This page is a collection of shorter comments in reaction. They are just as important as the longer opinion pages, but more pointed, and so grouped together.

This article is dead on, as I had a similar incident last spring. Kids are beginning to take this steroid era as the norm. It is scary when I hear comments from 12-13-14 year olds suggesting there is nothing wrong with Barry Bonds' or Roger Clemens' situations. It's not about what has happened in the 90's, or from 2001-2003 or even yesterday. It is about what will happen into the future.  The feeble reasoning of "its his choice to put that in his body" or "he knows he's hurting himself" has no validity.  There is still an honor and respect code to the game- the kids of today need to understand that! Thank you for all the work you do!  Keep writing!

- Sam Rodio, Jr

MLB and it's sister business are just that - business. It's no where near the real world of amateur athletics, nor should it be. Comparing the actions of anyone in that business to what's right verses what's wrong - a trip down memory lane to Jim Crow, the collusion of MLB and ALL its other enterprises to exclude the organized labor movement (among other things) and the employment and firing of managers
because they just can't produce with the ego list handed them - should be enough to say, as you put it, "ENOUGH ALREADY".

But all the videos, books and other material of "how to get noticed" by the scouting world still feeds this enterprise and those wishing to be part of it ... your readers included. This thing about whose using what is hype -- nothing more. Forget the Majors and their slanted view on making a buck, Paso, Yen ... whatever. Stick to selling whatever it is you're trying to promote at the moment and ... ALREADY IS ENOUGH.

And by the way, you really want a story to talk about - talk about all those millionaire ball players and others in MLB  that drive their fancy cars over the bridges, storm drains, culvert coverings, and overflow channels that families have to call home and kids have to sleep in because they lost their homes due to no fault of their own. Great country... yeah ... baseball and these guys are real relevant to the times.

- John Baker

It's a shame kids don't know how good they could be. I'm 56 and as a kid - we played ball - all day long - with our buddies. Sure we had practice and games but we learned to play on our own - without the parents - WITH WOOD BATS. We didn't just play during organized practice or paid training. We played all day WITH REAL BATS. and we had great bat speed. To this day the all time homerun record and batting average at my school (very large school) was done with a wood bat. Because we played all day long WITH A WOOD BAT. We need to give the real game back to the kids. I don't know if that's possible anymore with all the other things kids can do but I know my 13 year old son is looking for some buddies that want to play all day long WITH A WOOD BAT. And even though his buddies all play all 3 sports - they don't want to play all day long or even some of the day. I guess America has gone soft and so has baseball. I guess that's why some people think they need "steroid" help. Not here in  Kansas City. We're eating cookies and drinking milk and using A WOOD BAT. Have a nice season - we will.

- Bob and Ty Lockler

[Surprised to see the topic of wood bats? Maybe "performance enhancement" is too broad a term? What follows is another comments which ends in a similar vein...]

Interesting newsletter, well done. In respect to the drug testing a couple of observations.

Following on from "enough already" I am going to be cynical, however, my suggestion is you would be better off naming those MLB players that have not been on the juice as opposed to naming those that are or have been. Also with respect to the mandatory testing for PED use by young players it is to be hoped that unlike several of the young US professional leagues they do not inform the players when the test is scheduled, the tester stays with the player at all times with line of sight until the specimen is completed and in the bottle and thirdly there is no opportunity for players to "buy" and substitute clean urine samples from other students or players etc.

Keep up the good work as I look forward to each newsletter. By the way, my son has a couple of Tomcats from Tom Roberts and boy do they "hum". Fabulous well balanced bats.

- Pat Brady

[Given the above, might as well include Tom Roberts own comment on the topic...]

One of the most frequent questions that we get asked when approached by a young man looking for a bat is "Which pros do you make bats for?" It's relatively easy to spout out the names but that does nothing to impress a young man or add to his well being or self esteem. Besides, most bat makers lay claim to supplying bats to all the big players. Most are probably hopeful samples.  For us, the best answer is "YOU!"

- Tom Roberts, Tom Cat Bats

[This seems to be about bats but is really part of the PED problem, isn't it? About who kids are influenced by, who they want to emulate. It's tough to find role models these days - maybe we should stop looking. - Richard Todd, WebBall]