The Florida Marlins enforce a zero-tolerance policy against . . . milk?

Professional baseball may be hesitant about keeping steroids out of its players’ mouths, but one team, the Florida Marlins, took a strong stand yesterday against its non-player employees overdosing on other substances.

Last month, batboy Nick Cirillo was working in the visitor’s clubhouse at a Florida Marlins game when a Los Angeles pitcher , Brad Penny, dared him to drink a gallon of milk in an hour without throwing up, and offered to pay him $500 if he could do it.  Mr. Cirillo (who at age 19 is an adult for most purposes) accepted the challenge and drank the gallon.  The gallon of milk, however, disagreed with him, and he threw up.

The Marlins organization suspended Mr. Cirillo for six games (not as fierce as it sounds; the team had only two remaining home games).  Mr. Cirillo says that he doesn’t know why the team suspended him.  Was it (he wonders) for throwing up in the visitors’ clubhouse, or for accepting the $500 challenge?

Isaac thinks differently.  This is clearly the first small step in major league baseball getting tough on drugs, and deserves our applause.  Organized baseball is understandably reluctant to start suddenly enforcing its rules against its star players — possibly the owners fear that strict enforcement could turn baseball into a six-player sport — so it is starting with a small step: the batboys who abuse drinks laced with palmitate and ergocalciferol.  Next year, perhaps, MLB will work to keep the front-office staff clean, and so work its way over the next ten or twenty years to the players themselves.