Today's NYT's Headline: Selig Says Report ‘Is a Call to Action’ and Vows to Act Swiftly
TRANSLATION:My head will be in the sand with such speed, I'll become a god in the ostrich community.
It's been refreshing to read and listen to a large percentage of Mitchell Report punditry that feels little can be done and it is only the beginning of any potential change. There are few things more annoying than commentators who should know better, taking to the microphones to pontificate on the latest event, be it a player's death, arrest, drug OD, or whatever and proclaim it a turning point that will alter human behavior for all eternity. While I wish it were otherwise and I hope that the Players Union gets the kick in the balls it deserves over this one, I'm not holding my breath that the Mitchell Report does anything more than provide the slimmest of openings for meaningful change.
Let's face it, the track and field and cycling federations haven't been able to get a handle on doping after years of taking it seriously (and using incessant mandatory testing). Their marquis events, the Olympics and the Tour de France, have been rocked time and again with drug charges and it hasn't brought them down.
So I can't believe that a suddenly 'serious' MLB facing a powerful players union and enjoying rising attendance and revenues is going to accomplish shit. Baseball also appears to have a different drug dynamic. One, the percentage of participants using appears much lower. Secondly, while there are some big names, there are a high percentage of journeyman ballplayers using, while at the Olympic and Tour de France level, it is the biggest of big names being busted. Name a top cyclist or world class track star who hasn't been caught or faced serious allegations. The Mitchell Report doesn't come close to that.
The sad fact is that no one is going to give a damn unless, in a very short timespan, a couple of dozen white, upper middle class American 13-15 year olds drop dead from steroid abuse. And at least a couple of them had better be beautiful blond girls so cable news will cover it wall-to-wall for several days in between Britney Spears court appearances.
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for this report. I'm just realistic enough to recognize that the same pigs that are at the trough are the ones in charge of changing things. The only way change occurs is if we fans turn our backs on MLB so I hearby declare I will never watch another MLB game.....at the fucking dome in Tampa... until the drug problem is seriously addressed. I think I'm typical. MLB and Don Fehr's behavior in perpetuating this mess enrages me, but not so much that I won't continue to follow the game. That's not exactly hope inspiring.
We've got about 10,000 years of fairly well-documented human history out there and the record for successful reform in situations with the current dynamic is about 0-1,986,567. Ascendant empires don't engage in introspection, let alone serious reform, and baseball in 2007 is nothing if not an ascendant empire.
Comments
From what I'm reading online and in the papers that seems unlikely. Sports reporters are too wedded to the belief that this cartel of millionaires is the moral equivalent of the UAW. "Owners kept making money, so they must share the blame...in fact they must be MORE to blame" is what I'm hearing, and the PA is mostly getting a pass.
It is particularly interesting to hear things like some players were planning on skipping the anonymous tests so it would count as a positive, so that baseball would be forced to do something about the drug users, until the PA leaned (threatened?) the players.
Nice.