“Baseball officials, by virtue of a decade of cherished home run hitting records falling, probably feel they have to continually test Bautista to ensure that his sudden-found power stroke isn’t the result of artificial means.”

Overall, I’m of two minds when it comes to testing players:
1. Yes, I agree there has to be testing. Cynical comments about WADA and anti-doping agencies aside, for all the reasons that clark17 has been stating (health, integrity) you need to test to ensure a level playing field.
2. So far, what we know about MLB’s testing program has been an abject failure of leaks, process failures, and a distinct lack of “randomness.”

Not really. You can test him at the start of the season, again in July and once more in September or October. PEDs aren’t Popeye’s spinach, magic substances that give the user superpowers. Their benefit lies in allowing guys to recover faster and thus train harder. Testing Bautista every other week isn’t about looking for possible PED use, it’s paranoia and suspicion.

Arguably the best time to test is in the off-season when guys are doing non-baseball training.

If you’re tired of talking about PEDs now …. just wait until next year’s Hall of Fame balloting rolls around. Its going to be ridiculous.

Taking health out of the equation, though, PED’s have an adverse effect the integrity of sports. In sports—as in all things—dishonest achievement devalues achieving something honestly. Several posts back, Todd astutely pointed out that some of the old baseball legends, like Hank Aaron, used “greenies” back in the day, which almost certainly affected their performance. That’s a great point, and I appreciate that we can’t go back and change the past, but I think we should make a concerted effort to keep PED’s out of sports going forward.

That said, however, I couldn’t agree more that the testing process needs to work much better than it has recently. The Braun case is a perfect example of a player being convicted in the media (ESPN is the absolute worst aspect of the “sports-entertainment complex”) before all the evidence was in. “Confidentiality” has to mean exactly that, and testing standards and procedures need to be as rigorous as the rules of evidence in criminal cases, because this leaked “positive” test is going to haunt Ryan Braun’s entire playing career, just like the murder charge is always going to stick to Casey Anthony, regardless of her eventual acquittal (which makes ESPN the Nancy Grace of sports). Keeping PED’s out of baseball is a noble goal to have in maintaining the game’s integrity, but that effort is compromised entirely if the testing process itself lacks integrity. If nothing else, I hope the Braun case will give ESPN and others pause before passing instant judgment, although I fear it won’t matter one bit.

(Roberto, great “Les Miserables” reference, dude!)

That’s not protecting the integrity of the game — it’s an Inspector Javert-like persecution of anyone you think might be guilty of cheating. As with Lance Armstrong, you conclude that he must be guilty and no amount of passed tests and lack of credible evidence will dissuade you of that belief.

Now, if you’re just some sports-talk blowhard, it’s bad enough. But, the testers, be it WADA, USADA, or MLB, have the power to hound people. If you say “this is outrageous!” they can then, through their blowhard allies in the media, denigrate you.

But you’re right; how can MLB be trusted when they’ve allowed so many confidentiality breaches? I hope Braun is successful in litigation against the MLB and against the person who he belives leaked the information.

I have another interesting story about anti-doping, involving my other passion Racquetball. The US amateur racquetball association aligns itself with the USOC for funding, and as a result has to adhere to olympic style drug testing. No unions, no rights for the players; olympic athletes have to report their locations 24×7 and be available for drug tests without any notice, at any time, anywhere (same with cyclists). So racquetball players operate under these draconian policies. A little known amateur player out in Seattle qualified for a national team at some point, or competed in a national tournament, and one day found a USOC drug tester at his front door at 5am while he was dealing with two sick children. He told the guy to go to hell …. and ended up with a 2 year suspension from all sanctioned tournaments. Not because he failed a test, but because he refused an unreasonable request for a test. To me, the story goes partly to a process, but also highlights exactly the unreasonable search and seizure requests that some athletes undergo. Why couldn’t that tester have just returned a few hours later at a more reasonable time? Was the punishment fitting of the crime? What was the value of banning an amateur player for 2 years? Every anti-doping agency in the news just riles my blood.

The union agreed to testing with two basic conditions: confidentiality and a strict set of procedures, which included what lawyers call “chain of custody” safeguards, that had to be followed.

Virtually from the start, confidentiality has been honored more in the breach than in the observance. We weren’t supposed to know who tested positive in 2003, yet we do.

Now, MLB violates the procedures and Braun (and by extension, the MLBPA) is supposed to give MLB a pass on that as well? Not a chance!

I don’t know if Braun used PEDs (for the record, I share your misgivings about the various anti-doping agencies) and I don’t care. I care that MLB agreed to follow a set of rules and violated them. The blowhards yelling “technicality!” would be the first to scream bloody murder if they were on the receiving end of this kind of disregard for procedural safeguards.

It has changed my opinion on the matter 110%.