DOPING

Let’s open sports to more drug cheats

Regarding Erin Logan’s Jan. 27 letter “Opening the tour to all dopers,” besides cycling, I think we need to implement a doping competition for our national pastime, baseball.

We can have two separate leagues. One league for “dopers,” the other league for “non-dopers.” Then we can have a World Series between the champion of each league.

To make it fair, each game would start off with the non-doping champion having a four-run lead and each player on that team would get a walk after three balls and get four strikes.

Also, home run balls hit by a doping champion player will only count as a home run if the ball goes beyond 475 feet.

If not, it’s a single.

We could even have a special “Old Timers Doping Day.” All in attendance would get free “toy” Lego syringe kits. Players like Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire would get one more “shot” of fame since they should not be recognized as legitimate Hall of Famers.

Also, Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame before any of these doping clowns. At least his stellar “on-field” performance was for real.

Should track and field be next?

MARTIN KOPELOWITZ, Meridian

CONCUSSIONS

Injuries can happen in non-contact sports

I read with interest your article in the Jan. 25 paper titled, “Schools report head injuries.” Of great interest was the list of sports where these injuries occurred. Unfortunately, you missed one.

My granddaughter, who is a junior at Rocky Mountain High, played powder puff football last fall. On her second day of practice, she was violently slammed to the ground, incurring a severly sprained neck and a concussion.

She missed a week of school and her homecoming dance.

Since the school did not issue any kind of protective gear for the girls, I assumed it was because this was to be a “no-contact” sport — more like flag football. Obviously I was wrong.

To add insult to injury, none of the adults present noticed her on the ground, no one came to check on her when she was slow to get up off the ground, and she continued to play in a concussion-induced fog.

We know all too well that concussions are very serious because periodically, problems continue to arise resulting from her injury.

MARY JOHNSON, Meridian