THE PISS MAN'S HERE...: And he reports that more than 5% of Major League Baseball players tested positive for steroids this year, triggering a new testing regime that will go into effect next year and dole out fines and suspensions for anyone found to be shooting up.
And you thought it was the ball that was juiced... clearly this has been a problem for a long time, and it says something about the almost unchecked power of baseball's players union that it took until now for mandatory drug testing to become a reality (the new system was agreed to for the first time in last year's new labor agreement; players had long resisted it, even though the NFL has tested for steroids since the early '80s).
The next step is a court case being brought against a lab in California that has allegedly supplied numerous top athletes with drugs that may or may not be legal; Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, among others, have been subpoenaed to testify. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Bonds takes the stand; like Barry, Hulk Hogan long denied using steroids throughout his career (including on a memorable "Arsenio Hall Show" appearance), but on the stand in the 1994 Vince McMahon steroid trial, Hogan was indeed forced to admit his longtime steroid abuse.
Because when even professional wrestling has tougher anti-steroid standards than baseball does, you something's not right.