Some People Never Learn.

This past offseason, baseball fans were treated to yet another steroids debacle, something that's becoming commonplace in the nation's pastime. On this occasion, our attention turned to Biogenesis, an "anti-aging" clinic in Miami that now serves as this decade's BALCO. Anthony Bosch, the man behind it all, has documents that appear to prove that Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and a couple dozen other ballplayers have purchased performance-enhancing drugs in the last few months or years (as they are undated, it's not quite clear how old or how recent the documents may be as of now). MLB launched an investigation into these shady dealings when news first broke back in December, but a report from ESPN's Outside The Lines yesterday revealed that baseball was preparing to suspend all the players listed in these documents, in exchange for Bosch's compliance and access to the rest of his files. All told, it appears that the sport we all know and love will be suffering yet another black eye thanks to PEDs.

Just when you thought they had learned their lesson...

It doesn't have to be like this, you know. While most players are wising up and either finding new, creative ways to inject themselves silly with numerous "substances", or discovering loopholes to pass a drug test (or doing the same after they've failed one), baseball players still don't seem to understand the simplest of certainties: if you take steroids, or any kind of performance-enhancing drugs, you will get caught, and you will be punished. That much has been proven endlessly since 2007, when MLB suddenly decided to crack down on the rampant drug use that had occurred for the previous 20-something years. Sure, there's probably immense pressure on these men to perform at an otherworldly level. They're constantly under scrutiny from coaches, managers, owners, fans and the media. They all want to have a good, long, productive career, one that might end in a speech on a warm July day in Cooperstown, New York. They know how far their abilities alone can take them, and what these drugs can help them achieve further than their natural talent. Good players become great players, great players become legends. But the vilification that comes from being found out can't possibly make up for the most-likely minimal uptick in production. The risk seems incredibly disproportionate to the reward. Now, while my opinion on steroids has been made very clear (if an athlete wants to ruin their body, fundamentally, for my entertainment, let 'em), what still boggles my mind, as I'm sure it does to the minds of sports fans everywhere, is that these players still believe they'll get away with it. And if there's not enough history to disprove that at this point, consider what follows.

Advances in drug testing happen quicker than Rickey Henderson running from first to third. Doctors are coming up with tests that can detect not only if you took PEDs, but what you took, when you took it, how you took it, who you took it with, and what episode of How I Met Your Mother you were watching when you took it. And if the changes in the most recent collective bargaining agreement are any indication, then blood testing, which is a thousand times more accurate than urine testing, will be fully implemented across the board in just a few years, meaning any masking agents a player can use in an attempt to foolishly hide what will already be caught in their pee will become completely moot. And yet, knowing all this, there are still so many players, whether they're replacement-level (Francisco Cervelli, Danny Valencia), stars on the rise (Yasmani Grandal, Melky Cabrera), aged vets looking to hang on (Nelson Cruz, Bartolo Colon), or established studs (Braun, Rodriguez), who think they can beat the system. So far, most of the players that have been implicated (the ones already revealed, at least) have already either admitted to taking steroids or faced/served a suspension.

Admittedly, was anyone shocked when they heard these two were doping?

Every baseball fan will always remember where they were when they heard that A-Rod had taken steroids, supposedly just during his time with the Rangers from 2001 to 2003. Back in 2009, Rodriguez was still baseball's golden child. While we were still reeling from the Bonds/Clemens/McGwire et. al. situation, we had watched Alex blossom from a top prospect in the early 1990s to an absolute phenom, one we all thought was completely clean. We praised him for playing the game "the right way". Since his admission, the Yankees won 103 games that year, and the World Series. Curiously, though, A-Rod's production dropped off sharply in 2010, even further in 2011, and culminated in a terrible 2012 that saw him benched frequently in the playoffs in favor of Raul Ibanez's best Reggie Jackson impersonation. The vast and quick decline in his numbers, coupled with the injuries he suffered since the championship run (back, legs, hips), were all consistent with someone who had finally stopped taking steroids. From the little I've learned about these drugs since the term "performance-enhancing drugs" entered my perception of the baseball world, it takes roughly a year from your last "cycle" for the effects of steroids to wear off. If this is the case, then A-Rod had not only taken the drugs, but lied about how long he'd been taking them. He had to have stopped taking them probably right before his press conference. Like this guy needs to give us more reason to hate him.

Braun failed a drug test during the 2011 playoffs, coincidentally several weeks before he was named MVP of the regular season. He managed to appeal his suspension, something that the MLB brass took very seriously and have been looking for another excuse to nail him to the wall. With Ryan, it's harder to tell. His numbers that year were great, but they were nothing special. He put up similar stats his entire career to that point, and did so in 2012 (he actually did better the following season), and as far as we know, he only has one failed drug test to his name. I don't think anyone, anywhere, could honestly say they wouldn't have failed at least one drug test in their lives. Difference is, we're not professional athletes. Others, like Grandal, Cabrera, and Colon, all served 50 game suspensions for their failed tests. Cabrera's was particularly noteworthy as he had won the All-Star Game MVP award, was leading baseball in batting average for most of the season, put up career highs in nearly everything, and put the Giants in a great position to win the World Series, which they eventually did without him. All of them, Braun and A-Rod included, now face 100 game suspensions, as they technically qualify as second-time offenders. This is baseball, so you know what happens if you get a strike when you already have 2 on you: you're out. Forever. Third time offenders get a lifetime ban, something that Pete Rose got without even taking drugs.

Harsh? Maybe. Necessary? Entirely. While first timers still lose roughly a third of their seasons, these punishments, many feel, are still too lenient. As we've seen, players still find a way to get around drug testing, at least for a while. They still believe they can fool science. Maybe commissioner al dente, Bud Selig, will use this opportunity to finally make some examples to show the rest of the players in the game that this issue is one that needs to be resolved quickly. While I may not have a problem with players doing drugs to get an edge, it's still cheating. It still sends a negative message, that cheaters can indeed prosper, and after all the embarrassing stuff that's happened since the strike of 1994, baseball doesn't need another devastating scandal. It may not recover as well as it did last time.