Baseballs "All Clean Team" from SI.com

[Why Not?]

Good job of giving my answer before you even ask me.

There's lots of things they could've done, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Worked with the union to figure out how to do a thorough report that would explicate the scope of the problem without just throwing randomly-ratted-on guys under the bus without a fair hearing.
• Interview *everybody* with hard questions. For example, what does the SF owner have to say about how come he was buying bigger hats and shoes for Barry all the time? What does George have to say about what questions he asked about roids before paying more than a $million per start to a 44-yr-old P?
• Ask Bud when he first heard of roids being an issue, and documenting exactly what he did to look into it.
• Have a process that let people know what was being said about them, and give them a chance to respond to their accuser without the sham of "we won't tell you squat, but you can talk to us".

Those 4 would be a start. However, I have an open mind about how they could have done it properly. The ways this thing was a sham are both obvious and disgusting, IMO. The game is too important for Yet More owners-vs-the-players crap. The idea that what they did was the best way to clean-up the game is just silly. It was 95% a PR move by MLB to stick it to the players and their own employees. It's exactly like investigating an organization to see if it's got problems from top-to-bottom without bothering to grill the guys at the top. It's like those sham Pentagon things where they ring up a bunch of privates and sergeants, but somehow the officers in charge get off scot-free. Same kind of thing: when the bosses control the agenda and decide exactly what the investigation will and won't cover, who investigates the bosses? Nobody does, that's who.

The union made it clear they would not cooperate from the start. Had they done so, the Mitchell report might have been a different animal. The players were given a chance to speak to investigators, but few of them did. The union sees drug testing as a bargaining chip rather than an effort to fix something that is wrong with the game.

The owners made mistakes in this whole thing, but you don't really think an owner knows what hat size a guy is wearing. Owners (along with front office types) were interviewed, but I doubt ownership could offer as much insight as you might think. Did owners have an inkling that steroids were rampant, probably? But so did everyone else. Nobody was quick to attack this thing because nobody really knew how and any attempts at investigating would quickly be quashed by the union.

Even with its flaws, the Mitchell Report was a wobbly first step in the right direction. It's an attempt to figure out what the hell just happened and it was done without subpeona power and with very little cooperation. MLB is still figuring out how to attack this problem....but at least they are finally admitting there IS a problem.

[RShack]

The union made it clear they would not cooperate from the start.

That is a completely false statement. Bud arbitrarily refused the union's request to make it a cooperative process.The union asked to work with MLB on how to best cooperate on an investigation. Bud told them to forget it, and insisted that he was gonna dictate the terms of the investigation, and that the union would have no input of any kind into the kind of investigation that he was gonna get. Bud decreed that it would *not* be a joint cooperative effort of the owners and the union. Instead, he told the union to just get in line and blindly go along with his Mitchell PR-sham.

[Migrant Redbird]

That's not precisely my recollection, but I'm too tired tonight to look up anything on it. Besides, it's not important. The objective now should be how to get the PEDs out of baseball (as far as possible), not to stand around pointing fingers at each other. Forget about trying to punish former players who might have used steroids or monkeying with the records.

What I would do is to institute something which, in its own way, is as draconian as the punishment for gambling. I wouldn't try to do anything about past transgressions, but I would do the 3-6 annual random urinalysis tests -- including at least 1 in the off season -- and I would add in 1 or 2 random blood tests for HGH. Since there's no practical HGH test right now (the Olympics has one, but it has issues), I would merely freeze the blood samples and the backup urinalysis samples, with the option to test them sometime in the future when a practical test becomes available. If a future test came back positive for HGH, I would invalidate a players records (not game results) from the date of the test for the remainder of the player's career. If he had been elected to the HOF, I would remove him. I would ensure that these new provisions were read to players each spring, along with the regulation on gambling, so that no player could argue that they didn't have warning.

We couldn't suspend a player who retired before he tested positive and we couldn't reclaim his salary, but we could definitely wipe out his legacy.

I don't think that there's any other way to stay ahead of the science in the PEDs race besides to tell players that they'll be tested and punished retroactively.

