Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
scott@scottlongonline.com
Couple stories today that really have my attention.
First, Dr. Elliott Pellman, who I can say *is* in fact one of MLB's scientific advisors, has a bit more question surrounding the rest of his curriculum vitae. Pellman has a list of things, like being Jets and Islanders team doctor, that are based on his competency and not his resume. It still does not reflect well that this was the man sent to defend MLB's policies against the Don Hootons and Gary Wadlers of the world. Resume stuffing has been quite the problem over the last few years, so kids, don't do it!
More concerning is the first real blast - and Haslett's nonrevelations don't count - against the insular nature of the press taking on the NFL's steroid problem. It will be interesting to see if there's Congressional hearings on this, a problem that is much more concerning. This isn't a situation where some players went and found drugs, this is one where the drug use was monitored and even encouraged by physicians and by proxy, the teams themselves. Compare and contrast the responses of Paul Tagliabue and Bud Selig. (For the press, there is a chapter on the NFL and steroids in "The Juice", written by Michael Smith of Football Outsiders - please contact me for more info.)
What a joke!
The second link (ESPN article) isn't working -- a few extra characters at the end. The article nubmer in the URL is 2025197. Nice to see the NFL sharing in the bad publicity, though if it means more bloviating by McCain, Waxman, and Shays, we're all worse off for having to read about it.
This morning on ESPNRadio, Chris Mortensen a very strong reporter if there ever was one at ESPN, says he talked to Greg Aiello NFL's chief spokesman and that the NFL "is not in a bunker-mentality about this."
The show hosts then go on to say that the public perception is that the NFL is trying to rid the sport of illegal drugs, while baseball is trying to hide things.
Hmmmm, I wonder if anyone else sees the correlation here?
As far as the Panthers, it will be interesting to see the fallout. I think it might help, to show that the NFL's testing policey is more of a smokescreen and PR then actually successful on the other hand I can see congress running with it to say the testing policey in all sports needs to be tighten.
But it also goes to show that the current tests do not test for substances (or the types of steroids) which some of the players are using and that the smart players could continue using steroids and would not have to worry about being caught, unless MLB agreement makes it clear that they will keep the samples around and re test them if and when a reliable test is developed for catching hgh (or whatever the initials are) but that would raise a problem with the fact then the government might be able to subpeona the tests which both the union and MLB does not want to see happen.
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