What if the government targeted prominent Christians and asked them about infidelity under oath? What if they prosecuted those Christians who would inevitably lie to protect their community standing and their families? After all, they did break they law – they committed perjury. Would that have been a good use of taxpayer money?

Why is it any different than the witch-hunt targeting celebrity athletes who use steroids?

Imagine if United States vs. Barry Lamar Bonds set a far-reaching precedent for the use of perjury laws to prosecute so-called role models in our society who were guilty of other “moral crimes”?

Let’s don’t stop with the selective targeting of celebrity athletes. Why don’t we subpoena identifiable minority groups like top Hollywood actors/actresses, musical superstars, politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, etc? We’ll give them immunity and ask them questions about their moral behavior…

Have they used drugs? Have they cheated on their spouses? Have they downloaded illegal porn?

Then, let’s spend million of additional dollars trying to prove some of them lied in order to build federal cases against them and ask their former friends, colleagues and mistresses to testify against them.

We can smugly say this is justified (after all, they broke the law and perjury is a serious crime) while self-righteously enjoying their humiliation and shame as the government makes an example of their immoral behavior in a court of law.

I agree that no one is above the law and that Barry Bonds should be treated like anyone else. The problem is that Bonds was NOT treated like everyone else engaged in morally-objectionable behaviors.

Photo credit: guano / flickr

Muscle profiling isn’t the only type of profiling that has been used in the war on steroids in sports.  Some sportswriters use acne as irrefutable evidence of steroid use. For example, Murray Chass has maintained for years that Mike Piazza used anabolic steroids because he observed acne on Piazza’s back. Since (back) acne is a common side effect of steroids, steroid users are more likely to experience acne. However, not all steroid users experience back acne and most people with back acne don’t use steroids.

Back acne is experienced by 10-20 percent of adults in the same age bracket as Piazza. It is much more common in individuals who are physically active and perspire a lot which can make them more susceptible to clogged pores. Consequently, back acne is more common in athletes than the general population. Dermatologists interviewed by Howard Megdal for New York Baseball Digest agreed that acne was a poor predictor of steroid use.

But would Piazza, a man in his 20s and 30s during his playing career, be as susceptible to back acne as a teenager? According to these dermatologists, he is a prime candidate for the symptoms Chass described without steroid use.

“One of the major causes of [back acne] is if someone sweats a lot, wears heavy equipment, wears, as Piazza did, heavy uniforms,” Dr. Ira Davis, a Staten Island dermatologist, said in a telephone interview.

Profiling steroid users based on physical characteristics is problematic for several reasons and should always be scrutinized.

Read more at Steroids.Info: Mike Piazza Used Steroids Based on Back Acne According to Sportswriter

Read more at New York Baseball Digest: Three Out of Three Doctors Agree

Read more at Steroids.Info: When Steroids Came to Baseball and Destroyed the Integrity of the Game… in 1889

“GNC does not sell illegal anabolic steroids. GNC is always troubled when an athlete who cheats himself and his profession attempts to implicitly or explicitly scapegoat another person or organization for his gross lapses in judgment, even if he was ‘young and stupid’ when it happened. GNC is confident that the public understands the difference between unlawful drugs that one’s cousin has to inject into the body and the legal, safe products for sale in its stores.”

спалниAlex Rodriguez referenced GNC in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammon where he admitted his own use of prohibited substances. Rodriguez never claimed GNC sold “illegal anabolic steroids”. Many statements made by A-Rod regarding his own use of anabolic steroids may not have been true, but everything he said about GNC was true. The only unfair characterization of GNC was any implication that dietary supplements caused A-Rod’s own positive steroid tests. mach zehnder modulator

I started thinking, if I was to come up with a baseball variant to try and take on MLB, what would it look like? Well, it would be baseball, but, I’d market it as a faster, more exciting version. I’d make the following rules changes to try and re-enforce the brand [...]

No steroid testing. Leave that for the cops. This is baseball – let’s the conversation revolve around the action on the field, not off of it.

In a previous post, Markson expands on his feelings about steroids in sports with some insightful comments on the issue. Sports has had to deal with advances in technology in every aspect of the game including performance enhancing drugs. More often than not, sports have embraced advances in technology and incorporated them into the game. Sports have recently had a conflicted position with regarding to technological advances in pharmacological ergogens. But it’s difficult to counteract technology (progress).

