performance-enhancers
The powers that be in baseball claim ignorance about steroid use in the 1990s. We didn't have enough information, they say. Red flags didn't go up until the summer of 1998, they say. The media didn't do any stories, they say (as if that is a litmus test on whether they should do their jobs). We didn't knowingly turn a blind eye to the problem, they say.
They cannot say that now, as another performance-enhancer scandal breaks. Check out the stunning details contained within the affidavit on the Arizona Republic Web site: According to court documents, Jason Grimsley acknowledged using human growth hormone after feds anticipated a delivery of the stuff to his home and confiscated two kits. The IRS agent who prepared the affidavit also quotes Grimsley as saying he thought "boatloads" of players were getting HGH from the same source he was using, and Grimsley allegedly named names of players within the game; those names are blacked out in the public version of the affidavit.
Court documents do not equal a conviction, but the information within the affidavit is going to frighten folks within the game. Just like we knew that the details within the Ken Starr investigation on Monica Lewinsky would leak, you can bet that the blacked-out names in this affidavit will get out, and remember -- Grimsley played with the Phillies, the Indians, the Royals, the Angels, the Yankees, the Orioles, all over the map.
umpire Tony Randazzo
Home plate umpire Tony Randazzo chest-bumped Colorado manager Clint Hurdle after walking up the first-base line, where he confronted Rockies reliever Ray King in the ninth inning Wednesday.
Both King and Hurdle were ejected by Randazzo, who met King about 40 feet from home plate after the left-hander was pulled in favor of Jose Mesa with one out.
King, who was angered that he wasn't getting the high strike, took offense to Randazzo's walking up the line and said something that got him tossed.
King said Randazzo also made contact with him, although that couldn't be verified through replay because the game wasn't televised or taped.
Randazzo clearly bumped Colorado's manager, however, when Hurdle hollered at him over King's ejection. Hurdle pointed to the crowd as if to say he had thousands of witnesses, then angrily motioned at Randazzo with both hands in a bring-it-on gesture.
There was no further contact, however, and Hurdle and King both went to the clubhouse as Mesa got the final two outs in Colorado's 16-9 win over Pittsburgh that featured 11 pitchers, 16 walks and 364 pitches, 155 of which were balls.
Randazzo didn't comment before leaving Coors Field following the game that lasted almost 3 1/2 hours in nearly 100-degree heat.
"I'm not taking questions. We have a plane to catch," crew chief Joe West said.
Hurdle declined to discuss his run-in with Randazzo.
"Oh, it's just hot out," Hurdle said. "It's hot. Long day."
Pressed, Hurdle replied: "What happens on the field stays on the field." Not according to King, who criticized Randazzo for a "mystery strike zone" all afternoon and for walking up the first base line, which he perceived as confrontational, while the left-hander was walking back to his dugout in the ninth.
MLB's steroid-testing program
Well, what a surprise, a major-league baseball player admitted to federal investigators that he used human growth hormone. Used it because he knew that under Major League Baseball's steroid-testing program, he couldn't be caught, much less penalized.
Maybe now commissioner Bud Selig can stop prattling on about his goal of "eliminating" performance enhancers from MLB. Olympic officials have spent decades trying to clean up their pure, precious Games, and Olympians still cheat. Selig has instituted the toughest steroid-testing policy in professional sports, and players still cheat.
This is the sporting version of the Hundred Years' War, only different, because it will never end. Selig needs to acknowledge that publicly, somberly. And &151; sad as this is to write &151; fans need to understand that they may never be able to fully trust what they see again. Today it's Jason Grimsley and HGH. Tomorrow, it will be some other player and some other undetectable substance.
The financial incentive is simply too great.
Consider Grimsley, who, according to the affidavit of Jeff Novitzky, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service, stated that he purchased and used the anabolic steroid Deca-Durabolin shortly after undergoing shoulder surgery in Nov. 2000. Grimsley, then 33, had ample motivation to salvage his career; he earned nearly $8 million between 2001 and his release Wednesday by the Diamondbacks, according to salary figures on baseball-reference.com. Not bad for a journeyman reliever.
We can moralize all we want; some fringe players use performance enhancers to continue earning a major-league living, while certain stars use them to reach new levels of fame and fortune. Judging from MLB's healthy attendance figures and television ratings, most fans don't seem to care all that much; they just want to watch baseball. Still, there's an undeniable cynicism now — and yes, it's damaging the sport.
The questioning of Albert Pujols' legitimacy earlier this season was the most disturbing example yet of MLB's frightening new world. Here was Pujols, a player who had never flunked a drug test, never been suspected of anything untoward. And yet, he couldn't escape scrutiny.
This is not to discount MLB's efforts; the current testing program, while imperfect, is helping rid the game of most performance enhancers as well as amphetamines. Perhaps the actions of a few should not undermine public confidence in an entire industry. But MLB and the union invited additional suspicion by avoiding the issue for so long.
