The founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO),
Victor Conte, told
USA Today's Bob Nightengale that
half of all MLB players are still taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. This opinion comes in the wake of Melke Cabrera failing a drug test—
the third player nailed for cheating this year. Conte—not the most sympathetic figure in the world—claims he has talked to scores of top MLB players who say that the testing regimen is a simple 'duck-and-dodge' system. Beating it, he says, is "like taking candy from a baby." If Conte is right, there are 400 or so players who continue to cheat the fans, their fellow players, their teams and the sport of baseball. How would you feel as a clean member of the Arizona Diamondbacks—just a few games in back of the Giants—knowing that Melky Cabrera hit over .400 against you this year? Any resentment there? Bud Selig has got to create a world-class, state-of-the art testing program that is
year-round and ahead of the technological curve. Otherwise, baseball will rapidly become a doped-out joke.
