Bud Selig Lays Down the Hammer on Performance Enhancing Drugs

Arguably, the Commissioner of Baseball took a very strong stance on the issue of performance enhancing drugs Tuesday morning with a rather vague 16-page report on the issue. Selig repeats candidly that he is committed to having the strongest drug testing program in all of professional sports that will be in coordination with Olympic-style drug testing.

The penalties are some of the stiffest, as outlined last year—50games for a first offense, 100 for a second, a lifetime ban for a third. Selig was adamant about his "three strikes and you're out" policy.

Perhaps more intriguing was that Bud Selig let George Mitchell do all the talking up until this point. The fact that the Commissioner stood by and watched it all unfold shows weakness. Selig, former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, really had no idea what to say except that he had to pursue George Mitchell's recommendations because, of course, George Mitchell is the genius in this investigation.

Major League Baseball wants to have the strongest drug testing system in the world, which bodes well for baseball, but how do you stop the cheating?

Well, Selig stated that baseball would even go as far as testing year-round at random intervals, even during the offseason, and that he would have trainers and personnel on every team tested for illegal substances. Furthermore, he said that top prospects for the MLB entry draft would be drug tested.

This is a major breakthrough. No professional sport—not the NFL, NBA, and certainly not the NHL—tests amateurs before they become professionals.

And so Selig is determined to get at the heart of the issue, testing amateurs before they leak into the professional game, or even get into the minor league system.

Selig does admit that it's still a war between the chemists and the busters, but that Major League Baseball will do everything in it's power to stop banned stimulant and steroid use in baseball.

In other news, Miguel Tejada is being investigated again. Big surprise...The more you talk, the guiltier you look. And the more you stay quiet, the guiltier you look. So, it's a challenge to find the median where the public might just believe for once that maybe the dominoes aren't going to fall, because they're just that close from falling in a sequence.

Bud Selig lays down the hammer again. But you can't forget what the steroid era did for baseball's revenues. I'm sure Selig welcomed it at the time, but he has to protect himself. The public would be outraged if he didn't condone such a thing.

But Selig can't be blamed because the Players Association knew all about the steroids, and damn did they ever do a good job to try and cover it up to protect the players and let them break a few more records.

I'm going to admit, it was fun to watch.