The thing about technology is that it always evolves at a rate much faster than efforts designed to stop it. Don’t believe me, ask the recording industry. In the case of performance enhancing drugs, the drugs will always outpace the tests designed to detect their presence/ use. To try to combat this, testing has to become more frequent, more intrusive. Like anything the more frequent and more intrusive you make it, the more likely their will be false results. Which means there need to be procedures around appealing tests, results, etc. All of a sudden, testing requires an infrastructure, and then you’re in trouble.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s basically how the Tour de France and track and field operate. Bet you have no clue who won last year’ tour de france, but know Floyd Landis cheated. Likewise, bet you have absolutely no clue who holds what records for any track and field events, but are very familiar with the Marion Jones scandal.

The problem with false positives is very disturbing. The problem is compounded by the flimsy standards of evidence required for guilt by anti-doping agencies. I can’t imagine the degree of uproar if our own imperfect criminal justice system in the United States abandoned “beyond a reasonable doubt” and “preponderance of the evidence” and adopted the “comfortable satisfaction” standard advocated by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Markson continues by discussing how the ultimate outcome is the destruction of the sport.

This is what happen when you try to use policing measures to keep up with technology. The drug tests, their results, the appeals, etc. actually become the only interesting/ memorable thing about the sport. The become the brand of the sport. And, since this isn’t nearly as fun/interesting as remember the actual games or plays themselves, the fans eventually abandon.

Baseball should stick to the business of balls, strikes, beer and caps and leave police work to the pros [...]

At the end of the day, juice or no juice, talent and skill are still the ultimate arbiter of performance.

Most elite athletes strive to be the best at their sport without qualification. And most fans want to see the best without qualification. After all, who really cares who is the best cyclist riding on a bike that costs no more than $200 or the best baseball player who doesn’t lift weights? Let’s see the best.

Does Roger Clemens’ personal and/or sexual relationships have any bearing on his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs (or vice versa)? Already, the blogosphere is suggesting that steroids may have caused Clemens’ infidelity. But as far as the legal proceedings are concerned, Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown doesn’t think his philandering has relevance to his alleged steroid use (“We’re no closer to the truth about Clemens,” April 29)

Clemens had an affair with a country singer, according to the New York Daily News. Therefore, the thinking goes, the defamation case against his accuser and former trainer is weak. Didn’t we already have a pretty good notion of that? As for claims in the petition regarding marital purity, well, it doesn’t address that, exactly. It does claim that McNamee has sullied “Clemens’ good reputation,” and has caused him to suffer “mental anguish, shame, public humiliation and embarrassment.” Presumably, the Daily News report has piled onto that, but what does a private relationship have to do with Clemens’ public reputation, whatever it may be? I’m sure the lawyers will enlighten us.

Now the attorneys chime in…

Richard Emery, McNamee’s attorney, believes the news of an extramarital affair by Roger Clemens clearly hurts Clemens’ defamation lawsuit claiming McNamee lied about Clemens use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (“Roger Clemens had 10-year fling with country star Mindy McCready,” April 28).

“The issue in Roger’s suit against McNamee is Roger’s reputation and how it has been damaged,” said Richard Emery, one of McNamee’s lawyers who is handling the defamation suit. “If it’s proved that he’s a philanderer, his reputation is already damaged. When you sue for defamation, you put your whole reputation in the community at issue. Anything is fair game, including his claim of sanctimonious purity. We would cross-examine him and other witnesses who might impact on his alleged behavior. We would probably subpoena her and witnesses who knew [of the relationship]. He’s a ‘family man’ – he implies that. It’s about what his damages are. All is fair game.”

Richard Emery believes the lawsuit will be dismissed.

“If the case heads to trial and is not dismissed, as we feel it should be, we will be calling [McCready] as a witness,” Emery said.

“The point is whether he was damaged by the allegations that he used steroids – he claims he was hurt. But if there are other women – and there’s not just one case, but many – and he holds himself out as a family man and an American paradigm, it’s relevant.

“None of this would have been revealed but for his lawsuit and sanctimonious testimony before Congress.”

But Rusty Hardin, Clemens’ attorney, tells the press that Roger Clemens’ (alleged) infidelity is irrelevant to the veracity of Brian McNamee’s statements regarding Clemens’ steroid and growth hormone use.

“I think it’s totally irrelevant to the issue of whether Brian McNamee is telling the truth about Roger using human growth hormone and steroids,” said Hardin. “The character trait that you put in issue should be the character trait that the defamatory statement was made about.”

I guess the specter of anabolic steroid use is so bad that Clemens would rather publicly embarrass his wife Debbie Clemens with revelations of an extramarital affair and her illegal use of human growth hormone a Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo shoot than admit steroid use. At least, Roger Clemens will have officially gone on record as officially denying steroid use.

