12/13/07

The Miller Report

I don't think anyone was surprised today when the Miller report came out to see the many players mentioned as users of performance enhancing substances. I think ultimately the "report," commissioned by Major League Baseball (MLB), will result in even more talk about the subject, as well as allegations towards players (some warranted, some not), but I don't think much will be done about it. Before MLB spends millions of dollars to "bust" the marquee names of their sport, I think they should consider a few things, and look to a few other sports as examples. Two sports I hold near and dear have felt the ramifications of enacting testing policies, but in different ways. The first, track and field, has been in the news a fair amount recently, especially with the Marion Jones fiasco. The Track "heads" led by the IOC and WADA have taken a firm stance but have been only good enough to get a few convictions of major stars, mostly due to lack of funding. The result of this: more speculation that most are dirty, but not enough dough to make good tests. On the other hand, professional cycling has taken, in my opinion, the hardest line against cheating, and does a good job of testing and punishing. The problem here is: you guys caught too many people, and all the stars of the sport aren't competing. This has led to a large percentage of cycling fans becoming apathetic about the most historic races, such as the Tour de France, b/c now they don't have to speculate, they KNOW the players/riders are dirty. Pardon my cynicism, but it's hard not to think/believe that there are a large percentage of professional athletes doping or gaining an unfair advantage in some way...which leads me to the solution....just legalize the stuff. Then we can glorify not only the athlete, the brand they wear, the team, their coach, their agent, but also their "physician" who manages to get just the right formula of "supplement" that provides for maximal benefit with minimal side effect. It's bad logic, I realize, but the only solution I can think of. Really, I'm just tired of hearing about it.

1 comment:

Penny said...

Legalize it? I don't think so. I agree that it seems like the best solution out there, but it would have too many negative consequences. Let's see what the Hankster has to say about this one...