Almost Too Good To Be True

The story of Rick Ankiel reinventing himself as an outfielder after flaming out as a pitcher has been one of the feel good stories of this year. And like just about everything else that has been good for baseball in recent years; the ugly issue of performance enhancing substances has reared its ugly head.

You gotta love the legalism here, the agent hiding behind medical privacy laws and the "shipments stopped after it was banned." Of course the overt delivery of Human Growth Hormone stopped. These guys aren't entirely stupid. Even Big Head BALCO Barry Bonds* maintains that he was a innocent victim of circumstance who didn't know what his trainer was having him take.

Stories like this really makes you wonder just what in the world the Mitchell investigation is going to come up with and what the fallout of the findings will be. Landis barred for life players who knew of gambling related activity, did not participate in it, but failed to report it. While these are different times it would be in the "best interests of baseball" for all past steroid and HGH users to face some kind of sanction.

IMHO it would be the only way baseball can save face in light of this ever growing scandal.