THE FRONT ROW with Jason Elliott July 24, 2013

Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical when it comes to baseball anymore.

When players went on strike in 1994, it took until the 1998 season to get be back into watching the game when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa exchanged the home run record to get me back into watching the game.

Some 16 years later, that same feeling has happened again.

IF FANS are looking for some clean baseball, Area A (district) American Legion baseball tournaments begin on Thursday at Ramsey Park in Coeur d'Alene (A) and Harris Field (AA) in Lewiston.

In the AA tournament, Lewis-Clark, Coeur d'Alene and Prairie will compete for two spots in the state tournament at Rocky Mountain High in Meridian starting July 30.

Coeur d'Alene had won six of its previous nine games coming into Tuesday's nonleague game against Kalispell at Ramsey Park.

Prairie, which will enter the tournament as the No. 3 seed, has beaten both Lewis-Clark and Coeur d'Alene during North Idaho League play this season, so anything is possible in a three-team tournament.

The Coeur d'Alene Loggers, who host the A tournament at Ramsey Park, will open the tournament against St. Maries on Thursday at 5:30 p.m., with Prairie facing Priest River at 3 p.m.

Two teams will advance to state next week in Idaho Falls.

BACK TO the dirty side of baseball.

Nobody really knows what happened with Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun when he failed a drug test in 2012 - just a year after winning the National League Most Valuable Player award.

Now, as more than a dozen players have been targeted for involvement with a Biogenesis company, he's the first one of those players to accept his punishment and take a 65-game suspension.

Alex Rodriguez, who has been trying to come back from a hip injury for the New York Yankees, and Jesus Montero of the Seattle Mariners have also been linked to this report.

Montero, if you remember, was supposed to be the Mariners' catcher of the future at the start of the season, but has been playing in Triple A as the team has put together a winning streak that might give hope that the future doesn't look as bleak anymore.

His future with the team, however, should be over should he get suspended.

LONG AFTER both McGwire and Sosa have retired, they've both admitted they may have had some help getting through that season.

Will Braun just be the first of a list of players that has to sit because they've done something wrong, maybe?

Is baseball completely clean of performance enhancing drugs? Probably not.

If you're looking to escape all that talk, plan on attending a Legion baseball tournament.

They won't let you down.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected].