In Neil Young's great old song "The Needle and the Damage Done," he sang the line "every junkie's like a setting sun." That was written about heroin addiction, but the words can be applied to baseball players who thought they would have an edge by using steroids, human growth hormone, or synthetic testosterone. Pick your poison because it doesn't matter. The junkie keeps using because he's hooked on the high; the sports players keep doing it for the thrill of being better than everyone else. Neither thinks about the damage done until it is too late.
The answer is that there are rules and those rules are in place and must be followed, but the problem here is that Cabrera may have taken it to beyond the level of just enhancing his stats. He may have created a website for a sports cream that does not exist, but it could have been an elaborate attempt on his part to obfuscate the truth about his testing positive for elevated testosterone. If that is the case, because Cabrera tested positive for an illegal substance, we will have a federal investigation that MLB is actually supporting. Gone are the days of burying heads in the sand and denial of reality.
Cabrera may have duped himself into thinking that what happened with Ryan Braun could happen for him. It seems that commissioner Bud Selig and his people learned a great deal from dropping the ball with Braun, and that means it is time for someone to pay the piper, and Cabrera's luck seems to just about have run out.
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