An Awkward Search for the Truth

As most of you know, Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, along with their entourage of attorneys and advisors, were the focus of a Congressional Hearing this past Wednesday. Carried by the full range of ESPN networks, C-Span, and countless other media outlets, the supposed aim of the hearings was to flush out the truth about the Clemens/McNamee accusations, and take another step forward in ridding sports of steroids. While apparently there is some regret regarding the hearing (see http://blogs.usatoday.com/sportsscope/2008/02/waxman-regrets.html), that can't change the fact that it has happened.

The question then becomes, what did the hearing produce? A lot of he-said/he-said, accusations thrown back and forth, possible witness tampering, and an interesting display of lawyering. While that may make for great TV, it really didn't get anyone any closer to the truth.

So, with this hearing joining the Barry Bonds situation, the previous Congressional hearings (Selig/Fehr, McGwire/Palmeiro/Sosa, etc.) and the Mitchell Report, are we any closer to solving the problem? And, if we are, what is the solution?

I don't have quite as much of an issue as some people with Congressmen (and women) spending time, and thus taxpayers' money, on this, if the aim is true. People claim that this is a public health issue, and if it that is the true impetus behind the hearings, then so be it.

Yet, there are some aspects of this that don't make sense. If you're going to call in Clemens and Petitte, why not call in Adam Piatt, Jack Cust, and the others who were named in the Report? Of course, we all know that putting Adam Piatt before Congress doesn't have quite the same flair as Roger Clemens.

Also, if the talking heads at ESPN are going to give their spins on the testimony and developments, why not leave that to the experts? Bring on someone with a sports medicine background (Will Carroll for instance), or people with legal experience, and leave the analysis to them. No offense to John Seibel, Stephen A. Smith, or any one of the other anchors or commentators on the network, but most of them have no relevant experience, besides covering the athletes who are involved. The opinions of Smith, Colin Cowherd, and a number of others have little to no value, if for no other reason than they don't have the professional or educational background to comment intelligently on the issues. This isn't a rehash of a baseball game; it's a moderately complex situation involving the worlds of sports, law and medicine.

Do we know anything more than we did a year ago? When I ask that, I don't mean just the names that have been released, but do we know more about the problem itself. Do we know about how to get effective testing in place? Do we know how to put out education programs to schools, so that young athletes don't start using steroids, HGH, or other performance enhancers that could endanger their health? Do we know how to improve the next 30 years, rather than how to rehash the last 20? Do we know how much of a problem steroids are in all sports, at all levels, from youth leagues to professionals?

These public displays may be good fodder for the evening news, but whether they get us any closer to answers depends a great deal on the questions we are asking.

When is Chuck Knoblauch the same as Curt Schilling?

Well, it's that time of the year again - the Fed makes an "emergency" rate cut, the government pushes out an inconsequential $150 billion that is effectively an unwanted short-term loan to the middle class, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has determined that they should be focusing mostly on baseball's steroid "problem" rather than any of the other issues they could possibly examine.

In short, this is a baffling and putrid move on the part of Congress - a move that seems much more apt to produce sound bites from congressmen than from baseball players.

To start, let's get some things out of the way. First, this is not implicitly a waste of the government's time or taxpayer money - the powers of the COGR are wide-reaching, allowing investigation of really anything that might affect anyone or anything dealing with Federal law in even the least strict sense. Actually, this sort of investigation could be one of the better uses of the Committee - there is no doubt that Congress has power and influence in the way that investigative journalists do not, and should there be actual time and effort put into determining the scope and scale of baseball's PED issues, the COGR would probably be the most effective body to perform that investigation.

However, if you've spent even a modicum of time on this issue, it should be starkly obvious that "time and effort" have fallen victim to "pomp and circumstance" at just about every turn. Watching Henry Waxman and Tom Davis at work for just a few minutes at a time during the hearings with Bud Selig and former Senator George Mitchell was enough to expose the committee's intent: to put on a show, to decry drugs as "bad" rather than design a plan to stop them, and basically waste everyone's time for the benefit of the men and women of Congress alone.

This is really an excuse for the members of the House committee to proselytize from the podium, get air time, rant and rave to a camera and then peddle themselves as "difference makers" during their next reelection campaign. Baseball's testing program is on par or superior to any league out there, and its penalties are more severe - football, by contrast, has a legitimate drug problem, with stars caught every year (see: Merriman, Shawn) and a testing program that is notoriously full of holes and pre-test warnings to star players, by reputation, anecdote and evidence.

The committee chair first, then the minority leader, stood up and delivered a ridiculous sermon on the dangers of drugs, while giving uncited and laughably uninformed "statistics" on drug use for high school and college athletes. Next, both drew an explicit connection between professional baseball players and use by youth, and specifically minors. Never mind that most of the minors using performance-enhancing substances are not baseball players - football has, by far, the more serious problem, by all reports - or that the true 'enablers' are generally not pro athletes, but rather the parents who fund the purchases, or the coaches who look the other way in search of more and better wins, or etc.

