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(I happen to agree about the pitcher's mounds; the ballpark issue is in a sense not relevant. I understand that more of the new parks were built to favour hitters, but if you look back to the pre-cookie cutter parks, there were as many of them that favoured the hitters as favoured pitching.

I am not positing so much about parks that favor hitters/or pitchers, but the really bizzarre ones, like the Hill and flagpole in centerfield....For instance (Cinci?? I forget,) Or oddly shaped corners and outfield fences...And even that crappy Ivy in wrigley, that eats balls. That is NOT baseball, that's cartoonish crap.

If the former, he could very well obtain medical treatment with no prospective loss of playing time or playing employment;

that's my point. If so, then HE would be on Testosterone injections, Giving him a solo advantage...Also as I pointed out yesterday, Abuse, of anything, but especially this thing, is a bad thing. We agree, I am talking aobut careful, sensible,(in the maner for which it was invented) use. Personally I have no problem If Bond, or Soso, or McGwire put on all that muscle, using. If on Steroids, he was putting on 54 Lbs in 4 years, that is not indicative of abuse. Just use. No big deal.

But,(legality aside...) Baseball rusbhing into a ban would be total hypocrisy, considering the flagrant things that are allowed by MLB right now. How many years did maddux and Glavine (who will reside in Cooperstown as a result) get 6 additional inches off the outside of the plate? , Or How about Roger Clemens, announcing he's going to plunk Bonds on the Elbow, Doing it in a game, and not Meriting an Ejection or a Suspension(SB 5 Starts IMHO, because it was more than intentional), I do agree with Footballs ban, because the need for size lends itself to abuse., but I think Baseballs current situation is adequate, and would like to see MLB enforcing the rules it already has (except the ridiculous retaliation rule, which lends stregnth to scummy little Headhunters like Clemens...) before it goes looking for new worlds to conquer.

Baseball rusbhing into a ban would be total hypocrisy, considering the flagrant things that are allowed by MLB right now. How many years did maddux and Glavine (who will reside in Cooperstown as a result) get 6 additional inches off the outside of the plate?

That is pretty much as you and I have discussed elsewhere - the question of the strike zone. (Maddux and Glavine aren't exactly the only pitchers who get the advantage and, beside, if if was giving that much of a big break, how come Atlanta pitching tended to run out of gas come postseason time for all those years - I mean, what have the Braves got to show for those ten straight division titles - one World Series ring?)

Or How about Roger Clemens, announcing he's going to plunk Bonds on the Elbow, Doing it in a game, and not Meriting an Ejection or a Suspension(SB 5 Starts IMHO, because it was more than intentional)

What about it? Do you really think Roger Clemens did what two-thirds of the National League's pitchers haven't wanted to do for a very long time, considering Barry Bonds crowds the plate so heavily you half expect him to set up a Barcalounger out there? And does anyone fool himself that Bonds wears that elbow guard for a fashion statement? So Clemens was fool enough to announce it. He's made a few other mistakes in his life but this wasn't one of them. It's about bloody time someone moved Bonds back off the plate a bit. It isn't like he's not going to get his home runs otherwise.

I do agree with Footballs ban, because the need for size lends itself to abuse.

But you yourself have argued elsewhere that in baseball the need for strength lends itself to abuse. So why disagree if baseball should decide, in the interest of prudence or of making sure the playing field is as level as possible, to ban the roids, too? (Back to the football side of the argument, considering the same need albeit for a different kind of play, I'm surprised the NHL doesn't ban the roids yet, either.)

but I think Baseballs current situation is adequate, and would like to see MLB enforcing the rules it already has (except the ridiculous retaliation rule, which lends stregnth to scummy little Headhunters like Clemens...) before it goes looking for new worlds to conquer.

"Scrummy little headhunter?" Please. Clemens isn't exactly a simon-pure innocent (he should have been suspended for drilling Mike Piazza two years ago for no reason higher than Piazza's having hit him previously like it was batting practise every time he faced the Rocket, and for just nonchalantly asking for a new ball while Piazza lay prone with a concussion; he was suspended, appropriately, for trying to shish-kebab Piazza with the broken bat barrel end in that World Series game; and, the Mets should have delivered a message in each game immediately afterward but didn't), but he is otherwise an old-school pitcher: crowd the plate on him and down you go. That is the way the game was played for a very long time, even unto the 1970s, until the hitters became wussycats (for years until the 1970s, a hitter who got knocked down just picked up, dusted off, and got back in to hit; if he was Frank Robinson, who was a notorious plate crowder, he just picked up, dusted off, and was liable to hit the next one over the fence - that's the way you did it) and the umpires became judicial tyrants about it.

I have said it before but I will say it again: If a pitcher knocks down a hitter only because his ego was bruised with a long bomb over the fence, then sit that pitcher's ass down for a few games. If a pitcher gets hit for a home run and then knocks the next guy in the lineup down, suspend his ass. But otherwise, if a pitcher is doing nothing more than trying to keep an honest (all things considered otherwise) strike zone and an honest hitter by backing him off the plate, or telling the other guys' pitcher to knock it off with the chin music, the umps ought to stay the hell out of it.