is the norm, so when players do the same thing we look the other way. Something is really wrong here. And the roots to that problem have nothing to do with players who are visiting places like Biogenesis.