The “violation of rights” quote you cite was in reference to blood tests in place of urine tests. For some reason, blood tests have always carried a stigma with them that it is somehow a greater violation. One can certainly gain a lot more information about a person from such a test, but I would assume that the main objection is that blood is harder to mask because one can judge white blood cell counts along with other factors rather than just looking for a substance. Those readings could be indicative of other agents in the player’s system.

Regarding widespread usage: What do MLB officials realize? Isn’t that part of the problem? I don’t think anybody except for Bud Selig really has a grasp on how much Bud knows (and knew in the 1990′s for that matter) in comparison to what has been publicly acknowledged. Bud will tell you baseball has been very active in their drug testing program and that it’s working. Of course he’s going to say that. He was asleep at the wheel and it took congressional grandstanding to get him and the union to actually do something. Bud’s not going to acknowledge a lingering problem.

The problem with steroids lies in the nature of the drugs themselves. They’re illegal, so most of them are illegally made. People develop them specifically to not be detected. A player could probably bounce every four months to a new drug (provided it’s available) knowing that MLB has no way of finding it. That’s why I think blood tests are important because they can be revisited in later years. Players need to operate under the belief that even if they don’t get caught today, their present actions could still be proven a year or five years from now through blood tests.

I think there is still more usage than the commish is acknowledging. It has probably diminished greatly, but I don’t think it will ever completely go away.

Players like McGwire, Sosa, etc who have no tangible evidence against them can’t really be punished by MLB. The court of public opinion will certainly have it’s day in court, as we’ve seen with McGwire. It will be interesting to see the handling of Sosa by the BBWAA when he’s up for the Hall. There has always been suspicion about him but less circumstantial evidence than surrounds McGwire. Sosa may very well be the litmus test for how fringe players from this era will be judged.

Do you believe that the use of PED’s are more widespread than MLB officials realize? Also, what do you think should be done about the number of players who use these substances and do not get caught/face the punishments and media scrutiny of players like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds?

Can you explain to me exactly how tests are done now.

Thank you so much for your time!

I think PEDs definitely threaten the integrity of the game. The questions that surround the “steroid era” leave a lot of unanswerable questions about what was real and what was enhanced. Major records have fallen with the likely enhancement of steroids. It will be almost impossible to put the 1990s and early 2000 period in any type historical comparison, which is part of what makes baseball so interesting.

Part of the issue is that no one knows definitively what effect steroids and HGH have on a players performance. And much like certain conditioning, etc, it would probably vary based on the individual. If there is ever a point where those effects are better understood, we might be able to gain a little more perspective, but we’ll still have questions over who used and who didn’t.

Regarding the testing patterns, I question putting players on a testing schedule because it makes them aware of when they will be taking the test. If Player X knows that the first of every month he will be tested, what’s to stop him from seeking out enhancements that will not be detectable before his next test or are easily masked via other agents? I think part of the effectiveness of random testing is the fear of not knowing when the test will come. It’s more of a gamble on the players part to take a substance in hopes that they won’t get tested.

I don’t know exactly how often players are tested but I would suggest that the more often, the better. If once a month equals seven times a season (from March to September), then seven random tests would seem reasonable. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.

and, instead of random testing in the MLB, do you believe that testing should be done on a more regular basis? Say once a month or something of that sort?

First, I don’t think there is any end in site to the trickling of new names that come out. A-Rod by far is the big fish, but (and this is pure conjecture) if someone like Griffey were exposed as a user, or Derek Jeter for that matter, people’s faith in the game would be irrevocably damaged.

The other reason is because of the numbers. People don’t care so much about steroids in football because the records don’t mean that much. In baseball, where people are constantly trying to figure out who the best players are across all eras, steroids have created an era that makes it even harder to figure out who truly was the best. As if it wasn’t hard enough to compare a player from the 1940′s with a player from the 70′s or 80′s, now you have an entire decade plus where just players raw stats alone don’t tell you what they were truly capable of. Combine that with the home run records being broken and the 500 home run club being less exclusive, people have a hard time judging offense from this era.

This is something we’re living with now, but thirty or forty years from now, when people look at the history of the game, they will still have to acknowledge that the 1990′s and part of the 2000′s were the steroid era. It will be a factor in every discussion of that period now and forever.

Now, we may get to a point in the future where the effectiveness of steroids is somewhat debunked, which may change the view of this era. We could also find out that it has more of an impact than we ever realized. There is still a lot we don’t know.

At some point, the casual fans will stop caring and just take the game for what it is. The avid fans, such as yourself, will be the ones it effects the most.

Hope that helps. If you want to take a conversation off the site, drop me an email at the address on the sidebar and I’ll write you back.

The draft pick penalty would be difficult to implement, but I think it could be done. The biggest problem is compensatory picks and teams losing first rounders due to free agent signings. It would be weak to lessen the punishment by taking away a second round pick, or even a sandwich pick. At that point, do you roll it over to the next season? I think it could be worked out.