To quote Gomer Pyle: "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

I am sure this steroid era goes back farther than that. Remember Baltimores Brady Anderson coming out of no where in 96 and hitting 50 HR's ?

I think they should just publish the list of the guys that passed ,it would be shorter.

Prior to this leak, out of curiosity (and boredom), I took a quick gander at past Indians statistics. It seemed that beginning with 2001, everybody decided to take them. That's when Bonds started going bonkers, Luis Gonzalez hit 57 homers (uhh…OK), and I guess everybody decided it was well worth it to "take the plunge." In the buttocks with a syringe. I thought about Juan Gonzalez's airport luggage drop, also around that time.

So, I decided to first look at 2002. For some reason, I was compelled to first look at Omar Vizquel, who had just turned 35, and didn't have much time left on his Indians contract and needed to put up some stats to get another contract.

Holy cow! Talk about red flashing lights! This dude's 2002 homer total increased *700%* from the prior season!!! In fact, his homer total simply dwarfed any other season before or since! His slugging percentage also suddenly soared. AT THE AGE OF 35! What, were his paintings giving him sudden power inspiration?

Now look at Jim Thome's 2002 totals. Again, another Indian guy who was auditioning for a new contract. Huh, what the hell??? Again, something suddenly was out of tune with the numbers …

After looking at the first two Indians I decided to check, I stopped. Made me sorta queasy, I know I'm just going to find a lot of the same thing if I keep looking. What a joke. Yet local media goofs treated Vizquel and Thome as some kind of folk heroes. And still do.

Shhh. It's okay if our guys did it. Well, except the very-hated Belle and My Wife is My Rock.

Funny thing is, both Vizquel and Thome are probably going to eventually make it into the Hall of Fame. I wouldn't be at all surprised if both are on that 2003 list, too. A lot more probably were either cycling down when the test was taken. so they wouldn't test positive until a different time of the year, or were taking human growth hormone, which wouldn't show up in a urine test. It's a sham.

And I'll just say that based upon my own personal experience in the 70s and early 80s, the stuff works exactly as advertised. Their athletes were taking steroids a helluva lot earlier than MLB would like you to believe.