Okay, so I've started my way through the Mitchell Report. I'm not all the way through, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen so I want to get some of my thoughts on what I've already read out here before we get too far away from the story being put out there. I will say I'm exceedingly grateful that the report dropped on Thursday, it might have been the only story capable of ripping talk radio back away from the Michael Vick discussion for any extended period of time.
As I've read through some of the report, one of the first impressions I have is how unfair this is going to be for a number of players named in the report. I'd love to blame the media for this, but I just can't. I have to blame our short attention span society. The reason I say this is because since word came out that names would be listed in the MItchell report, the public has been clamouring for the "list". The simple fact of the matter is that there's not a page in the report that gives a simple list of all the players that the report implicates. And there's a reason for that - doing so would irresponsibly lump all the players in the report into one pile, when the reality is that the amount and the strength of the evidence against players listed in the report varies greatly. In the case of Roger Clemens, for instance, the evidence spans 8 pages consisting of highly specific testimony from his former trainer. On the other end of the spectrum, the evidence against David Bell is a mere paragraph, and limited to his purchase of a drug commonly used by steroid abusers to counteract the effect of steroids on the body's natural testosterone production. However, the "list" is out there now, and with the exception of a few obvious players who are getting a ton of attention (Clemens, for instance), I see the "lumping effect" at work among the general public. If Player A was in the report, he's a steroid user, and most folks will accept that without even knowing the evidence.
Secondly, I'm greatly disturbed that, despite the fact that baseball has been allegedly trying to address the steriod issue for the last several years, the bulk of this report seems to rest on the back of information and informants who were implicated and squeezed as a result of federal investigations. The two "star" informants in the report, Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee, both fit this description. This especially concerns me given my opposition to the repeated threats from Congress to get directly involved in this issue with baseball. The report brings to light that baseball still isn't doing a very good job of policing their own, and I worry that some grandstanding politicians will seize on this.
However, my strongest initial impression from what I've read of the report so far is a disgust with the way the players' union continues to handle this issue. The report makes it clear that all sides (Comissioner's office, owners, union, players) bear responsibility for the extent to which steroids have become an issue in baseball, and I totally agree. Everybody ignored the problem for years, and they all deserve blame. However, the simple fact of the matter is that now, the Commissioner and the owners have shown a willingness to do something about this, and despite a lot of talk, the players remain as obstructionists. The union refused Mitchell's request for relevant documents, and expressly discouraged current players from cooperating with the investigation. Of 5 players who had previously spoken publically on the issue, only one, Frank Thomas, responded to Mitchell's request for an interview. It's this kind of behavior that leads me to question those players who insist that the majority of players are clean. If that's true, the clean players should be beating the doors down at the union offices insisting that they work with the owners to clean up the sport. This report makes it clear that this just isn't happening. I've heard a number of presumed "clean" players in the media since the report dropped talking about the issue and how important it is that it be addressed, yet it would seem that not one of those players found it worthwhile to sit down with Mitchell and tell him what they know. It's going to be difficult enough to develop a truly effective drug testing program, but it absolutely will never happen until the union decides that the matter is not an adversarial one between them and the owners.
There's my first set of reactions, I'm sure there will be at least one more. I haven't really been a reader in the past few years, so my information on this issue prior to the Mitchell report coming out has been largely coming from what's reported in the national media. Reading the report has inspired me to get more informed on this issue, so I've added Game of Shadows and Juicing the Game to my upcoming reading list.
2 months ago
6 comments:
I don't know. Has it occurred to you that many of the clean players might not really care if others are using steroids? You seem to assume that if a player is not using steroids, he must really, really want to kick all the steroids-using players out of the game by any means necessary. I doubt this is true for more than a handful of players. (Also, I would not favor giving up any sort of civil liberties if I were a clean baseball player any more than I am in favor of allowing cops to do random drug searches of houses, even though I do not do drugs.)
I am hardly surprised that there is still an adversarial position between the union and the league on this and I don't think it proves anything about how many of the players are clean or not. For one thing, if I were a clean player, I'm pretty sure I'd think this was all going quite far enough and I'd tell George Mitchell to take his witch-hunt elsewhere.
