Italian police broke up a steroid distribution ring earlier this week when they seized 215,000 doses of prohibited drugs. Many of these drugs were bound for US Soldiers in Iraq, but were found when they were returned through the postal system after being sent to the wrong address.
A lot of people will be drawing comparisons between the soldiers in Iraq and baseball players with the whole steroids thing, and this is a comparison that needs to be drawn. MLB is trying to tell us that baseball players are stand up guys that should be emulated by today’s youth, and this is exactly what is happening. Today’s youth is increasingly beginning to use steroids despite the consequences because they see their idols using them and they figure that if that person is willing to take the risks for the benifits that it brings, then they will too. Many of our soldiers are just recently out of adolescense, and want to get that promotion by having a better PT test, or else want to have better reflexes while going door to door looking for insurgants and would prefer to have a better chance to not get shot.
Of course, another comparison that needs to be made between baseball and the armed forces, is that the armed forces have a zero tolerance policy. If you test positive and are an officer, you are out. If you are not an officer, then you are either out or you have the option to take substance abuse training and demotion, although I am not exactly sure exactly how that works and am going off of random snippets of conversation I have heard. If anybody in the armed forces or that is more knowledgeable about this sort of thing reads this, leave a comment or shoot me an email. The point is, baseball gives you a 10 day suspension which will cost you a small amount of money; however, having not been caught for however long, you have already been able to put up numbers that get you a contract that is 10 times larger than a 10 day suspension loses you. As of now, there is still a possibility to get into the hall of fame even if caught cheating. Where is the downside?
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