Rage against the Merriman

Yesterday Jason Taylor made some very important comments about Shawn "Tainted Sample" Merriman. Taylor believes, as everyone should, that Shawn Merriman is a cheater and should not be afforded any awards or honors. In fact, I think the NFL should reexamine its penalties for cheaters so they cannot be given any awards that year.

"You really shouldn't be able to fail a test like that and play in this league, to begin with," Taylor stated fairly. "To make the Pro Bowl and all the other awards, I think you're walking a fine line of sending the wrong message."

Merriman, if you remember, tried to float the flimsy 'tainted sample' excuse for his positive test. Where is the healthy dose of jouranlistic skepticism that should accompany this ridiculous excuse? ESPN, Fox, NBC, all ate up this and have never followed up.

Also forgotten was the trial balloon that Merriman floated that he would sue the company of the supplements to clear his good name. I believe he also stated he would use this opportunity to become a role model for kids. Please, Shawn. Why don't you feed hungry kids with your new found faith in humanity as well? Not only is Merriman a cheater, but a bold faced liar!!

What confounds me is that these bogus statements were heaped upon us scantly five weeks ago and no one is following up. Has our attention span lapsed so severly that we no longer have even this limited recall? Why is Roger Goodell not said anything about this cheater?

Can you imagine the outrage if this happened in the MLB? Not only would the sports press not leave this alone, but the mainstream news organizations would also be covering it. Why is there such an incalcualbe double standard for the NFL?

MLB steroid tests are in the news again this week, and I'm sure there will be wall to wall coverage. I realize that for so long the sports press was complicit with MLB, in fact DCS discussed that recently, so now everyone is skeptical about allegations in MLB. Unfortunately, the NFL has this false perception that it is the cleaner league. Let me tell you, it isn't. Untold of numbers of players must be using HGH, which is untested, in the NFL.

I'm all for cleaning up MLB, I just don't understand why the NFL gets such a free pass. It is by far the most popular sports league in American with television revenues this year only of over $3 billion. Isn't about time that the rest of were as angry as Jason Taylor and started demanding more from the NFL? At mimimum let's not reward those who cheat. Can't we at least have that Mr. Goodell?

Bud, Bonds and Balls

More big time trouble for the MLB. The very first round of drug testing in 2003 was to be confidential; hence all players willingly gave samples without fear of penalty exposure. After three years of wrangling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that investigators can use the names and urine samples of about 100 players that tested positive in 2003.

Here's the sequence of events;
1.)the player is promised confidentiality and gives a sample.
2.)instead of destroying samples and records, the IRS raids the labs and seizes the goods.
3.)more than 5% of the MLB tested positive resulting in the now "drug testing program".
4.) the feds are now using this evidence to bolster ongoing investigations or other creative persecution-prosecution techniques.

We all know the big names, Bonds, Sheff, Giambi, but there are 100 total. That means a hell of a lot of other big names tested positive. What is Bud going to do now.

The morality of steroids aside, i must agree with the players on this one. This is the reason the union didn't want testing in the first place, they felt it would overstep and lead to other gateway drugs. The players were given their word that the tests were confidential, but now they are not. The union was correct, why negotiate with people like this.

Here's where things get really interesting, most expect this to further the Bonds perjury case, right? Wrong, if Bonds was tested in 2003, he was already with BALCO and Arnold of U of I. They were in the business of creating undetectable juice. This means that a revelation of the Bonds test would be negative and actually prove his "innocence". Could this steroid mess get any more fucked up?

Like everyone else, i'm so sick of this steroids mess and MLB. It's time for Bud to do a mea culpa? "I, we, everyone fucked up, we'll admit it and lets just move on". Do what you want with the records because no one is going to believe them in 20 years anyway. By not takcling the issue head on, Bud is digging the biggest ditch on Earth. How will he ever get out from under this? He won't, not until he leaves in 08.

The bottom line is that this is a scandal, and like all scandals we yearn for more 'juicey' details. The details in this one involve the names-the proof positive. No non-denial denials in this one, if you test positive creativity won't work. No "tainted sample" Merriman's here. Baseball, fans, and media are piling on right now. So what names will the samples reveal. I look most forward not to the muscle heads, but to which pitchers names pop up. Clemens, Petite, etc? They don't look like juicers, but they recover at an astounding rate.

Bud, Mitchell and the owners haven't done anything so far-simply hoped the problem will go away. This may be the event that finally forces their hand.