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The real A-Rod tragedy
As predicted here last year, the names of the MLB players who tested positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drug use in MLB's 2003 survey test of 240 players are finally being leaked to the media (previous posts on...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 35 Bengals 6 The Texans (3-4) won their third game in a row for the first time in franchise history by drubbing the Bengals (0-8), who are truly dreadful. The...
Dragged into the mud
The collateral damage of Roger Clemens' questionable approach to disputing his use of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs is already extensive. It now appears that the best player in Stros history may get pulled into the public fray. As...
And you thought the Mitchell Report was ugly?
So, the controversy over the Mitchell Commission Report has pretty much died down, right? Well, it looks as if another potential public relations nightmare is brewing for Major League Baseball: Tucked away inside the United States attorney’s office in...
Catching up with Bill James
The beginning of the Major League Baseball season is a good time to check in with Clear Thinkers favorite, Bill James, the father of sabermetric analysis of baseball. Steve Dubner over at the Freakonomics blog recently provided James with...
Thoughts on Rusty and Pettitte
This earlier post was one of the first to express reservations regarding Rusty Hardin's handling of Roger Clemens' defense to the allegations contained in the Mitchell Commission Report (previous posts here) and aftermath, but my reservations are nothing compared to...
The aftermath of the Clemens hearing
Many folks have been asking me about my thoughts on the Roger Clemens saga, but I am so disappointed with the abysmal level of discourse regarding the Mitchell Commission Report and the issues involved with the use of steroids and...
The improving conversation about PED's in baseball
As noted earlier here, the Mitchell Commission Report is a sloppy hatchet job. However, the report has had the beneficial impact of prompting more reasoned voices to emerge regarding the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in professional...
What's Rusty Hardin thinking?
As noted earlier here, I believe the Mitchell Commission Report is deeply flawed and fails to confront squarely Major League Baseball's long tradition of at least tolerating -- if not outright promoting -- the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Moreover, Roger...
Mitchell Report redux
Following on my post on the Mitchell Report, the following are a few interesting observations from the past several days: Art DeVany agrees with me that MLB didn't get it's money's worth and provides a rather interesting and simple test...
$20 million for that?
I've already shared my views many times on performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, so I didn't want to comment on the Mitchell Commission Report until I had an opportunity to read it. Now that I have, here's my bottom-line...
Thinking about the Bonds case
Two topics on this blog are legal matters and baseball, so Barry Bonds has been a frequent subject of posts here over the past four years. Inasmuch as this post from over two years ago speculated that Bonds would be...
And you thought your profession is stressful?
This earlier post about budding British tenor Paul Potts generated quite a bit of interest, particularly the difficulties that the humble Potts has had in overcoming a lack of confidence to perform on stage. This link from that earlier post...
More DeVany on Bonds
As noted here earlier this week, Art DeVany has written extensively on the specious basis of the conventional wisdom that Barry Bonds' steroid use allowed him to break the Major League Baseball home run records. DeVany responds again here: [The...
Bonds does it
Barry Bonds finally broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record last night, dooming all of us to several days of inane and simplistic arguments on talk radio shows as to whether Bonds' record should include an asterisk because of his...
Steroids, home runs and variables
This post about Barry Bonds from a week or so ago prompted an interesting exchange in the comments between me and Gary Gaffney, a University of Iowa physician who blogs about steroid use over at Steroid Nation. Following on that...
The unintended consequences of the anti-steroids crusade
As noted in this earlier post, I have long had reservations regarding the anti-steroids campaign that is promoted by various regulatory bodies and the media. As Peter Henning noted over the holiday season in this extensive post, the Ninth Circuit...
Thinking about performance-enhancing drugs
Mark Sisson is a Malibu-based former elite marathoner and triathlete who became well-known in athletic circles as an expert on drug testing for athletes while serving for 13 years as the anti-doping and drug-testing chairman of the International Triathlon Union...
Prepping for the U.S. Open
The 2006 U.S. Open Golf Tournament begins today at New York's venerable Winged Foot Golf Club, so the following will provide you with some interesting reading while you enjoy this year's edition of golf's most challenging tournament: This NY...
Ripples from the Grimsley Affair
Get used to it because the ripples from the Jason Grimsley Affair are already starting and may turn into pretty tasty waves soon. It looks as if Grimsely has fingered Chris Mihlfeld, a Kansas City-based “strength and conditioning guru” (and...
The Jason Grimsley Affair
This NY Times article reports on the criminal investigation into alleged illegal use of steroids and human growth hormone by journeyman Major League Baseball pitcher Jason Grimsley, who retired from the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday after the media reported on the...
Will Carroll on Bonds' steroid use
Will Carroll is an expert in sports medicine who writes extensively (including a column for Baseball Prospectus ($)) on injuries to professional athletes (prior post here). In this Muscle Magazine article (you may need to click through the magazine's online...
