Baseball Journal: Let me shoot these ‘Roids into my ass first!

YEAH!  Time for some steroid-induced blogging!  You thought I was awesome before, wait’ll you read me juiced up!  Watch me pound out these words with some extreme Performance Enhancement baby!  YEAH!

Hold it, let me get the phone.  Yes, this JDH417.  Hey, Bud.  How’s it hanging?  What’s that?  You’re banning my blog for PED usage?  “Best interests of game.”  You’ve got to be kidding me!  Look you don’t have even a positive test on me.  You got nothing.  You have a report from an obscure Internet blogger?  Who?  “See the above paragraph.”  Oh.  Fine.  Well, I’m going to appeal this, continue blogging, and I fully expect to be paid my multi-million dollar blogging salary.  And a good day to you sir!

The nerve of some. . . Hold it, another call.  I’m so popular today.  Yes, this is JDH417.  Oh, it’s the IRS.  Yes?  Thanks to a tip from NSA Internet surveillance you think I’m not reporting massive amounts of income.  There’s a drone overhead.  Come out with my hands up.  Can I call you back?

Okay, while my lawyers sort all of this out, let me express a few opinions about PED usage.  For starters, I am against it.  First, baseball is all about history.  While it is generally a fallacy to compare players in different eras, we can pretend that performance records “in the Modern Era,” are relevant to one another, since the rules are the about the same.  Steroid usage distorts these records badly.  Second, I do not want baseball to become a pharmaceutical arms race and a competition to see who can score the best juice.  You know, like the NFL.  Third, think of the children, the children.  Moreover, imagine every minor leaguer, every foreign player, and every college player doing it.  Imagine kids at Williamsport from all over the world, peeing into cups, before being cleared to play at the Little League World Series.  (And don’t tell me that wouldn’t happen.)

Okay, none of these reasons are all that damaging, but simply, if the MLB allows unrestricted PED usage, every current and aspiring player will have to start doing them.  If these things were somehow good for your health in the long run, I’m sure you’d be able to buy them over of the counter, and you’d see commercials for them on TV all the time.  And then, like the NFL, former players would eventually file a class action lawsuit saying, “You encouraged us to use these drugs and now our bodies are ruined.”

Have I established that I don’t like PED’s?  (One last reason.  Barry Bonds has the home run record.  Case closed.)  Good.  Because next, I’m going after the MLB for the way they’re enforcing their PED rules.