The New York Times Provides The First Drug Smear Of The Baseball Season

"For the last few years," The New York Times writes in the Bartolo Colon story that we flagged earlier today, "baseball and other sports, while fighting to limit the use of performance-enhancing drugs, have been faced with a new and murky challenge: players getting sophisticated blood treatments, often from doctors whose practices involve the regular use of H.G.H."

We've been here before with the Times, and I'll say basically what I said then: The mere fact of a doctor prescribing HGH as part of his practice is no more indicative of PED-peddling — the Times's insinuation — than is a doctor doling out steroids to lung-cancer patients. HGH is legal with a prescription; Colon's doctor isn't breaking any laws, so far as anyone knows, and Colon isn't violating any drug policy, so far as anyone knows.

And yet the narcs at the Times want you think it's all very suspicious. (When journalists say something "draws scrutiny," very often it means that they managed to stuff all their own dark, half-assed suppositions into a source's mouth.) The logic here is plainly nuts. By this rationale, who wouldn't fall under suspicion? Shouldn't we also wonder about a player in close contact with, say, a renal specialist whose practice involves the regular use of steroids — a player who might soon receive sophisticated medical treatment from this very doctor? Hop to it, New York Times. David Eckstein isn't going to smear himself.

Pitcher's Treatment Draws Scrutiny [NYT]