Batter up! Stros 2006 Season Preview
It's Opening Day today in Houston as the Stros take on the Marlins this afternoon at Minute Maid Park, so it's time for my annual preview of the Stros upcoming team and season (last season's preview is here). Let's first...
The risk of being a baseball icon
As noted earlier here, objective research does not support the current conventional wisdom that widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball is largely responsible for the home run records that were set over the past decade. Nevertheless, while continuing to...
Breakfast of Champions?
This SI.com article contains the excerpts from the new book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use that has received a fair amount of media play this week. However, as noted in this earlier post, the issue of whether use of...
An afternoon on the sidelines at Kyle Field
On Saturday, I spent a beautiful Texas fall afternoon on the sidelines of Kyle Field in College Station to watch the Texas A&M Aggies host the Iowa State Cyclones in a Big 12 Conference football game. Iowa State head football...
Exploring home run hitting
As Roy O brings the Stros home from St. Louis in a 1-1 tie in the National League Championship Series, Art De Vany, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, provides this thought-provoking paper (pdf) in which...
The real reason why Barry might not play?
Baseball fans are opening their newspapars this morning to this article reporting that star San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, the best baseball player of his generation, might not play this upcoming season because of a minor knee injury and...
McGuire's sleight of hand
Legal issues involving public figures often have a public-relations dimension as well as a political angle, and this past week's Congressional testimony of Mark McGuire regarding Major League Baseball's steroids scandal is a case in point. The key legal issue...
Canseco: "McGuire used steroids; Bush knew about players' steroid use"
Former MLB slugger Jose Canseco is writing a book, and early reviews indicate that he is implicating former home run champ Mark McGwire in the use of steroids and President Bush in the knowledge of their use during the time...
Posner on planning for unlikely catastrophes
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, law professor, economics and law guru, and author Richard Posner has written -- in light of the recent Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster -- a timely new book, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (Oxford, Oct. 1,...
Jumping to conclusions on steroid use in MLB
Will Carroll is an expert in sports medicine who writes a column for Baseball Prospectus($) regarding injuries to baseball players. Following up on thoughts expressed in this earlier post, Mr. Carroll notes in this NY Times op-ed that, from a...
What steroids scandal?
My old friend David Chesnoff's law partner -- Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman -- has been lobbying Major League Baseball owners at the Winter Meetings in Anaheim to allow for the move of the Florida Marlins to Las Vegas. Argus...
Hey, it's working
On the heels of last week's public disclosure of Barry Bonds' use of steroids, humorist Argus Hamilton defends the Major League Baseball Players' Union's policy on performance enhancement drugs: "Major League Baseball players' union counsel Gene Orza maintained Sunday that...
Bonds took steroids
This San Francisco Chronicle article reports that Barry Bonds, one of the best baseball players of all-time, admitted to a grand jury that he had taken steroids and human growth hormone. The typical media reaction to this development will be...
The sad life of Ken Caminiti ends
Former Stros third baseman Ken Caminiti, who was a unanimous pick for the 1996 National League MVP while playing with the Padres, died Sunday at the age of 41 of a heart attack in the Bronx. Caminiti is survived by...
The Blawg Channel - An intriguing new blawg
Six of the pioneers of legal blogs (i.e., "blawgs") -- Tom Migdell, Dennis Kennedy, Ernest Svenson, Marty Schwimmer, Denise Howell, and Rick Klau -- are collaborating on a new blawg called The Blawg Channel. Ernie described the purpose of the...
The amazing Barry Bonds
If you hadn't noticed, Barry Bonds has just completed one of the best months of hitting in the history of Major League Baseball. In April, Bonds' had an incredible .472 batting average, an equally impressive .696 on base average, an...
A little distraction for Barry Bonds
His lawyer is publicly claiming that Barry Bonds has become a target of the criminal investigation into illegal distribution of steroids in the Bay Area....
No Mens Rea?
This NY Times article floats the proposition that Barry Bonds and other alleged customers of accused steroid dispensing BALCO were unwitting consumers of steroids. H'mm. Meanwhile, this Reason Online piece addresses the issues in the medical community regarding steroid use....
The new Breakfast of Champions
This San Francisco Chronicle article follows this earlier post here and reports that federal investigators have been told that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield and three other major-league baseball players...
More on the indictment of Bonds' personal trainer
The NY Times has a good follow up article on the indictment of baseball star Barry Bonds' personal trainer and three others for illegal distribution of steroids. The indictment and other information on this story can be reviewed here....
Bonds' personal trainer indicted
The NY Times reports that single season home run champ Barry Bonds' personal trainer--Greg F. Anderson--was indicted today in San Francisco with three others for illegal distribution of steroids. The indictment is here. Bonds is a magnificent player, clearly the...
Campaign Reporting on Steroids
The NY Times has put together a blog for the 2004 Presidential Campaign that is continuously updated. It is reported and edited from the Times' Washington bureau. The "Trail Mix" section highlights issues, candidates, and regions. In the meantime, The...
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