Court rules samples seized from steroids testing can be used [baseball players]

A federal appeals court has ruled that evidence seized from Major League Baseball's steroids testing labs can be used by the government in its investigation of performance enhancing drugs.

The ruling today involves computer results of urine samples that were seized as part of the government's investigation into illegal steroid use among professional athletes.

But the labs stopped destroying the samples when the grand jury demanded access to the results from ten players. When authorities raided the labs for those samples, they seized all the remaining samples as well.

If players use illegal substances, on OR off the field, they are subject to penalties under all available laws.

While partially true, the feds have not requested this information to arrest players for drug use(testing positive for illegal substances is not a crime anyway). As you are probably aware, the information was sought simply in an attempt to catch Barry Bonds(and others, to a lesser extent) lying in front of the grand jury.

Bonds testified in the BALCO Federal Grand Jury case, and the U.S. District Attorney's pursuit of him now is for Perjury before the Grand Jury, when he said he was not using steroids. (Reminds me of a certain lying-to-a-Grand Jury-depending on what "is....is").

Arguments about whether or not the Federal Government should pursue athletes in sports, which other posters here were flapping their gums about, have nothing to do with the investigation of Bonds and lying to a Federal Grand Jury. His use of steroids, purely based on the observation of his statistics/physical characteristics are consistent with use of performance-enhancing drugs. To have the records of previous sports athletes who set records WITHOUT the use of illegal drugs is to cheapen their memories.

That's my beef with drug-enhanced athletic performance, and the Liberal interpretation of "if it feels good, do it" and "whatever it takes" are consistent with looking the other way. If we want to keep things relevant and records to be apples and apples, then the rules of the game should be equal for all, consistently, including playing without doping....

Oh, I don't disagree at all. I think I mistakenly infered that you were saying the Feds had reason to ask for this simply because it involved "illegal substances". I was a huge baseball fan from the mid 80's through mid-90's, but lost just about all interest due to strikes and steroids.

I lost interest after the strike, too, and due to the Players' Union dictating terms the superstars will accept to be paid millions for a sport, the Great American Game has become the great American business.

The role models for kids growing up were baseball players, etc., but that's long gone, too, as the mentality today is not considerate of anyone but one's self when the money is THAT big.

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