'Roid Rage

Most of the recent criticisms of baseball's laughable steroid testing policy have been on point. But while most are focusing on the prevalence of steroids (5-7% of players tested positive last year), it's the absurdly lenient penalties that have me up in arms. From the SF Chronicle: "Players who test positive for the first time will enter a treatment program. After that, they'll be suspended or fined -- 15 days or $10,000 for the second offense, 25 days or $25,000 for the third offense, 50 days or $50,000 for the fourth offense and one year or $100,000 for the fifth offense."

So let's say you're Anaheim slugger Troy Glaus and it's the start of the 2004 season. You think to yourself "I'm in the last year of my contract and I had a lousy season last year. I really need to put up some huge numbers and my team isn't gonna be a contender. Hey, I might as well start using 'roids. The worst case scenario: I happen to be randomly selected five times in one year and I test positive five times. Instead of taking the suspension, I'll just pay the $100,000 fine, which is less than two percent of my $9 million dollar salary."

And that's in the worst case scenario. I mean, what's to stop anyone from juicing up? Some may worry about soiling their reputation, but two months after his corked bat incident, everyone treated Sammy Sosa like nothing happened. I fear that this new testing program will do more harm than good.