In today's column he employs one of his favorite devices for hiding his dearth of substance:  the ridiculously long list.  He devoured a huge portion of his word count by rattling off names like Johnny Mize and Pie Traynor and George Sisler, names very few of his readers will know.  He could have made the same point in a single sentence.  If he truly believes his point he should have arrived at such a belief after considering the alternatives and discounting them.  Gee, recounting that process would be a good way to fill the space no longer occupied by a list.  Acknowledging what should be an obvious weakness of his point (e.g. "I know hit totals aren't everything and I realize guys like Mantle, Gehrig, and DiMaggio aren't in Cooperstown because their careers looked like Baines' career..").  After that a better writer might reveal his earlier statement as a feint and fall back to a slightly weaker position which should represent the real point he wants to make (e.g. "..I'm just saying that this is one of the ways people can get into the Hall and Baines beats out an awful lot of good players including some of the great hitters..").  Or he could go over the top and make a strong statement that discounts the weakness he's just acknowledged (e.g. "Even though hit totals aren't everything, they represent an indispensible part of the game and I think anyone with the sheer number of hits Baines has should be enshrined automatically even if he contributed nothing else to his teams..").  His arguments are routinely insulting to his readers.  I have to stop or I'll get worked up.

I would ask; experts at what?

A survey was taken of Olympians in 1972 when steroids were banned.  68% of them admitted to using steroids in some capacity.

Of course, it was in the late 70s that the East Germans had a state sponsored doping program for olympians.  It has been argued whether or not the athletes knew what they were getting as they were told that they were getting "vitamins".  achem....maybe B12!

For that matter, in 776 BC Ancient Greeks were known to eat sheep testicles as a way to intake testosterone!!!   If you put it that way, having a trainer inject you in the butt doesn't seem so bad!

As someone else said, the Olympics banned them in 1972.  Do you think they banned them because they didn't think athletes were using them?  Of course they were.  If Olympians were using them, so were professional athletes.  Remember, these guys have more money than amateurs.

The point is that they've been readily available for decades and athletes have taken them on a regular basis for that long as well.  It's foolish to think that baseball players of that era weren't taking them.  Were they all?  No, but some certainly were yet that generation gets a pass and in my opinion, it was that generation that is far more responsible for the damage than this one.  They're the lazy fucks who kept their mouths shut and turned a blind eye that allowed it to overtake the sport.  

I'm not saying Dawson did steroids.  I'm only pointing out that it's silly to assume he didn't when we know they were as readily available then as they are now.