I think Ibanez protests too much. He's ignoring the elephant in the room: the inevitable suspicion created by the absence of HGH / blood testing in baseball. HGH is the Holy Grail of PEDs, that is, until the next cheat-drug is developed.
And I don't want to hear about all the difficulties in testing: procedural or constitutional. No one's buying it, no one except the Press whose silence on the slowness to implement blood tests is deafening. It's a non-issue on Baseball Tonight.
They say people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But the mainstream media spent all last week throwing rocks at Mr. JRod from their big glass house.
Since the JRod story broke, most mainstreamers have dismissed him solely on his status as a blogger. Their implication: bloggers are uneducated, often careless and not to be taken seriously. And this coming from a profession that largely sat silent about steroids, from the Bash Brothers arrival (1987) up to Jose Canseco's tell-all book Juiced (2001?).
What kind of professional standard is it when you remain silent in the face of a drug plague that's corrupting the national pastime? Do they teach that standard in journalism school? Sports Journalism 320: Don't Bite the Hand That Feeds You.
As for JRod, he's a skilled writer who made a well researched argument. My only complaint is that he gave ground too quickly to the naysayers.
Players can't have it both ways. They can't sit satisfied with the present out-dated drug policy and then cry foul when their numbers raise suspicions, even if they are clean.
Speculation about PED use is the price Ibanez and his peers pay for failing to collectively push their union and owners to implement blood testing ASAP. Baseball has had how many years to get this done? We're not idiots, you guys.
Ibanez lives the privileged life of an athlete in a culture that treats ball-tossers like demi-gods. Sympathy lies only with those players who have advocated for full testing through their Player's Association. Is Raul Ibanez one of those players?
Individual offers to be tested to quell suspicions aren't gonna' cut it. It's a trust thing.
How can fans believe in players that only go on strike (or get vocal) when they want respect or more money? Oh, how we miss you Roberto Clemente.
Trust must be earned, not demanded.
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