And a good thing too. Wouldn't want him wearing one of those silly Junior Felix jobs with two ear flaps. He used to look like a kid playing soldier.

On the other hand, this used to be a guy who partied too much and, especially, drank much more than was good for him. Some of you may remember Geoff Baker's excellent piece from last fall. (Yes, Baker.)

2004, it turns out, was Zaun's first sober season in the majors. He had shown flashes before - in his two years in Kansas City, he hit .290 with 13 HR in 359 AB. But his playing time was never regular, and there were always other issues, apparently.

Here is Zaun's career record. It tells a fascinating story. He was a good hitter, when sober, with Florida and Kansas City (bear in mind that Florida was quite a favourable pitcher's context and KC during 2000-01 was an extreme hitter's context). Throughout his career, he has walked about as much as he strikes out, but has just a little power. He is 34, but has caught just over 700 games. He probably has another 300-400 games before age-related decline can be expected to set in.

If Zaun were to emerge as a .280/15 homer/60 walk hitter for the next year or three, it would not shock me. You might describe it as a Dennis Eckersley story, writ smaller.

On another note, here is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle with Tom House's description of steroid/HGH use in the 60s and 70s. It is somewhat strange that the article refers to House's time as a pitcher, but not his many years as a pitching coach in Texas and his awareness of use during that time.

Which doesn't seem all that outlandish - even .270/12 HR/50 BB will do - he's one of the finest pickups of cheap, marginal, unwanted talent that this team has pulled off in a long time.

The Jays used to specialize in that sort of thing - how did they get Rance Mulliniks, after all? Or Buck Martinez or Doyle Alexander or Tom Henke. They picked them up off the scrap heap, or in a deal of no-names.

It's obviously pretty hard to do consistently, and it's probably much harder to do it now than it was twenty years ago. But when you don't have $ 120 million to spend, you need a bit of luck on your side as well.

We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses. That was the '60s, when nobody knew... We were at the tail end of a generation that wasn't afraid to ingest anything.

The 60s gets blamed for everything nowadays, doesn't it? House's ML career actually began in 1971, but he was drafted in 1967. If it was still the 60s, he was doing this stuff in the minor leagues.

I remember a lot of talk in Bouton's books about amphetamines - anyone remember if there were any suggestions of other stuff as well?

Don't blame the '60s for steroids. It seems that their use in sports began in the 50s (Happy Days, indeed); they were widespread certainly by the mid-70s (remember Kornelia Ender and the rest of the East German swimming team).

Here's a short history piece.

That's not that surprising. I mean, he has won 20 before.