No greenies in baseball

2006 will be our first "amphetamine-free" season. If reports, such as those from Baseball Prospectus's Will Carroll, are accurate, players have already moved past Dexedrine and other street pills for drugs designed for ADHD. Carroll reports that teams have had to invent policies for granting the "therapeutic use" waivers that Ritalin etc. users (and abusers) might want to file to continue playing in their usual self-consciously "amped-up" condition. I wonder what's the Pirates' policy? And, will it matter?

Bones, who used to comb the news for evidence of sudden steroids use (looking for fantasy sleepers), may hope the team has, uh, the most competitive policy. My guess is the effects of any such drug, taken regularly, are as much imaginary or projected as real. Once a stimulant feels normal, it's no longer so much of a stimulant. When the relational shifts are so familiar, they aren't really shifts at all.

(This is not to say that drugs are not addictive, or that they do not cause real physical effects. My point is that a cup of coffee for the grizzled caffeine addict is not "doing" as much as it does for a first-time drinker or a young person in his first summer of semi-daily espressos. The habitual use of anything blunts the initial advantage that initially encouraged habitual use. [I write this while aiming an accusing, sleepy-eyed glare toward my third cup of coffee.])

Given the ballplayer's proverbial respect for superstition and ritual, we might expect they would stick with whatever "works" and not be so willing to experiment with any deviation from usual practice. So I guess they'll all be on something like Dexedrine that's not yet banned. Anyhoo, I doubt it matters much one way or the other, though I do wonder if a team could not gain a competitive advantage by improving their quality of sleep (and speed of recovery) over the course of a season.

Carroll writes that some teams have decided to implement polices that are "more strict." Any idea what the Pirates have done? Any reason we should care?