People can make all the New Jersey jokes that want, but when it comes to steroids, only the kids playing fair are laughing now. New Jersey became the first state to institute a state-wide steroid and other designer performance enhancing drug testing policy for high school athletes.
This is a great victory for fairness in sports. It’s a victory for the kid who is the first one in the gym and the last one to leave. It’s a victory for the kid who dives into the stands for loose balls and for every kid who runs the floor at full speed whether winning by twenty of losing by twenty.
It’s a victory for kids who don’t have the money or contacts to cheat.
Athletes who test positive for any one of EIGHTY banned substances faces a one year loss of eligibility…for all sports. Indiana is mulling a similar program, but all other states have yet to act.
Interestingly, it comes the same day as Russ Grimsley is singing whole arias to the Feds about not just traditional steroids, but human growth hormone, the as yet “undetectable” enhancer only identifiable through blood tests.
Yet Bud Selig and Donald Fehr do nothing.
Look, to Selig and Fehr drug use means more offense, more offense means more broken records and more headlines and that means money! I mean, these players are superheroes. Didn;t you hear Shaquille O’Neal? To him, we’re all merely “earthlings.” Rules that apply to the rest of us, simply have no business being applied to our most precious natural resource, the professional athlete.
Well let’s call their proceed what they truly are…DIRTY MONEY. A black eye to the game, a jaundiced eye to those who play fair and a bawdy wink like a two-bit hooker to anybody who can help cram that extra dollar into the MLB coffers and smile while looking the other way. After all since everything ’80s is in again, isn’t “greed is good” in too?
Make no mistake, we are living in the last days of the failed Bud Selig era, an era defined by cover-ups, a lack of conviction and a vacant expression when faced with a possible, then decided tie of not just a baseball game, but the All-star game. No, Grimsley’s perp walk into custody and the interview room is the footstep of doom to Serlig, Fehr and many players who now are wondering if their name is below the now famous “black magic marker.”
My God, it will be like a shooting gallery.
Good. This battle is for the kids – their physical health, their trust in honesty, their shaken but soon to restored pride in the integrity of the game.
This is for the fans – who are anesthetized to the point of death by ESPN glorifying Bonds’ shameful non-suspension. Any good American would have suspended Bonds. Let him sue. Think a judge will side with him? Well, maybe that chump in Georgia who let the pot dealing safety play for Georgia Tech against Miami, but even he was out of office days later. Hope he enjoyed the game.
Why blame ESPN again? Well in a related matter they think we forgot that Danny Almonte was the “Little League cheat.” Remember the baby Pedro striking out 18 kids every little league world series game he pitched? Oops…turns out he was almost 15! playing completely out of his league.
…and they think we forgot.
Well in the “chickens come home to roost” poetic justice that resulted, not only have we heard NOTHING about his “accomplishments” against players in his REAL age group (there were none)…
…Not one, single MLB team drafted him to play.
If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind.
After years of impunity, responsibility has become in vogue again. Steal from the shareholders, go to jail. Cheat at any sport, lose no less than a year and have your name forever tarnished. Turn a blind eye, take responsibility for your failure to act.
Like every other citizen of this country.
Steroid cheaters? Hang ’em high.
On second thought, hanging is too good for them.
[…] Not only does it read like a confession and detail to perfection Bonds’ alleged steroid use, it debunks the myth that performance enhancers like Human Growth Hormone and other performance enhancers make you look like King Kong.  Some increase muscles mass, but some slow the heart rate making it easier to cope under pressure, some increase stamina while those not cheating get tired.  In short, after reading Game of Shadows, it is impossible to come away not believing that steroids can be used by golfers as well as any other athlete. New Jersey – recognizing an epidemic that filtered down to high school girls turning to steroids not just for lacrosse or field hockey, but for weight loss and body streamlining became the first state to pass mandatory testing for all student-athletes for over 80 different performance enhancers. […]