Up to their old tricks

Okay, so I'm coming back to the sports world after a few days away. One of the main reasons I dealt with non-sports topics the last couple of days was because the dominant sports story has continued to be fallout from last Thursday's release of the Mitchell report on steroids in baseball, particularly centered around one Roger Clemens. Frankly, I grew quickly tired of that part of the story, and had little to offer other than a plea for the media to move onto something else. However, there's been a couple of developments in the last day that I need to chime in on.

The first of these developments is the news that once again, Congress will be holding hearings on steroids in baseball in the new year. I can't tell you how pleased this makes me, because there are few things that excite me more than politicians using their time and my money to grandstand about how a private industry polices their employees. I heard Rep. Tom Davis on The Dan Patrick Show this morning stating that the purpose of the hearings were to call MLB and the players' union in and review the recommendations of the Mitchell report, and to make sure that MLB intended to see those recommendations implemented. Seriously? The report dropped one week ago. The hearings are scheduled for January 15th - just over 1 month after the report was released, and 2 1/2 months prior to Opening Day. I'd like to think we could go a little longer before Congress feels the need to peer over MLB's shoulder and make sure they are doing something on this. I acknowledge that baseball's anti-trust exemption makes them a little more intertwined with the government than the average business, but there's just no need for this kind of extra grandstanding. I said this back during the last set of hearings, and it bears repeating: All of the substances in question here are illegal. If the government is so concerned about steroids in baseball, then put the FBI on it, toss a couple of ballplayers in jail, and watch how quickly MLB ramps up its efforts to clean up the game. If you're interested in doing anything more than just winning political points, enforce the laws on the books and let baseball deal with the fallout. I'm very much about increased efforts to clean up the game, but the last thing I want is for that to happen is at the point of a gun, with Congress threatening to impose their will on the game.

The second thing to occur is that Curt Schilling chimed in with his take on the Mitchell report, and Clemens specifically, on his blog. His take, and specifically a small portion of it that related to Roger Clemens, made national news, as quite often happens with Schilling. The blast that got all the national run was Schilling's statement that if Clemens can't clear his name, the 4 Cy Young awards he won after his former trainer alleged he began using performance enhancing drugs should be taken from him and given to "the rightful winners." I assume he means the guys who finished in 2nd in those years. First of all, were I in the mood to focus on this particular piece, I'd be awarding this week's Overblown Non-Story of the Week award to the coverage of Schilling's comments. All he did was apply a standard he's stated for years to Clemens' specific case. I like Schill, and always have. I think he runs his mouth too often, but really, this isn't anything new from him. Secondly, his take highlights for me why I get a little queasy when it comes to talking about putting asterisks by records, taking back awards, and the like. The simple fact is that if we're defining "rightful winners" as guys who played clean, we're never going to know who the rightful winners were. The Mitchell report, 2 other investigations that are ongoing at present, and any further investigations that occur are never going to give us a complete picture of who was clean and who wasn't. Nor do I personally have any real interest in trying to go there. It's totally unrealistic, and honestly not very productive. My only interest in investigating the past on these matters is to inform future action and determine how best to clean up the game going forward. Applying a bunch of retroactive discipline seems counterproductive to me. You can't erase what happened, no matter how much you want to. And in the case of Clemens, is it worthwhile to rip the awards from him and give them to someone who could have very easily been cheating as well, but was fortunate enough not to have their "guy" turn up in the wrong place?

I heard Chris Myers address this issue in the opening of his radio show today, and his response was to go back and just rip all the individual awards in the steroids era and not give them to anyone. If someone who was innocent ends up losing an award they earned, well, that's just the price we pay. That ranks up there with some of the most ridiculous statements I've heard from the media on the whole steroid issue. When I first posted about the Mitchell report, Mr. Stevens and I had some discussion about whether it was a witch hunt, and I had to agree that it was, given that they had named names and the potential existed for disciplining current players. And I do have a problem with that. About the only thing that would be more wrong than indiscriminately investigating everyone would be subjecting everyone to a blanket punishment. Myers has proven to be something of a zealot regarding issues of fair play in the past, so this didn't necessarily surprise me, but it really concerns me to hear that line of thought coming from a rather prominent media figure. I would love to ask him in what year he proposes to start this wiping of the awards, and why he thinks we have any real reason to resume handing out the awards now.

The simple fact of the matter is this: History has a way of remembering and putting things in perspective. The last 10-15 years of baseball are no doubt going to be known as the steroids era, and all accomplishments in the time frame are going to come under a cloud of suspicion, whether there are specific allegations involved or not. History will view Barry Bonds as a cheater, just as it will view Roger Clemens if he is unable to clear his name, along with many others that have come and will come under similar scrutiny. To me, that reality satisfies me in terms of dealing with the past. Any effort to somehow "set the record straight" in hindsight is, in my opinion, quixotic at best, and absent a relatively complete understanding of what went on, which we will never have, is ultimately irresponsible. Let's clean up the game in the present and for the future, and let the past deal with itself.