Power numbers steady

Duh, they keep hitting. Why does the public think more regulation of the private lives of baseball players is a good idea? Just because they make a lot of money doesn't mean that we have the right to test their pee and find out everything they ate over the last twenty-four hours. They aren't public servants; they are not our slaves; we do not own them; they deserve all the rights and privileges of any free citizen in this our great democracy.

If you are going to ban all performance-enhancing drugs, you better start with caffeine. I for one could never do my job without several daily performance-enhancing drugs. The other day, finishing a big job under deadline, I even cracked open a can of Red Bull. To single out one substance, call it "performance-enhancing," and ban it on the grounds that it improves performance is one thing, but to do that selectively and to not begin with the most obvious and most commonplace drugs is worse than hypocritical. It's stupid.

Anyone who thinks there's a magic home-run hitting drug is a fool who should examine the history of drugs in America before they humiliate themselves further. There's no pill or serum that adds muscle with no work. Ball players put a lot of time in the weight room and it's possible much of any performance-enhancing drug's potency is due to the placebo effect. Even if a player bulks up, that doesn't mean the additional muscles are going to translate into improved performance. Go ask Marty Cordova.

I can understand regulating drugs, especially if that regulation successfully restricts the access of minors to those drugs. I can't understand believing that Barry Bonds is the best hitter in the history of the game only because he took some magic pill or shot up some magic serum. That makes just as much sense as suspecting him of selling his soul to ol' Scratch.