Ibanez Is Not Happy With The Thoughts Of a Certain Blogger

Jerod Morris who is the managing editor of midwestsportsfans.com decided to drag Phillies outfielder and leading all-star vote getter among National League outfielders, Raul Ibanez into the game known as "If you're playing better than you ever have before, you're using performance enhancing drugs."

I agree with Ibanez to a certain degree that people no matter who they are, should not have the right to just write anything about a person and get away with it. I don't necessarily have a problem with Ibanez challenging Morris because if you write something (whether you're a professional journalist or not) you should stand by it. Not to mention that anytime you write something that millions of people could potentially read, you should have some facts included in your opinion. 

To everyone's knowledge at this point, Ibanez has never been suspected of or linked to any form of performance enhancing drug use. In a perfect world, Ibanez would have the benefit of the doubt because of that fact. However in this climate in professional baseball, players no longer have that luxury.

You can blame McGuire, Canseco, Bonds, Palmiero, A-Rod, Manny just to name a few. The last 20-25 years of baseball has undoubtedly included major performance enhancing drug use. Everyone associated with the game should share in the blame and that includes Bud Selig. There is no way that someone can convince me that Selig had no idea that this was going on. Especially following the strike of '94, where balls began really flying out of the yard. Guys were having 50 home run seasons like they were going out of style. Selig needed rear ends in the seats, so he turned a blind eye to it. That's another story for another time.

Having said that I understand where Ibanez is coming from and agreeing with him on a few levels, he has to let this one go. Things are written about athletes all the time that are nothing more than speculation or he said, she said. If athletes went after every "42 year old guy blogging from his mother's basement", there would be more slander cases in court than the system is prepared to handle.

Ibanez should be more angry at those players that are the reason why people assume that you can't put in good ol' fashioned hard work to make yourself better regardless of your age. I must admit that when the Phillies signed Ibanez, I knew that they were getting a much better defensive player than Pat Burrell was. I wasn't sure if he could replace the offense that Burrell gave the Phillies. Leading the NL in RBIs (55), total bases (153), slugging percentage (.682) and being second with 20 home runs has opened my eyes.

Ibanez dropped the line "You can have my urine, my hair, my blood, my stool - anything you can test. I'll give you back every dime I've ever made if the test is positive." While its admirable that Ibanez is more than willing to offer any substance his body produces for testing and is willing to put his money where his mouth is, he has to be extremely careful.

Anytime you come out and start making public acclamations about your innocence, the light begins to shine a little brighter on your actions from that point forward. I think we all remember the image of Rafael Palmiero pointing his finger sternly at members of Congress during the congressional hearings on steroids denying he ever took anything. Almost as if he was saying, "how dare you accuse me of this?" We know how that story panned out.