Subtitle: A Work in Progress

[Click here for Day 3 Update.]

The initial feedback, including articles for reference, has been helpful in my pursuit of a clearer position on baseball and steroids. Here's where I am, 24 hours later:

Current beliefs

1) No one should use steroids, drugs or supplements that could be potentially harmful to the body, short-term or long-term.

2) No one should be pressured to use these supplements, either, by the idea that they need them to stay competitive.

3) There is debate in the scientific community about how harmful steroids are. (Indeed, steroids are prescribed to promote health in certain cases to people of all ages and ilks.) They might be harmful to athletes, but some respected people say that you cannot conclude that they are harmful to athletes.

4) In the face of this confusion, it is not automatic that baseball should ban sterioids.

5) However, for the same reason that baseball is welcome to ban corked bats and balks, baseball is welcome to ban steroids, regardless of the inconclusive knowledge of their effects.

6) Eliminating the pressure to use a supplement that you suspect others are using, as explained in statement 2), a supplement whose health effects are undetermined, is a valid reason for a steroid ban.

7) If baseball is going to have such a ban, it should have the support of both management and the players.

8) That support should manifest itself in a punishment structure that is carefully vetted, and that includes both reprimand and, if appropriate, rehabilitation.

9) Punishment cannot be applied retroactively - someone who broke a current or future rule, before that rule was enacted, should not be subject to reprimand.

10) Baseball is a game in which unfair advantages are frequent. Dodger Stadium works against hitters, baseball in Colorado works against pitchers, the first half of the 20th century worked against African American ballplayers, beer prices work against the consumer. There is no call to break out asterisks for statistics compiled by players who might be found to have used steroids. The record book is the record book.

This list of 10 beliefs is not etched in stone - so again, I welcome further commentary that might lead me to expand the list, contract it or alter it in any way. Thanks.

[Click here for Day 3 Update.]