Maury Brown is quickly becoming one of my favorite scribes.
rarely do I ever disagree with the guy.

Ah well, ya beat me to it Repoz.

It just figures, doesn't it?

I'm just gonna vent on my blog--I've got a lot of vitriol to spill over this and it's gonna be ugly.

Best Regards

John

I'm sure Jeff Bagwell will get a pass.

For a report that is supposedly wholly independent (or, as independent as a report can be when the man in charge is on the Red Sox board of directors), and not offer up a large portion into the “how we got here” aspect of PED use in MLB simply takes much of the credibility out of its publication. It shows that there is a willingness to ignore holding those that are caretakers of the game accountable—that the Commissioner’s Office and the MLB Players Association are somehow innocent of PED use in baseball.

I completely disagree with this. Though the media and much of the public wants the report to be a tell-all witch hunt that gives everyone more targets for scorn, I don't believe that is helpful or useful to MLB in any way. I also don't believe it is the purpose of the report.

It seems to me that for the report to have any use, it should describe the faulty procedure, security, and oversight that caused such problems to arise in the first place, and set forth what steps MLB needs to do on a going-forward basis to ensure the integrity of the game.

Though describing particular incidents is unavoidable, the report doesn't need to name names for it to be an effective tool for MLB. It can (and certainly will) hold MLB accountable, even if it doesn't disclose the identities of each and every offender or enabler.

In other words, baseball may be given a free pass for matters in the past and present, with only the named players as ones being held accountable.

I'm shocked! SHOCKED!

If this does turn out to be the direction that the Mitchell Commission takes, it's going to be hard to argue with Brown's point. Naming names is important, but those named shouldn't be restricted to players.

And the same principle that lots of people (including myself) have applied to McGwire should apply to the Mitchell Report: The more it keeps mum about the role of executives and the owners, the more you can bet the farm that they're hiding something.

I could add the sorry role of the players' union in this, but at least their role seems to have been out in the open. Fehr & Co.'s policies effectively enabled juicers to hide behind their "privacy" cliches, but OTOH they've always been straightforward about this, and if anything we should blame Selig for not jawboning them and forcing the issue.

It's going to be very interesting to see just how "independent" this Commission turns out to be.

It seems to me that for the report to have any use, it should describe the faulty procedure, security, and oversight that caused such problems to arise in the first place, and set forth what steps MLB needs to do on a going-forward basis to ensure the integrity of the game.

And I agree. By extension, that means that there has to be something within the report that outlines how things went sideways. I have zero concern for names. I'm interested in some critical view of how we got into this mess. If the report side-steps that aspect, and only offers up suggestions for how to move forward without outlining how we got here, then the report is worthless. You can't do one without the other.

Fehr & Co.'s policies effectively enabled juicers to hide behind their "privacy" cliches, but OTOH they've always been straightforward about this, and if anything we should blame Selig for not jawboning them and forcing the issue.

That would've happened if baseball had a salary cap.

(Hey, it's true! Kinda, sorta - I guess.)

I'm interested in some critical view of how we got into this mess. If the report side-steps that aspect, and only offers up suggestions for how to move forward without outlining how we got here, then the report is worthless. You can't do one without the other.

Oh, I agree with this. I just take issue with the idea that it would constitute a whitewash if it were anything less than a full and complete listing of every individual who has ever used, enabled, or turned a blind eye. One hold certain departments and groups accountable without taking part in the media's witch hunt.

I really don't know the point of the Mitchell report beyond trying to get congress off the industries back.

What kind of insight could we possibly get on how we got here.... It seems simple. The union fought testing because they thought that was protecting their constituents. Management ignored the problem because they were powerless and saw no point to stiring the pot. And players that were willing to try to get every competative advantage regardless of any long term risks used steroids and HGH. Still do if they can get away with it..... So now management and the union is willing to throw a minority of those players under the bus because it suits their purposes. Did anyone expect aything different?

I really don't know the point of the Mitchell report beyond trying to get congress off the industries back.

That was precisely the point of it.

-- MWE

The union fought testing because they thought that was protecting their constituents. Management ignored the problem because they were powerless and saw no point to stiring the pot. And players that were willing to try to get every competative advantage regardless of any long term risks used steroids and HGH. Still do if they can get away with it

True as far as it goes, but I think the deeper issue that Maury and others are getting at is the degree to which management did more than passively ignore PED usage, and instead actively encouraged or even supported it. Given that each team has exactly the same self-interest as each player in maximizing performance, it isn't hard to imagine teams taking steps to make available the very latest in conditioning innovations.

