The Scold

Michael Sokolove – New York Times

Those of use who love sports have been dealing with the issue of performance enhancing drugs at least since Jim Bouton wrote Ball Four (that would be 1970). This is important because the Dick Pound fueled hysteria over the past few years has actually done some good (there has been plenty of attention paid to figuring out how to implement testing regimens) and some bad (like even when certain athletes test as clean they’re tarred with the PED brush).

In this story (which I believe will be available to NY Times subscribers only come Tuesday or Wednesday) Michael Sokolove profiles Pound, explains why he is the way he is, explains why his quest is quixotic, and does a fair job of laying out the path to the future of sport.

Essentially, people with like chemistry will compete against one another. There will be levels based on chemical compositions and ratios, and if you’re a PED taker or a freak of nature, your actual chemistry is what will matter.

I’m confident to predict that when this comes true, the big money league will be the one in which the athletes run the fastests, jump the farthest, hit the ball hardest. Everything else will be minor league.

Column: Boras is still draining the well

Yahoo! News

Because of the way I have Word Press set up I lose sight of the site when I blog it. I have to fix that, but for now let me cite (my daughter, by the way, is studying homophones) this story for citing a stat (number of pitchers to average 18 wins per year for seven straight years since 1969) while only giving the answer for six of them. Did the writer do it because the other six would support or undermine his overall argument? Do you think.

I can’t be sure until I figure out who the others are, but I have a strong suspicion.

Athletes’ unbeatable foe

Credit the Los Angeles Times

Regular visitors know that my problem with anti-steroids and PED rules is that they’re impossible to administer fairly, and fly in the face of the self interest of almost everyone involved (that is, we like extraordinary athletes, athletes like to win, and they are paid to be better than everyone else).

This LA Times series doesn’t convince me of the credibility of all its witnesses, but it clearly shows the problems with the present testing procedures.

Needless to say, if you can’t trust the tests, then what’s the prototcol for?

Is a Cubs title in the cards?

Jeff Passan – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

I guess I should make Jeff Passan a category. He’s consistently right about things, writes well and is sometimes, like in this comic look at recent Cubs’ history, very funny.

I’m not sure what to make of Soriano moving to center field. After the initial reluctance he seemed to adjust to left field. He’s fast enough to chase stuff down out there, so I suspect it could work (with some miscues).

As for the money, it’s funny. None of it makes any rational sense. Maybe the Cubs got better this week, maybe not, but at least the scratch is going to the performers.

Tigers dazed and confused – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

Tigers dazed and confused – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

I’ve spent enough time praising Jeff Passan this year that he should have his own category, but not yet.

This analysis of the Tigers’ woes makes for nice theater (read: column) but ignores the reality. There is no hope of really measuring a team’s abilities (and disabilities) in a seven-game series.

That fact makes it hard for baseball writers who have to maintain the pretext of, um, what may we can best call “inevitability.” But as sports consumers we shouldn’t buy into the drama they have to create to do their jobs. Not that it isn’t entertaining, and even sometimes meaningful, but because the purveyors of this news make it hard to tell the difference.

Baseball Musings:

SI’s Luft on Grimsley

David Pinto goes to the place I think all discussion about PEDs has to go, but in a comment far down the page Keith Levenberg takes it one step further. Well worth reading down the page if you have set ideas about drugs and the games.
I was going to link to Deadspin’s sober speculation of the contents of the redacted information in the Grimsley affadavit (about him, not by him), but the link from the affidavit to Albert Pujols’ trainer, Chris Mihfield, is too tenuous. Anyone who has hung around with professional athletes in the last 20 some odd years (and probably longer) knows that all follow the supplements, vitamins, and enhancement products to some extent. Mihfield recommending a guy to Grimsley who had bennies is a far cry from a smoking gun pointing at Pujols.

But then I think we need a lot less hysteria.

Baseball Buzz Bot!

Ballbug

I don’t think I’ve given proper respect to Ballbug, an excellent news feed aggregator. Ballbug collects the big baseball stories of the day from the mainstream media, and augments them with a healthy collection of related blog entries. It sometimes takes a little longer than I would like for the latest news to cycle to the top of the page during the day, at least sometimes, but it’s a great place to start your daily baseball reading. Highly recommended.