New York Times Cites Anonymous Lawyers Saying Sosa Tested Positive for PEDs in 2003

We also don't know what the drug was that produced the positive test.

In conclusion, the New York Times report adds almost nothing to the question of whether performance enhancing substances aided Sammy Sosa's production.

Even if we knew all the things we don't know about the 2003 test, however, it still wouldn't tell us much on this score. After all, by 2003 Sosa had already begun his (rather steep)decline, so whatever he was taking then certainly didn't produce huge power numbers at the time.

Look, I have no real interest in defending Sosa here; he did what he did. But I've never been convinced that steroids - or PEDs in general - are all that big of a deal. I don't believe that the power spike during the so-called "Steroid Era" is explained very convincingly by the presence of PEDs. I don't believe that players who use(d) the drugs are bad people. I don't believe that anything is gained by the empty moral posturing - it's hard to know what else to call it, when baseball athletes are by and large the only group of people that are subject to heavy scrutiny - we've seen over the issue.

But what I do think is that the whole controversy reflects more poorly on sports writers than players. Take, for example, this completely childish blog post by Steve Rosenbloom at the Trib. How does this add any knowledge to the issue? I mean, we're how many years into steroid investigations? 7? 8? And we still know no more about how "performance enhancing substances aid production" than we did when all this began.