Anti-Doping News

Official pronouncements are that "there has been widespread anabolic steroid use" in the sport for an extended period of time and that "everyone involved...shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era". Some athletes were given a heads-up to drug tests. The problem wasn't isolated to one group. The suggested remedy is an outside and independent agency with the ability to investigate even in the absence of a positive test.

Sounds familiar? Nope, it's not about track. It's former senator George Mitchell's report on baseball. In one year, baseball gets to feel all the pain that track has had in dribs and drabs every year since the Carter administration.

Various media outlets are expressing some degree of surprise that Roger Clemens was named as a long-term doper. To those with a grip on reality, it's as much of a surprise as finding out that the government lies and people cheat on their taxes. One of the physical laws of baseball (as proven by Bill James) is that players' performance drops off in their 30s and the dropoff accelerates as they approach 40. Clemens' high levels of performance late in his career is as unnatural as that of Barry Bonds. The only difference is that Bonds is a jackass and Clemens is not; the press gave Clemens a free pass while Bonds' bad attitude more or less began the BALCO investigation.

At least ESPN had the class to put John Kruk on their news coverage; I can't possibly imagine that fat tub of goo using something designed to help him work out harder.