Well, this day is done. Think I will bag Sportscenter and watch Two and a Half Men.
This had the potential to be a very embarrassing day for MLB, but I believe Bud Selig wants to clean up this mess. Of course, I wish he would have read the report and not dodged the issue when asked what he could have done earlier. Honestly, he knows what he could have done before.
The important thing is some real names surfaced. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are no small fish.
By now, a lot of you have read some of the report. Tell me, was this a good or bad day for MLB?
16 Comments
It was a good AND bad John. Good because this needs to be taken seriously and I don’t think there’s anyone it can’t or won’t be now. Bad because these are scars that will never go away. This will be remembered in history forever. Let’s hope that this is the first step in ridding this game of this plague.
anyway*** not anyone
This changes nothing.
It allows Selig to go to congress and say that he takes the issue seriously. He spent $40 million dollars to uncover the problem. He outed some names, made vague references to maybe do something in response to the report and allow the public and the press to have something to talk about for a while.
He will not do anything more. Perhaps he may or may not say or do anything to affect a player’s entry into the Hall.
What he will do is allow baseball to move on and continue the licensing of the game and the signing of bigger contracts to allow himself ( as owner ) and other owners’ to increase their net worth.
Baseball stadiums will get smaller so that an emphasis can be placed on box seats that can be sold to corporations so they can entertain their clients without being distracted by the fans. Bigger contracts can be signed with cable tv or satellite tv so that owners can get more money. The postseason games will continue to start at a time that someone on both the east and west coast can watch the first 3 or 4 innings so the advertisers are happy.
This has nothing to do with fixing the game. It has everything to do with saying we have addressed your political concerns about our game so leave me alone so I can make more money.
It depends, of course, on what comes out of it. If MLB allows the steroid era to stand ‘as-is’ with no asterisks, and no grand punishments (like barring Bonds/Clemens from the HOF), then I don;t think the right message will be sent, and this will be looked at in history like just another “era” of baseball – like the dead-ball era vs live-ball, or the times when the mounds were raised and lowered making pitching more/less dominant… that would be a shame because they are not the same. In those other eras, all players were on a level playing field. Not so with steroids. Allowing these tainted records to stand and these cheating players to go unpunished tells those greats who have gone before and any who may one day come that their effort just isn’t worth all that much to us, and we’d rather just see some more home-runs…
Unless something drastic is done, I feel it will just kill the game for anyone who really cares about it.
To Gentry (RE: Taking this seriously): No question about it. Unless Selig takes a stance on the records, the right message isn’t being sent. Bud says it’s all about integrity. Prove it and place an asterisk next to the records and make a statement about the Hall of Fame.-JD
John:
I’ve been really stunned and disappointed by the apologetic tone of the baseball press (and especially the ESPN crowd of Gammons, Kurkjian, Kruk), particularly regarding Roger Clemens. I understand a “let’s not rush to judgment” attitude. But these guys are acting like they’re on Clemens’ legal defense team. The line of argument from the ESPN boys is something like, “I know Roger Clemens and if he is denying it, then there must be major holes in the case.” They’re almost blaming Mitchell for raising Clemens name and inflicting wounds that will taint his reputation, assuming that Clemens is innocent—a victim of his accuser.
How do you explain this? I have to say it’s dropped these reporters several pegs in my eyes. It makes them look like they either got too close to these players and lost their critical distance—much like the Washington press corps and Congress/White House. Or else they’re trying to downplay the allegations because they’re worried that it makes them look complicit or inept since they’ve made their careers on supposedly having the inside scoop on everything related to baseball. I’m thinking particularly of someone like Gammons, who, after all, has long been about as big a Clemens fan as I’ve heard among the baseball press. If Clemens is as dirty as this report makes him seem, then Gammons’ continual fawning support makes him look like a fanboy or a chump.
I’d really be interested to hear what you have to say about the role of baseball reporters in all this.
.
Tip of the iceberg. These were just the names from a few sources—there are a lot of other sources for steroids and HGH out there. They´ll never again be able to claim that it´s not a serious problem.
Anyone keeping track on how much the NBA referee scandal, the Kobe Bryant rape allegations or sexual harassment lawsuit at MSG has hurt the league. Very little if you ask me. People believe what they want to believe. The usual wailing and gnashing of teeth occured and things will hardly change. Crowds and ratings will be at what they were.
I wonder how much good putting asterisks will do. The things that were in place when I was a youth.. the universal praise for Landis throwing out the crooked White Sox and to a lesser stance the IOC stripping Jim Thorpe of his medals are now widely disparaged.
dave that was an exce;ent post….
records with asterisks are junk. Look at Marion Jones. One days she has 5 Olympic Gold Medals and the next day she doesn’t exist in the book at all. No asterisk, no name, no nothing. If you don’t think the name should be posted then follow the Olympic lead.
