Feds raid Jason Grimsley's distributor

Those who can get access to Buster Olney's blog...

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=olney_buster

Scroll down to yesterday's entry. He argues that the testing policy isn't working. It's interesting reading, even though he quotes baseball people anonymously, it's telling. The perception is that the bodies got bigger in the 90s, particularly the hitters. Late 90s, pitchers started in on the fun, particularly the middle relievers (guess guys who used to come in throwing 85, were now throwing 93). This one exec he talked to felt that in 2005, when they first started with the suspensions without any more mulligans, the bodies got suddenly and dramtically smaller. But this spring, a lot of the talk is that the bodies are getting big all over again. They attribute it to HGH. The players aren't dumb. There's no test, so they know they can use without getting caught. He argues, among other things, that the cheaters will always be ahead of the cops, but MLB is not setting enough speed bumps. For example, if they took blood now and stored the samples, they could be telling the players that the minute they have a reliable HGH test, they are going to go back and test samples, and anyone caught retroactively will be dealt with.

That is a paraphrase, but pretty close to stolen outright from what Buster wrote. He sums up with:

"This is what we do know, because our eyes are telling us, again: The bodies are getting bigger once more, at a time when baseball's testing program makes the U.S.-Mexico border look impenetrable by comparison. Any idiot can beat the system."

No one can say people aren't at least noticing anymore and commenting.

 

That's obvious. This latest raid is targeting a bunch of MDs and pharmacologists. But just because some yahoo doctor prescribes it doesn't mean it was warranted or medically necessary. Obviously anabolic steroids and HGH are not medically necessary for most people, particularly perfectly healthy, young baseball players.

Still, I think for every guy who is going to the trouble of getting a sympathetic MD to sign off, there are probably 20 who are smart enough to not want the paper trail that can lead back to them..

 

It won't give athletes any wiggle room. If you are on a prescription medicine that is on a banned list, you still have to go to them and get clearance. I'd love to see the mlb player who walks in with a doctor's note asking for permission to use anabolic steroids for medical reasons. It's why these guys are using surreptitiously, whether they get a prescription or not. 99.9 percent would get laughed at trying to argue that it's medically necessary.

They've given players permission, though, for legitimate reasons. The guy who comes to mind is Adam LaRoche, who I believe MLB gave permission to take banned drugs for Attention Deficit Disorder (which obviously was affecting his play on the field).