That's right. Baseball's steroid policy is that as long as less than 5% of players test positive, nothing is done. The labor agreement between the league and the players does have a provision that kicks off in the event that 5% or more test positive. So as long as less than 1 in 20 got caught, players could use, and even if they tested positive they weren't going to get in trouble because it was anonymous. That boggles my mind.
Now that more than 1 in 20 have tested positive, they will begin mandatory testing. Don't worry about your favorite player though. Unlike any testing program I've ever heard of, the athletes know exactly when they'll be tested and when they won't. All this program means is that until the positives get back under 5% and the mandatory testing stops, they'll have to use drugs that leave the system faster. Just to be safe, they should get all their cycles in during the off season and give themselves time to clean up before spring training.
Let's face it. We've all known for a while that baseball players used steroids. Whether it's as bad as many ex-players have claimed is questionable, but it is no doubt widespread. My question is, who cares? I don't. I don't have a vested interest in the records in baseball, though. Roger Maris's family might care. Who knows how long his record would have held up if MLB's testing program was the same as the NFL's.
I'm not saying that I know for a fact that Mark McGuire was using steroids, but he admitted to using anabolic substances that are banned in most sports. He didn't do anything wrong by doing that, by the way. Those things are legal and within the rules, so he should feel free to use them. I doubt very seriously though that his supplement plan was limited to OTC supplements. If he used banned substances just because the league was too afraid of the players to enforce the bans, that's not right.
Barry Bonds is even more suspicious to me. Again, I don't have any evidence he's using, but look at him. When he was a rookie, he was pretty thin. I'd guess that he's a good 50lbs heavier now than he was then, and it's not fat. It's practically impossible for an adult to add 50lbs of muscle mass without using steroids. Even over the course of several years. It's not completely outside the realm of possibility, but it's not likely.
Bodybuilders know it. If a bodybuilder added 10lbs of muscle in a year clean that would be considered a success. That's a bodybuilder not concerned with conditioning, but solely with adding lean muscle. With the use of Sustanon and Deca though, for instance, you could get that in an 8 week cycle, if not more. Even if you only hold on to 80% of that when you cycle off, 3 of those cycles a year and you've put on 2 1/2 times what you could clean. The same is true with any athlete.
I'm not here to preach against steroids. In fact, I already said I don't care if baseball players take them. I just think the hypocrisy needs to end. If the testing program is going to be so easy to get around that it's not effective at all, why have it? If the punishments are so light that they don't deter the athletes at all, then why have them? If you're going to make it possible for them to use steroids, then just do like bodybuilding and quit pretending you're not. It's only cheating if some people can do it and some can't. Either come up with a testing program that will actually stop the drug use, or just do away with testing all together.