HGH and all related forms of cheater-juice have been a hot topic this year, what with the Benoit murder-suicide tragedy and Bonds' breaking the home-run record (a tragedy in and of itself, really), both of which dialed up the pressure on the Powers That Be to do something about the situation. Many fans and even a large contingent of athletes - of the non-cheating variety - have become good and sick of the rampant cheating and accompanying jacking up of stats and records. Sure, there are tests that can detect a few drugs and BALCO has had a bright spotlight shining into their retinas for a couple years, but what we need is a big break in the case, a bust, as it were, something that can give us some real information, some names, some perpetrators....

OH! Good morning! What do we have here?!

Just today news broke that the DEA had, over the past few days, successfully raided 26 underground drug labs and arrested at least 50 people (none of them the least bit sketchy, I'm sure) in connection with creating and trafficking all sorts of fun illegal substances from HGH to anabolic steroids. The DEA's crackdown - which for some reason the DEA felt had to be given a name more fit for a horrible action movie starring The Rock and maybe Jackie Chan than for a legitimate investigation: "Operation Raw Deal" - took 18 months of investigation and partnership with China and Mexico, where much of the raw material was originating, to pull off. The result? A monumental, unprecedented amount of evidence, including the identities not just of the makers/suppliers but names of everyone who purchased or received even a single shipment of some kind of performance-enhancing drug linked to this particular investigation.

What does this magical list mean for the sporting world, in particular the MLB? Well, no one can know just yet since the evidence still needs to be organized into some sort of database, but it is speculated that there are hundreds of thousands of people on the list. The bust was not targeted solely at professional sports folks, so most of the names will be those of body-builder types, amateur wrestlers, and the like, but it seems very likely that the names of athletes, trainers, or sports doctors will make appearances. As far as what fate could be in store for any baseball-related people implicated, that is TBD. Possibly nothing in terms of discipline because they have trouble punishing people retroactively and that damn Players Union is a force more impenetrable than the RNC... but DAMN it would be good to KNOW!