Grimsley Revelation May be Most Damning Of All

The Feds search of former Oriole and now former Diamondback reliever Jason Grimsley's home could be the most damning evidence yet of baseball's drug problem. And given what Grimsley has said, it's formally not just a steroid problem; now, human growth hormone (HGH) and amphetamines are in play:

According to court documents, Grimsley failed a league drug test in 2003. Authorities said when he was cooperating, he admitted to using human growth hormone, amphetamines and steroids.

He added that amphetamine use was prevalent in pro baseball, and that it was placed in coffee in clubhouses -- marked "leaded" or "unleaded" to indicate which pots contained the drugs -- Novitsky wrote.

The Republic reported that Latino players were cited by Grimsley in the court documents as a major source of amphetamines, as were major leaguers on California teams who could easily travel to Mexico to buy the drugs.

The newspaper reported that the affidavit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, said that Grimsley took delivery of two kits containing human growth hormone at his home on April 19.

None of this is any good for Major League Baseball at this point, and it may be the most damning news of all. Given all of the recent attention to steroids, MLB has started to enact its steroid policy in order to allow for testing and suspensions. But who is looking into the use of HGH and amphetamines? What's worse, amphetamines have been a problem in baseball for years, even going back to the "greenies" of the 1970's. Why, after thirty years, are we still looking at this problem?

Major League Baseball needs to institute mandatory drug testing for amphetamines now. HGH is a little harder because there is no real test to do so. But baseball needs to clean up the game of all performance enhancing drugs, not just steroids. And given Congress' attitude on the subject of illegal drugs recently, baseball better do it before Congress does it for them.

The fact that Grimsley not only accepted contraband goods, but also apparently named names while he was cooperating with federal investigators is extremely bad news for baseball. Let's hope that this is not the beginning of the end for our national pastime.