Denial, thy name is Fehr

Fehr rejects drug-use suspicion talk.

Well, then it must not exist.

On one level, this isn't as dumb as the NHLPA vigorously supporting the "rights" of players like Chris Simon or about half of the Flyers organization. However, you can at least make the argument that there isn't a cry for severe suspensions in hockey. (There is still a substantial percentage of the hockey community that believes that all these incidents would disappear if the NHL would simply remove the instigator penalty. The number of players with 300+ PIM in that era would lead most people to think that this "self-policing" didn't work, but whatever.)

There isn't much of a cry to clean up baseball, and honestly, that is Fehr's real problem. So many prominent players have tested positive that it's beginning to look like track and field or cycling, where you have two groups of athletes: those who've tested positive and those who haven't tested positive yet. The time for fighting suspicion is long past; Fehr should either take steps to clean up the sport or step aside so someone else can. (Wait a minute, a pro union leader acting in the best interests of the entire group. Who am I kidding?)

True, not all runners or cyclists are doping. In fact, many might not be. It's just hard to believe when you see a number of stars following the same pattern ...

• I would never use drugs, that's completely wrong and I'm totally against it.
• I don't know where these allegations came from. I will fight them until the very end.
• I don't know how that happened, but I'll take as many tests as they want to prove it was a bad test.
• I was young and didn't know what I was doing. I made a mistake. Most of all, I regret not being honest with myself.

See, guys like Fehr don't understand because they don't want to. They don't see that every guy on that list – McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Bonds, Rodriguez, Giambi ... – takes more of our confidence away. Eventually it doesn't matter any more. We'll just assume any spectacular performance is the product of drugs.

Keep it up, Donald. You're doing a heckuva job.