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December 29, 2007

More on the Mitchell Report

Following on my posts earlier this month on the Mitchell Commission Report, I have been meaning to pass along several additional items:

Malcolm Gladwell follows his earlier post on the Mitchell Report with another one in which he makes the following observations:

An aging pitcher is suffering from a variety of persistent injuries. They are healing slowly. He is depressed and lethargic, and anxious about his career. He goes to see his doctor. The doctor finds that the patient's testosterone count is low. He prescribes the pitcher a small dose of testosterone, as part of his rehab. The patient is desperate, and the doctor agrees to experiment with testosterone, and see if it speeds recovery.

Questions:

1. Has the pitcher violated MLB's drug policy? As far as I can tell, yes. Testosterone is on baseball's list of banned substances.

2. Has the patient violated the law? Of course not. Testosterone is an FDA approved medication.

Next, John Brattain over at the Hardball Times examines the actions of both MLB management and the MLB Players Association management in regard to performance enhancing drugs, and his conclusions are not pretty for either group:

Management didn’t care; player turnover is a fact of life in baseball. Somebody is always available to take the spot of somebody not performing should someone become injured due to steroid usage. They found an indirect ally in the MLBPA; higher profits translated into higher salaries and the interests of the salary bar were being served. Citing privacy issues, [MLBPA President Donald] Fehr and [key Fehr aide Gene] Orza long resisted drug testing. This suited ownership just fine and it finally took government action to get both to deal with the issue in a substantive way.

Who was protecting the players now? Both sides were allowing them to take risks with their health to play in the major leagues.

Finally, Jonathan Cole and Stephen Stigler review the anecdotal evidence and reach the following conclusion after comparing the "before" and "after" performance of the alleged PED-taking ballplayers cited in the Mitchell Commission Report:

But the results here are intriguing, and could send a simple message to America’s youth who aspire to fame and fortune as professional baseball players: Don’t use these drugs — not only can they increase the risk of serious illness, they also don’t enhance your performance on the diamond.

Posted by Tom at December 29, 2007 12:00 AM

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