Opinion: Smoke a joint, lose your guaranteed contract?

The simplest punishment would be that players who are caught involved in banned substances and illegal drugs, be they recreational or performance enhancing, lose the right to have a guaranteed contract. There is a denial of death, of consequence, inherent in drug use. Athletes shrug off health concerns and legal ‘details’ because the family is taken care of once the ink is dry. If the wives and children were suddenly exposed to a little risk, it wouldn’t take much more of a village to keep a majority of jocks in line.

We don’t need to protect ballplayers from themselves and their juiced-up peers. They have a union and other legal mechanisms by which they can do so, to precisely the degree they feel appropriate. If you don’t think that’s good enough, don’t spend any money on baseball. Don’t have any illusions, though, that the game is now different from any other sport, any other high-stress profession, or different from the game we all watched when we were kids.