ESPN.com – GEN – Bonds’ trainer allowed to retest seized vials

ESPN.com – GEN – Bonds’ trainer allowed to retest seized vials

Why Bonds’ childhood friend wants to retest the vials isn’t obvious, to me at least. Why the defense is making a big deal about the timing seems specious, too. It’s 10:00, do you know what performance enhancing drugs your favorite athlete is taking? Or thinking of taking?

But the really interesting point here comes in the last graf. THG users are getting banned en masse by the Olympic committee, but the drug wasn’t banned by baseball until a few months ago. But more crucially, there are athletes who used supplements from Balco that Balco supposedly said were legal, that may not have been legal.

Just like when Jackie Onnasis went to a doctor to address her depression and he shot her up with methamphetamine (without telling her, apparently), the Balco dudes could have been dosing our most beloved athletes by telling them they were getting legal stuff. Which in baseball, at least, THG was.

Of interest, too, is Jorge Posada’s comment about the MLBPA agreement with the World Cup. He said, Cool, that’s a good thing, but they have to tell us what’s banned. Why? Because, he says, he uses a fat burner and somone else he knows uses something else, both of which are on the Olympic banned list.

The point is that maybe there is a dark side to this story, but I doubt it. I’d rather my athletes train on chicken fried steak and mounds of mashed potatoes, but until someone comes up with some new rules that our overmuscled friends can work with, we’re subject to the market place. And there, strength beats ethics. At least most of the time.