The finger-wagging on the part of Congress in this situation is laughable at best, and insidiously dangerous at worst. Announcing the baseball situation as a "problem" while focusing on the stars and not the majority of users (who are, in general, failed scrubs or the injured), all the while making innuendo that the problem is worse than the testing indicates because of the specter of HGH (which has never been shown to actually increase muscle mass or athletic performance), really gives children the actual license and rationale for using performance-enhancing substances. Think about it like this: you advertise that steroids are dangerous, because you might just get really good at something and make millions of dollars doing it. There is a legitimate incentive to use PEDs - instead, why aren't we focusing on the still-minute chances of success (read: money), while showing the health and legal risks that neatly offset the ludicrously small chance for any given high school star to even sniff a professional paycheck?

The situation only becomes more laughable now that players are being subpoenaed, yet again, to appear before the COGR. The last time, we were treated to a total implosion of Mark McGuire's Hall of Fame status, the hypocrisy of Rafael Palmeiro's "inspired" finger-wagging, and one Curt Schilling looking incredibly out of place. Schilling, the same guy who regularly shows up to spring training with a dome belly and a winter's worth of Cheese-Its and Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel lingering around his ham hocks, was invited to sit on a panel with those suspected or accused of steroid use.

This time around, we get Chuck Knoblauch filling the same role, albeit in a completely different fashion. Indeed, Knoblauch has been explicitly linked to performance-enhancing substances in the Mitchell Report, although without the canceled-check "certainty" of those outed by Kurt Radomsky or others. Still, it seems odd that of the 80-some people named in the report, those invited to testify are essentially from the Yankees dynasty of the late 1990s: Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Knoblauch. One of these individuals does not fit; one has never had the stature of the others . . . and that one is, in fact, Roger Clemens.

So why do we have Pettitte (who has admitted use to recover from injury, certainly not a pernicious deed but questionable and likely illegal nonetheless) and Knoblauch (who has only tenuous ties to steroid use by any barometer) speaking in front of Congress? Likely, the goal is to put pressure on Clemens, just as the FBI put pressure on Bonds, ultimately resulting in an indictment for perjury late last year.

If the goal is to only attack the game's biggest stars, aren't we falling into the same trap I mentioned earlier - namely, that public perception of the problem will be much more dangerous than if we simply examine the root reality of the situation? Knoblauch's situation should stand on its own merits, for better or worse - if he used at the end of his career to attempt to prolong it, this would be a wonderful time to cut the bullshit anger and looking down the nose, and instead state publicly that his attempt failed, and the health risks were not worth the effort (not to mention the money). If, instead, Knoblauch is merely there to get grilled about others in the locker room and the so-called "steroid culture" (a culture propagated and facilitated, for the most part, by ownership), why even pretend? Doesn't this do more harm than good?

The COGR examination of baseball (and ignorance or disregard for any other sports, the reality of modern baseball's testing program, hard statistical evidence, or even the potential harm of their own actions framing the problem incorrectly) is quickly evolving into onanism. The hearings are often a masturbatory exercise for those who have never heard of "replacement level," or the hardship of playing 162 games in 180 days for ten years - in short, Congress has not taken the time nor put in the effort to fully understand the problem's roots, or its realistic extent or issues. It's no surprise we see Roger Clemens on the stand, instead of the real problems - players like Larry Bigbie, Howie Clark, Adam Riggs and even Eric Gagne. These are the players that are getting the benefit - the marginal guys who wind up making a few bucks (or a ton of bucks, in the case of Gagne). Let's expose this charade for what it is - an unproven method to reach incredibly unlikely heights in a difficult, tense profession.

And that's without even talking about the HGH fascination, for which we have zero proof of any positive effects on baseball players beyond possible reduction in recovery from injury. It's insane.

Today = not good

Today, the Mitchell Report will be released in about 15 minutes. As a baseball fan, it's a terrible day; here are a few people (or groups of people) who stand to be hurt by this:

1) George Mitchell: previous to this, he had a near-sterling reptuation (besides being a lobbyist for Big Tobacco). Now? How many people will look at him as a shill for Major League Baseball and Bud Selig? How can you be a director of a MLB team and be the lead in a process like this? How can you publically accuse players of taking steroids when you have, in some cases, just 2nd hand stories and a near lack of witnesses and proof?

2) Baseball players: this is obvious; from reports, it seems like the release of the report will be the first time many players realize their names are contained in the report. How would you like to wake up one day, turn on the TV, and find out you're being accused of cheating at your job? How about find out you've been accused of abusing certain substances? Becoming an outsider from the game you've played for so many years because you are accused (notice, not proven) of taking steroids, HGH, or other similar substances. Of course Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and others stand to lose their place in history, but what about lesser stars or players?

3) MLB owners and Bud Selig: I'm lumping them together because their fates will be intertwined after the release of this report. When the smoke starts to clear, how are things explained? Where does this really leave MLB? Will the release of names really change things?

4) The fans: unfortunately, this seems to just be the start of a terrible lead-up to spring training. Get ready to see the knocking down of some sports heroes.