genomeboy.com

The New York Times treads familiar ground this morning with a front-page account of testing kids for the ACTN3 gene, variants of which can predispose one to excelling at speed or endurance sports. Never mind that we have known about this for more than five years or that 23andMe has been doing it for a year or that it’s been available via Australia for four years. Whatever: it’s always fun to revisit the tired memes of genetic determinism, designer babies, ambitious parents living vicariously through their children,  and unscrupulous biotechnology companies. Yawn.

UPDATE: Will Saletan sees more significance in this than I do*. I suspect these companies are more interested in making a killing than they are in “national greatness,” but I admit I tend to be cynical about these things.

*Thanks for the name-check, Will. I would write you personally and tell you what a huge fan of Human Nature I am if only Slate were less covetous of its reporters’ email addresses.

Dustin Pedroia:  .326, 17 HR, 83 RBI, 20 SB, 118 R…Five-foot-nine*, 180 lbs…and oh, yeah: MVP.

On behalf of the world’s vertically challenged cohort, I salute you.

*As if

Yahoo! Sports:

“You can DNA test me, blood test me, urine test me, whatever you want to do,” Torres said in her first statements after arriving in Omaha. “Just test me because I want people to know that I am doing this right, that I’m 40, 41 years old and I’m doing this and I’m clean and I want a clean sport. I swam against swimmers who were dirty my entire life and it’s just something I wouldn’t do.”

The New York Times:

People who know her say it is ludicrous to suspect Torres of doping. If she is guilty of anything, her friends say, it is of being a compulsive exerciser.

“I don’t think she has ever been out of shape a day in her life,” said Schubert, who coached Torres in the late 1980s. “I think that’s what makes this possible and conceivable.”

USA Today:

What I normally say is age is just a number,” Torres said here this week. “I have great people around me, and I’m able to recover. At my age, it’s all about recovery. It’s not just the stuff physically, it’s also what I put in my body. I take these awesome amino acids that help with recovery and build strength. I eat well. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things.”

As someone who turned 44 the other day, I want to believe I can improve my phenotype the “right” way. Given that I have neither extraordinary willpower nor God-given athletic talent, I’m hoping I might get by with a couple of coaches, two personal trainers, a physical therapist, a masseuse and a nanny. Or maybe just by going to the gym once in a while…

The gruff DNA of the Yankees had been passed on to him, yet it did not travel well when he took over the Mets, who have no residual ethos.

- George Vescey on fired Mets manager Willie Randolph