Excerpted from the article about Larry Starr (former Cin and Fla trainer) linked two day ago:

"Here's the thing that really bothers me," Starr said in a recent interview with FLORIDA TODAY. "They sit there, meaning the commissioner's office, Bud Selig and that group, and the players' association, Don Fehr and that group . . . they sit there and say, 'Well, now that we know that this happened we're going to do something about it.'

"I have notes from the Winter Meetings where the owners group and the players' association sat in meetings with the team physicians and team trainers. I was there. And team physicians stood up and said, 'Look, we need to do something about this. We've got a problem here if we don't do something about it.' That was in 1988."

A Starr witness

Today, a lot of people in baseball are very interested in listening to what Starr and some others have to say. The committee investigating the steroids issue headed by former Sen. George Mitchell has interviewed Starr four times, and he expects to be called again. Starr told FLORIDA TODAY there were some players on the Florida Marlins' team that won the franchise's first World Series in 1997 that used steroids.

****

there were some players on the Florida Marlins' team that won the franchise's first World Series in 1997 that used steroids.

Gee, really? Gosh. That's just shocking. How could anyone have suspected such a thing?

Whether the media picks up on it or not, it's blindingly obvious that many, many major league players were using PEDs (in addition to what they were taking since the '60s) throughout the '90s, and at least some were using them by the late '80s. For that to have been the case, and for it to have gone on for so long when players are seen all the time by management, officials, and the medical staffs, and go so far as to have their orders delivered to them at the stadia, management almost has to have been complicit. I'm not angry that players used PEDs, of course. I'm not really even all that angry that management encouraged them to, though aesthetically I probably would prefer that they hadn't (because of the style of play, not any stupid "morality" issue). What makes me angry is that instead of coming clean about the whole thing (fat chance), or the other honorable thing--covering up the entire business and denying that any of it ever happened--the management of MLB has decided to cover their own behinds and throw the players under the bus. Cover up the whole damn thing if you want to cover it up. And why would management want aspersions cast on a bunch of its superstar players from the past twenty years, unless it's some attempt to lower salaries?

I just take issue with the idea that it would constitute a whitewash if it were anything less than a full and complete listing of every individual who has ever used, enabled, or turned a blind eye.

I think you are missing Maury's point. It isn't necessarily a whitewash of the PED problem if there is something less than a full and complete listing of all those in involved. It is, however, a whitewash of management's complicity if there is a partial list of players involved and no one from management listed at all.

I should note that I suspect that fallout from this will carry over to the next labor negotiations. If the report written by a management stooge that is supposed to be the definitive report about PEDs in baseball blames everything on the players, then whatever trust has been built up between labor and management will be destroyed. The owners will have gone back to a stance that they are the enemies of the players, and not their partners. If we get a lockout or strike in a few years, remember this incident when the players talk about the owners, and remember why they don't trust them.

If the report written by a management stooge that is supposed to be the definitive report about PEDs in baseball blames everything on the players, then whatever trust has been built up between labor and management will be destroyed. The owners will have gone back to a stance that they are the enemies of the players, and not their partners. If we get a lockout or strike in a few years, remember this incident when the players talk about the owners, and remember why they don't trust them.

Yes. And, sadly but factually, it's a decade-upon-decade legacy of owners acting like complete a$$wipes that makes such a scenario plausible.

If the report written by a management stooge that is supposed to be the definitive report about PEDs in baseball blames everything on the players, then whatever trust has been built up between labor and management will be destroyed. The owners will have gone back to a stance that they are the enemies of the players, and not their partners. If we get a lockout or strike in a few years, remember this incident when the players talk about the owners, and remember why they don't trust them.

Yes. And, sadly but factually, it's a decade-upon-decade legacy of owners acting like complete a$$wipes that makes such a scenario plausible.

Sorry for the dubble!

would anyone actually consider a report that doesn't place any blame on the press....which any idiot would tell you is 95% responsible for the acceptance of peds in sports????

would anyone actually consider a report that doesn't place any blame on the press....which any idiot would tell you is 95% responsible for the acceptance of peds in sports????

Agreed. One would have to be an idiot to pin 95 percent of the blame for PEDS in sports on the press.