SBN - Around the Horn (Roided Up and Rowdy Edition)

Blez has some pre-release comments, saying that he doesn't think Roger Clemens will get into the Hall and that baseball needs to implement HGH testing.  The problem with implementing HGH testing, however, is that apparently the only viable test detects usage only shortly after injection and, so far as I can tell, there hasn't ever been a positive result for it in international sports despite the testing being available since 2004.  It's also apparently pretty expensive.  Implementing an expensive "solution" just for the sake of "doing something" seems pretty pointless.

Rev Halofan, posting from an underground bunker stocked with 4 years worth of canned goods and probably some mason jars of his own urine, thinks that the Mitchell Report is Orwellian, presumably with the likes of Albert Belle's crazy roided up ass in the role of Winston Smith and this malevolent bastard as Big Brother.  I prefer to compare the whole steroid controversy to another work of dystopian fiction, "Can't Hardly Wait," with calm-eyed Derek Jeter playing Jennifer Love Hewitt's part.  

Over at Crawfish Boxes, rastronimicals laments that Astros management hasn't "screened their applicants better" and, suffice it to say, is not real happy about the Tejada acquisition.  I think a lot of us thought the Astros should have screened their applicants better when they signed E Honda to play left field, but, hey, whatever.

RoyalsReview also isn't a Mitchell fan, saying that the Mitchell report is akin to the "unsubtantiated rumor-mongering" that mainstream media often accuses the blogosphere of promulgating.  However, seeing as how there doesn't seem to be much dispute over the fact that steroid use is pretty prevalent in baseball, "unsubstantiated" seems to be the wrong word to use.  That's like me complaining about the unsubstantiated rumors regarding my Slim Jim, Marlboro, and Vitamin Water consumption.

Bucs Dugout, the Pirates blog, pipes in with surprise about the number of former Pirates listed in the report, noting that "so many guys from one of the league's worst teams are there really illustrates the breadth of the problem."  See, I'm thinking that if your team sucks, it seems like there would be even more steroids.  For instance, if I were a team owner that had signed Chan Ho Park, I would have teams from Merck, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly all working on him around the clock.  Fix him, you bastards!

At the Snakepit, Jim McClennan expresses some surprise that walk-machine Stephen Randolph appeared on the list, saying "PEDs won't help if you can't pitch worth a damn."  I think that's something that bears repeating... Jason Grimsley and Jerry Hairston took PEDs and are still Jason Grimsley and Jerry Hairston.