RIP PEDs?

With 13 more Major League Baseball players (including megastar Alex Rodriguez) having been suspended due to their link to performance enhancing drugs via the Biogenesis lab, there's actually hope that the issue may finally be curbed in baseball.

While there was never any question that the P.R. nightmare which baseball suffered was of great embarrassment to the Commissioner's office, it was going to take cooperation by the players and its union (MLBPA) to make sweeping reforms. Thankfully, the players now seem to be on board in eradicating the problem, starting with more stringent testing for PEDs as agreed to in the Collective Bargaining Agreement covering 2012 thru 2016.

While members of a union typically fall on the sword for their labor cohorts, the rampant PED use is where the line is drawn. What happens is borderline major leaguers who resort to using steroids potentially usurp their peers unfairly. As such, this jeopardizes the livelihood of those players who seek to get to the big leagues legitimately (i.e. chemical free). Union brotherhood is one thing but essentially taking food from another man's family trumps that every time.

So am I being naive to think this will completely curb steroid use in baseball? Perhaps. But at this point, I'm perfectly fine if it's severely reduced to the point that any positive test is merely an isolated incident. Dare to dream.

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