We have not seen the last of the names from the notorious 2003 list of players who tested positive for performance-enhancing substances. In fact, the judicial decision the other day that government agents violated the rights of baseball players and others by seizing results of their tests will very likely only trigger the release of more names.

How’s that, you ask.

Although the 9-2 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit says the government cannot retain or use the names to question players who tested positive for steroids in a survey that was supposed to remain anonymous and confidential, the person or persons who have leaked names from the list may very well feel the need to leak even more names because that will be the only way to make the players look bad.

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This is a column about a column. Put another way, this is a eulogy for a column that is dying after 82 years. It is the Sports of the Times column of The New York Times. The Times seems intent on killing the column before the newspaper itself dies. It’s like parents, knowing they are going to die, killing their children because they won’t be able to live on without them.

The problem with this warped thinking in the case of the newspaper is the demise of the column and the thinking behind the act will help hasten the newspaper’s demise.

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In the three-season span 2006-2008, Joe Mauer, the Minnesota Twins’ talented catcher, won two batting championships. With six weeks left in this season, Mauer is the American League’s hitter leading in his bid for a third title in four years.

Mark Prior pitched in nine games in the first of those seasons and hasn’t pitched since, not in 2007, not in 2008 and not this year before the San Diego Padres released him at the start of this month. He has spent half of his career on the disabled list, residing there 11 different times for the equivalent of more than four whole seasons and having two major shoulder operations less than 14 months apart.

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