In regards to Novitzky’s new job, Dwight Sparlin, a retired I.R.S. manager who led the San Francisco office when the Balco case started nearly six years ago, said he had been hearing for two weeks that Novitzky was going to the F.D.A. to continue focusing on drug cases.

“I think it would give him more exposure to just doing that type of work,” Sparlin said by telephone Tuesday. He added: “For Jeff to go as far as he did in Balco was a stretch for the I.R.S., too. I think he was allowed to go a lot further than he would otherwise because of the impact.”

Jeff Novitsky has been involved in almost every aspect of the BALCO steroid scandal and steroids in baseball investigation.

(Hat tip to Steroid Nation for the story.)

Gatorade is Major League Baseball’s “official sports drink.” So instructions were sent that no player could be seen drinking anything but Gatorade in the dugout. Not even Aquafina, which is the “official water” of MLB. Not even bottles of water with the labels removed.

White Sox clubhouse personnel said if players take bottled water onto the bench, all the bottled water will be removed from the clubhouse as punishment.

This policy only reinforces the appearance of a pro-steroid agenda by Major League Baseball. MLB sends the following message to baseball fans.

So remember, the biggest threat to baseball isn’t steroids or HGH or amphetamines or runaway ticket prices or four-hour games.

It’s water.

Just think of the contradictory message this sends to the youth of Coach Connolly’s high school football team!

Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have dropped language in the bill that would have put HGH on the same legal plane as anabolic steroids, a move that would have severely limited access to the synthetic hormone.

For example, under the bill’s original language, HGH would not have been widely available through the mail and would not have been available in longer than six-month supplies. Because doctors specializing in childhood growth disorders often are far from patients, such controls could have caused hardship for families with children using the drug.

The atmosphere of steroid hysteria resulted in overwhelming bipartisan support for the original HGH bill practically guaranteeing passage of the legislation. When it comes to steroids and performance enhancing drugs, it appears that emotional arguments generally trump intellectual arguments. But fortunately, and surprisingly, the Sen. Schumer and Sen. Grassley rationally examined the evidence of the adverse consequences, particularly for children, of making HGH a Scheduled-III controlled substance. 

“We’ve ran into some things that we didn’t anticipate. We were enlightened by the parents whose children legitimately need HGH,” Grassley told USA TODAY on Tuesday. “Making it (a more tightly controlled substance) would have created a lot of red tape for them.”

Sadly, Sen. Schumer and Sen. Grassley are not students of history when it comes to the Controlled Substances Act; otherwise, they would already known how political misuse of the Controlled Substances Act (especially involving doping in sports) can adversely affect availability of pharmaceuticals for patients who needs these therapies for health, wellness, and survival. The addition of anabolic steroids to the Controlled Substances List with the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 had adverse unintended consequences for untold numbers of patients who had legitimate medical indications requiring anabolic steroid treatment.

We can thank Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), who were widely criticized for doing so at the time, for placing a temporary hold on the original HGH legislation thereby allowing reason to prevail over emotion in the Senate. But most credit should go to the MAGIC Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to “providing support services to the families of children afflicted with chronic and critical disorders, syndromes, and diseases that affect their growth,” for their activism in the matter.

The hotline, recommended by Sen. George Mitchell in his report on baseball and steroids and implemented by commissioner Bud Selig in January, is one of the tools the investigative unit is using to catch drug cheats, along with information from outside investigators.

Everybody is baseball is said to have access to the anonymous hotline which hopes to break the so-called “code of silence” of steroid use in baseball.

The first casualty of the hotline is said to be Jordan Schafer, a top minor league player, according to an anonymous MLB source contacted by the New York Daily News. Schafer was suspended for growth hormone use due to evidence of a “non-analytical positive.” This was obviously not the result of a drug test nor evidence in a governmental steroid-related investigation (“Braves prospect unable to clarify HGH charge,” April 9).

Jordan Schafer, 21, already has a Nike contract and a projected center-field spot with the Braves in 2009.

However, this is a bad incident at the beginning of his career. Schafer was playing for Class AA Mississippi after a breakthrough 2007 season in Class A that lifted him to the organization’s No. 1 prospect.

There are questions, but even team officials have not been able to get complete answers. Schafer was advised not to discuss matters with anyone..

The anonymous hotline is being used to investigate suspected steroid use (and other performance enhancing drugs) in both the minor and major leagues.