Submitted by Duncan, Sep 11, 2007 01:57

Tim, you are probably one of the best sports columnists around, but this was total garbage. Jazz, poetry, and long-distance trucking are not competitive pursuits and therefore one can not really cheat while doing them. You really lost me, and almost certainly, all your readers when you went down that road. If Coleridge and Wordsworth were rivals in the English Premier Poetry League, vying for multi-million dollar contracts and endorsement deals, and it was proven that opiates enhanced one's poetic ability and romantic creativity, as well as enabling one to recover faster from writer's block, then I am certain we would view Coleridge as a cheat and phony and look with as much disdain on "Kublai Khan" as we do Bonds' 756th homer. As the previous sentence is one of the most ridiculous ever written, I am sure that you see why your analogy is total bullsh**.

Rick Ankiel was and is a great story this year in baseball. However, it appears that he almost certainly took HgH at some point and, yes, that taints at least our perception of him. It may have had zero impact on his performance this year considering he obtained it 3 years ago and HgH does not have any proven effects on performance in baseball (although he did obtain a YEAR's supply, and there is no way to tell if he is still using it due to the lack of a test for HgH). However, it still changes his public perception from someone who persevered and triumphed over physical, psychological, emotional (etc.) issues to someone willing to revert to any means to gain a competitive edge. Are you saying all pitchers recovering from Tommy John or some kind of arm injury ought to be taking HgH in order to get back that which "forms the central part of their identity." Maybe Ankiel does not deserve to be condemned, but he certainly doesn't deserve such a (cough, cough) "eloquent" defense. Not to mention the example it may set for young aspiring baseball players. And HgH can cause acromegaly (look it up, it's pretty terrible) and may be linked to certain types of cancer. But that's cool because Ankiel probably used it in "moderation."

Oh, and Ankiel did sign a $2.5 mil signing bonus: one of the highest ever. So I don't really pity that poor rich 24 year old who couldn't feel like a "god" anymore.

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