[RShack]

What I would do is to institute something which, in its own way, is as draconian as the punishment for gambling. I wouldn't try to do anything about past transgressions, but I would do the 3-6 annual random urinalysis tests -- including at least 1 in the off season -- and I would add in 1 or 2 random blood tests for HGH. Since there's no practical HGH test right now (the Olympics has one, but it has issues), I would merely freeze the blood samples and the backup urinalysis samples, with the option to test them sometime in the future when a practical test becomes available. If a future test came back positive for HGH, I would invalidate a players records (not game results) from the date of the test for the remainder of the player's career. If he had been elected to the HOF, I would remove him. I would ensure that these new provisions were read to players each spring, along with the regulation on gambling, so that no player could argue that they didn't have warning.

IMO, that misses the problem. The problem isn't roids or HGH per se. The problem is the arms race between the substance designers and the test designers. Roids is now just about history, and the momentary blip on the radar is HGH. Whenever they get a good test for HGH, then it'll be the Next Thing. It's not gonna stop with HGH. It's gonna be an ongoing thing, and addressing it requires a commitment to cooperation between the owners and the union. The spirit of cooperation should have been the main goal of the recent so-called investigation, and it wasn't even an element of it. Instead it was a power play by Bud. Big mistake. Without increasing trust and cooperation, it's all gonna be harder than it should be. IMO, once we get passed HGH, the whole high-handed Mitchell PR-sham is gonna encourage nonstop BS, with periodic Congressional hearings and the whole 9 yards.

Freezing blood presents it's own problems. Right now, there is no good HGH solution, and freezing blood doesn't fix that. Instead, it just adds Yet More problems.

[Why Not?]

That is a completely false statement. Bud arbitrarily refused the union's request to make it a cooperative process.The union asked to work with MLB on how to best cooperate on an investigation. Bud told them to forget it, and insisted that he was gonna dictate the terms of the investigation, and that the union would have no input of any kind into the kind of investigation that he was gonna get. Bud decreed that it would *not* be a joint cooperative effort of the owners and the union. Instead, he told the union to just get in line and blindly go along with his Mitchell PR-sham.

The union was never going to cooperate in any real way. You are kidding yourself if you think they would. The union continues to focus solely on protecting the players, even the ones that cheated.

As short-sighted as it is, the union considers steroid testing a bargaining chip. They can't be expected to cooperate with any sort of investigation as long as they hang onto that policy.

[Migrant Redbird]

I don't see why you say that it misses the problem. It's the only practical way to deal with your "arms race". While the designers may achieve a temporary lead in terms of detectability, players can't count on that lead lasting very long. In their worst nightmare, the test designers might make an early breakthrough, so that the cheater would get exposed long before his career was finished, in time for MLB to suspend him and impose fines. However, even if they succeeded in remaining undetected their entire career and were selected to the HOF, they would always have to live in the dread that testing technology would advance to the point that their frozen test sample would be tested and expose them. That would, or could, result in any records they held being struck from the books and in them being removed from the HOF. The pain of having one's legacy destroyed would be immense. Would it stop everyone from cheating? Perhaps not, but it might deter enough that the drug designers wouldn't have enough clients to make it worth while.

I don't see the freezing as being a major problem. I believe that the IOC and the cycling federation already are doing that with their "B" samples, and it's been done with tissue samples for a long time. It's probably not cheap, which could impact the logistics issue for random tests.

Right now, the only way to go after HGH users is to attack them through their sources. I don't know how effective that is; I imagine players who are blocked from getting U.S. prescriptions for HGH might enlist accomplices to obtain it for them in Mexico or another foreign country with lax drug laws.

[Why Not?]

IMO, that misses the problem. The problem isn't roids or HGH per se. The problem is the arms race between the substance designers and the test designers. Roids is now just about history, and the momentary blip on the radar is HGH. Whenever they get a good test for HGH, then it'll be the Next Thing. It's not gonna stop with HGH. It's gonna be an ongoing thing, and addressing it requires a commitment to cooperation between the owners and the union. The spirit of cooperation should have been the main goal of the recent so-called investigation, and it wasn't even an element of it. Instead it was a power play by Bud. Big mistake. Without increasing trust and cooperation, it's all gonna be harder than it should be. IMO, once we get passed HGH, the whole high-handed Mitchell PR-sham is gonna encourage nonstop BS, with periodic Congressional hearings and the whole 9 yards.

I think therein lies the value of a Mitchell investigation. The tests aren't enough so additional deterrents are necessary.

[RShack]

The union was never going to cooperate in any real way. You are kidding yourself if you think they would. The union continues to focus solely on protecting the players, even the ones that cheated.

As short-sighted as it is, the union considers steroid testing a bargaining chip. They can't be expected to cooperate with any sort of investigation as long as they hang onto that policy.