PS: To Roger; Protest all you want, just like Marion Jones. If we’re lucky you’ll be confessing in a courthouse, awaiting your sentence just like she did.
Dan G
you’ve got it right. Record crowds at BB stadiums do not equate to roids hurting BB.
The last time BB was hurt was the last player strike.
Bud is only doing this b/c he is concerned that congress will take away BB monopoly privelages.
And congress is only interested b/c they want to grandstand. Grandstanding is easier than doing hard work to fix any of a host of issues you can think of.
I hope the press at least shows its distaste and keeps some of these guys out of the HOF.
The issue of ethics and morales goes to societal changes that cheating, lying and stealing are ok. We see it everyday-in all kinds of walks of life.
Sloppy – I agree with you. Somewhere in a MLB contract there is a clause about behaviour etc which should be invoked here. Those players should be out of MLB without any record of them ever being there – no money, pension, benefits, etc. and maybe jail time – isn’t it a federal offense to purchase drugs through the mail?
Anne:
The Feds rarely go after the user. When they do it is usually because they see perjury or come up with something else in their investigation, or the guy refuses to be a snitch. Then they’ll exhaust resources to go after the guy. I assume that’s why they huted down Bonds but left Giambi lone. They had to have felt Giambi would come clean so they gave him immunity.It may not seem a fair policy, but we as taxpayers could not afford the number of prosecutors, investigators and jails to go after all the users.
In the Radomski case, they had him dead to rights so they don’t need the users to be snitches. I don’t know the story behind the Clemens/Pettite snitch.
It was a good day for MLB.
The steroid issue, if fully investigated, would have created a veritable shitstorm for Selig. Instead, he got a scratching-at-the-surface investigation that butchered a few scalps but most likely left most users unscathed. As such, Selig can now contend that he’s attempted to address the issue.
Perhaps the most important element to MLB’s good day was the Kumbaya gift from Mitchell: The suggestion that we now move forward. Mark McGwire couldn’t have said it better. If Selig chooses to follow this recommendation—and he’s indicated that he’d like to comply with all of Mitchell’s suggestions—then he can effectively close the door after this short-term media blitz.
Selig will likely look to punish these few outed users by some type of paper (read: asterisk or monetary fine) correction. Fehr will yell and scream, but it will simply be posturing; both men understand that this half-assed, limited report and the sacrifice of some 80 chosen scalps is a much more preferable outcome to a bona-fide investigation and a true examination of the issue.
And, of course, everyone is buzzing about baseball a week before Christmas. The MLB website seems to be embracing this attention. Everyone is gossiping like it’s the final episode of Survivor.
It’s a good day for MLB.
A bad day. Many, many fans and reporters have been confused by this bait-and-switch move by MLB’s top used-car salesman and foolishly think that integrity has something to do with doling out punishment and dishonor to those accused in the report that summarizes a half-assed “investigation”. (Inquisition is a far more appropriate word for describing it, btw.)
Now that we’ve got a list of the witches, maybe MLB should open an office in Salem, MA to burn them. (Yeah, I know that modern-day Salem isn’t the place where it really happened.)
John, if Bud Selig wanted to make a real statement he would stricken all the statistics and records that occurred from 1995 to 2006. It is clear that there are a great number of players who were not named because they were not associated with the three (3) sources Mitchell had to work with. I believe PEDs were rampant and thought I heard 80% of players took PEDs I would rather state more than half took PEDs including amphatamines.
I find it rather interesting that Alex Rodriguez was not on the Mitchell report eventhough he was sited in Jose Canseco’s book. I know Canseco may not be a model citizen but he did expose several other players who adamantly denied using PEDs (Palmeiro in TEX, A-Rod was on the same team) and later tested positive.
Do you think MLB would want to protect Alex Rodriguez because they know if he was exposed, MLB will risk losing a whole lot of money during his “chase” to an already tainted Home Run record? That is really why I would propose strickening all the stats from that era. An asterisk to me is too lenient.
I think this is a bad day… I think this will impact the overall relationship between the owners and players and set the stage for a VERY contentious CBA renegotiation in the future… Of course, the owners did not take this issue seriously when there are more fanny’s in the seats than ever before. Of course,the Player’s Association is complicit as well, in really obstructing this effort by telling their players to keep quiet… Both are very guilty… However, the most guilty are thoe players who are doing something, have done something but continue to obfuscate and lie and obstruct… Those that do are dirty human beings…