By the way, I use the term witch-hunt advisedly. Many people termed Starr's investigation of Clinton a "witch-hunt." This was a really terrible analogy as Starr's investigation was clearly targeted at somebody. To term something a witch-hunt, it must be an untargeted general investigation of just about everybody. If this isn't a witch-hunt, then I've never seen one, and I do not approve.
There is quite a bit of room between not caring about other players using steroids and wanting to kick all steorids users out by any means necessary.
Do I think every clean ballplayer cares? No. Do I think a large number of them do? Absolutey, and I think there are those who wouldn't care otherwise who simply object to being lumped in as cheaters in the court of public opinion.
I know that if I had a co-worker of similar/lesser ability who I knew/believed was getting ahead of me due to fraudulant practices, it would make me mad. I find it hard to believe the same rules don't apply amongst the kind of competitors that occupy major league baseball clubhouses, especialy given the kind of money that's on the line.
It certainly isn't proof, and I never said it was. It's just one more thing that makes me question those who want me to believe that the cheaters are the exceptions rather than the rule.
And yes, I would agree that your use of the term witch-hunt is appropriate, though I don't think this would have had to be a witch hunt. I think it was a mistake to name names (for the problem I mentioned in my entry, along with other reasons), especially to the public, and I think the Commissioner's office would be making a further mistake to hand down discipline to anyone based on the report (which Mitchell also advised against).
If the goal was, as stated, to get a handle on just how pervasive the problem had becoem in order to advise future action, then it should have been left at that. Clearly it hasn't been, and I hope the Commissioner doesn't further compound that mistake, though I lack faith in him in that regard.
Unless I were determined to get rid of all the steroids users (in which case, I'd have blown the whistle on the ones I know about long before now), I would never cooperate with this kind of fishing expedition. I do not regard the Union's lack of cooperation with this wide-ranging unfocused investigation to indicate anything about what percentage of its members wish to see the game cleaned up of steroids. Moreover, almost all players will only have the goods on their own teammates (or former teammates) and friends. It does not build team camaraderie by ratting them out (even if they're no longer on your team) and I'm hardly surprised that many players are reluctant to do so. Baseball is not strictly a competitive game; it is also a cooperative one.
If you read the memo by Donald Fehr (Appendix B-9), I think you'll see why no player cooperated with this investigation. Key quotes: "Commissioner Selig has not ruled out disciplining (suspending and/or fining) players as a result of information gathered by the Mitchell investigation. Therefore, you should be aware that any information provided could lead to discipline of you and/or others. (Any discipline imposed could be challenged by grievance.) Remember also that there are a number of ongoing federal and state criminal investigations in this area, and any information gathered by Senator Mitchell in player interviews is not legally privileged. What this means is that while Senator Mitchell pledges in his memo that he will honor any player request for confidentiality in his report, he does not pledge, because he cannot pledge, that any information you provide will actually remain confidential and not be disclosed without your consent. For example, Senator Mitchell cannot promise that information you disclose will not be given to a federal or state prosecutor, a Congressional committee, or even turned over in a private lawsuit in response to a request or a subpoena (a legally enforceable order)." And "Senator Mitchell mentions his agreement with the United States Attorney's office in California (USAO), and states that his agreement with the USAO does not require him to provide information to the prosecutor. (Senator Mitchell has refused to provide us with a copy of this agreement, which we asked for so that we can understand the relationship of his investigation to the US Attorney's Office.) But Senator Mitchell does not promise, because, again, he cannot promise, that he will not disclose the information to the USAO (or another prosecutor, Congressional committee, or other governmental entity) in response to a request or subpoena."
The Union already has agreed to a number of concessions regarding testing, bans, etc., because their members as a whole wanted those concessions made.
On a side note (and a normative one), I think Bud Selig and George Mitchell should be ashamed of themselves. I have previously always had a lot of respect for Senator Mitchell and I'm very disappointed by his performance here. It's his prosecutorial instincts, I'm sure, which led him to act in this fashion. But I cannot approve of asking for anonymous informants in a report where, clearly, he did not intend to provide the accused with anonymity as well.
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