As opinionated statements go, that's fine. But there are no facts to support it. The simple fact of the matter is the Bud announced the Mitchell farce in March 2006 after *zero* consultation with the union. He didn't even ask. He just unilaterally crammed it down their throat, and then later suggested they cooperate in a process that had zero protections built in for anybody, including the innocent. Had the union leadership bought that junk, every single union member would have had grounds for suing them. Instead, the union asked for meeting to try to work out something fair. Bud declined to even discuss it. So, we have a problem involving both management and labor, and Bud insists on a so-called investigation that is dictated by managment, focuses on labor, and can't be bothered to even interview the owners. Try to spin that into something that makes sense.

The union changed the roid's policy in '04 and '05. Nobody made them do it. I imagine the latter one was done with Congress in mind, but nobody made them. There was no bargaining involved. When it comes to bargaining, they clean the owners' clock every time, so I'm not even sure what "bargaining chip" you're talking about. Are you?

[RShack]

I don't see why you say that it misses the problem. It's the only practical way to deal with your "arms race". While the designers may achieve a temporary lead in terms of detectability, players can't count on that lead lasting very long. In their worst nightmare, the test designers might make an early breakthrough, so that the cheater would get exposed long before his career was finished, in time for MLB to suspend him and impose fines. However, even if they succeeded in remaining undetected their entire career and were selected to the HOF, they would always have to live in the dread that testing technology would advance to the point that their frozen test sample would be tested and expose them. That would, or could, result in any records they held being struck from the books and in them being removed from the HOF. The pain of having one's legacy destroyed would be immense. Would it stop everyone from cheating? Perhaps not, but it might deter enough that the drug designers wouldn't have enough clients to make it worth while.

I don't see the freezing as being a major problem. I believe that the IOC and the cycling federation already are doing that with their "B" samples, and it's been done with tissue samples for a long time. It's probably not cheap, which could impact the logistics issue for random tests.

Right now, the only way to go after HGH users is to attack them through their sources. I don't know how effective that is; I imagine players who are blocked from getting U.S. prescriptions for HGH might enlist accomplices to obtain it for them in Mexico or another foreign country with lax drug laws.

Look, I'm not in favor of cheating (whatever that means). However, I don't see how setting up even more distrust between owners and the union helps anything.

As for freezing blood, it doesn't matter whether you or I have problems with it. It matters whether science has problems with it. AFAIK, there have been and continue to be, huge problems with it. Remember the scientists talking about the whole Lance Armstrong fiasco? It is not a straightforward matter, even if we wish it were. Even Bud admits that his experts tell him that.

This is just a hard problem, and an attitude of "let's just lay down the law and that will fix everything" ain't gonna magically turn it into an easy one. The only prayer we have is that the owners and the union get on the same page about it. Having the owners pull off a temporary PR coup may help them push the union around this week, but it sure ain't gonna help in the long term.

[Why Not?]

As opinionated statements go, that's fine. But there are no facts to support it. The simple fact of the matter is the Bud announced the Mitchell farce in March 2006 after *zero* consultation with the union. He didn't even ask. He just unilaterally crammed it down their throat, and then later suggested they cooperate in a process that had zero protections built in for anybody, including the innocent. Had the union leadership bought that junk, every single union member would have had grounds for suing them. Instead, the union asked for meeting to try to work out something fair. Bud declined to even discuss it. So, we have a problem involving both management and labor, and Bud insists on a so-called investigation that is dictated by managment, focuses on labor, and can't be bothered to even interview the owners. Try to spin that into something that makes sense.

The union changed the roid's policy in '04 and '05. Nobody made them do it. I imagine the latter one was done with Congress in mind, but nobody made them. There was no bargaining involved. When it comes to bargaining, they clean the owners' clock every time, so I'm not even sure what "bargaining chip" you're talking about. Are you?

I'm not sure of the value of "consulting" the union. Soooo, we're going to investigate the players and we want to ask the union representing those players how we should do it?

The union has been dragged into a position where it can no longer arbitrarily reject any testing. They've stonewalled testing all along. The union agreed to previous changes under some pretty intense pressure to do the obvious right thing.

Still, Don Fehr is fighting. During the recent hearings, congress suggested that an independent organization run testing of MLB's players. Fehr told them it was his responsibility to "negotiate all terms and conditions of employment."

That's using steroid testing as a bargaining chip.