A superb article on the steroids in Baseball: Bush League lies

[malaise]

http://www.edgeofsports.com/2007-12-13-302/index.html

<snip>
There are three fundamental problems with the Mitchell report:

1 - Mitchell himself. George Mitchell, the former Senate Majority leader best known before today for helping negotiate the peace deal in Northern Ireland, has had a massive conflict of interest when it comes to baseball. The man is on the boards of both the Boston Red Sox and also the Walt Disney Company. The Disney Company owns ESPN, baseball's number one broadcast partner. Joe Morgan has spoken out about how in the 1990s, ESPN execs encouraged him not to state his suspicions about steroid use on-air. As Morgan said, "I would be broadcasting a game and there would be players hitting balls in a way that they had no business hitting them."

2 - No testimony from players. The only active player to speak to Mitchell was New York Yankee Jason Giambi, and he spoke under threat of suspension. Mitchell says he invited the accused to come clear their names, but no one took him up on this generous offer. Yet if you are a MLB player, why would you come forward to legitimize a process in which you wouldn't even have the opportunity to face your accuser? This is a process where Mitchell was judge, jury, and executioner: Gitmo meets Skoal. Reputations have been ruined - and the essential "truth" of the report is still based on hearsay.

3 - Same old narrative. Mitchell paid lip service in his press conference to "slow acting" owners -- calling it "a collective failure." At one point, Mitchell said -- without explanation -- that baseball execs were slow due to "economic motives." Yet the overarching narrative is that the owners and general managers were merely ignorant or obtuse, with a complete absence of malice. The real fault lied with players and independent acting clubhouse attendants, like the soon to be famous Mets worker Kirk Radomski, who says he secured the juice for players and named names. Radomski was described by former Mets GM Steve Phillips as "the guy who would pick up the towels or pick up a player's girlfriend from the airport." Yes, Kirk Radomski, a regular Pablo Escobar.

Mitchell went on to say that players have actively and on their own made great efforts to foil the owners poorly organized efforts to clean up the game. This is the same kind of political cover - as Naomi Klein has written so brilliantly - that the mainstream press gives the Bush administration on Iraq. Errors made are ones of people with good intentions who made terrible choices. Those who suffered from these choices are blamed for their barbarism and self-interest. When Baghdad was looted and destroyed, Iraqis were pilloried for their greed. Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney were blamed for being "overly optimistic" and "trusting them too much."

[BlueManDude]

1. Mitchell should never have been chosen. I've always thought the real agenda...

for Selig and the owners in ginning up the steroids hysteria, was to weaken the MLBPA in order to force a hard salary cap when the current labor contract is up. I've never been able to fully understand the willingness of most fans to reflexively side with the owners over the players.

In any event it was a sloppy, inadequate report compiled by a man who had a glaring conflict of interest.

[malaise]

2. Great point

Cheapen labor while the real thieves and criminals escape yet again