Called Strikes: Let’s stop enabling PED users

Let me begin by stating flat out that Lilly King is my new hero.

Not only for her Olympic gold-medal performance. No, primarily for her outspoken stand against performance enhancing drugs and PED users — current and former.

To those of you who may be unfamiliar with Lilly King and this subject, I’ll give a brief refresher.

Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova was a PED user who was caught and now no longer uses.

In a controversial decision, she was allowed to compete in the Rio summer games.

She then proceeded to throw down a challenge to King and the other swimmers with a finger-wagging gesture after winning her qualifying heat.

King came back with a better time in her heat and responded with the same expression, wagging her index finger.

King then went on to state how she felt it wasn’t right that former PED users be allowed to compete.

She included U.S. team members in this assessment, as well saying that Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin — former users that were busted, but are now supposedly clean — not be allowed to compete either.

What really frosts me though is that the media covering the games has embraced her stance.

I like her stance.

Heck, I love her stance.

What gets me wound up, though, is how the media that is embracing this — for lack of a better term —zero-tolerance stance, is the same media that is so lenient in regards to major league baseball PED cheaters Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGuire, and the list goes on and on, seemingly without end.

They do the same thing in other sports, also, but Major League Baseball seems to be the worst offender in my estimation.

Part of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of the Major League Baseball Players Association. They routinely protest any penalty that’s handed down to any player for any infraction.

At some point the MLBPA has got to find some backbone and tell it’s constituency, “Enough is enough. You did the crime, now you’ll do the time. We’re through with this.”

I believe it’s called enabling, and the MLBPA and the media are two of the biggest enablers in sports.