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DJIf Canseco keeps quiet, Bret Boone isn't fighting for a starting job in the Majors. Sammy Sosa would have just hit his 30th home run. Ivan Rodriguez would actually still be "Pudge". I don't even want to get into my own personal Barry Bonds thinking.
Palmeiro seems to be the only one in the bunch who is actually playing at his level before the book came out. But I agree 100% with you John. How can this guy be doing anything right now in the way of using anything that even closely resembled the "S" word. He's patrolling the Infield under a microscope.
One of my best friends was a trainer (who made about 1/100th of a major league salary) for an MLB team and I spent some time behind the scenes in the club house when the team came to town. Reporters had no way of knowing. I honestly don't think that owners know for sure either. That's what I think.
I also know who was and who wasn't for that particular team based on our conversations. Curt Schilling said that he didn't know anyone who was on steroids on any team he played for and said that the number (I think if I remember correctly) was 5%, meaning...what, only 25-30 players in all of the Bigs?
I remember on one occasion the tale of a journeyman infielder who hit six home runs one year. He discovered "the juice" and the next year he tripled his home run total and earned himself in arbitartion a nice increase in pay.
Sure Jose isn't a saint, a money-grubber desparate for cash (and perhaps the spot light) and desparate beyond belief but this witch hunt in the long run may have helped save the sport (why does X do it and Y doesn't? What if Y did it and X didn't?) and may have have increased some lives. That's what I think.
Why can't players simply go out play. It worked for 100+ years where the players were much smaller. Now these players don't know what they're putting into their system's? C'mon.
DJ