Legal Commentary

The real A-Rod tragedy

By Tom Kirkendall

As predicted here last year, the names of the MLB players who tested positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drug use in MLB's 2003 survey test of 240 players are finally being leaked to the media (previous posts on PED use in sports are here).

That survey test was done under a deal between MLB and the MLB Players' Association for the purpose of encouraging voluntary and confidential disclosure of PED use by players so that MLB and the Players' Association could develop a productive program for helping the players get off the juice and monitor future use.

With the leaking of A-Rod's name and the ensuing public outcry, so much for the notion of encouraging players to get help by assuring confidentiality.

Predictably, the mainstream media and much of the public are castigating Rodriguez, who is an easy target.

Of course, much of that same mainstream media and public contribute to the pathologically competitive MLB culture by regularly reveling in players who risk career-threatening disability by taking painkilling drugs so that they can play through injuries.

But players who used PED's in in an effort to strengthen their bodies to avoid or minimize the inevitable injuries of the physically-brutal MLB season are pariahs. Go figure.

Meanwhile, the fact that MLB players have been using PED's for at least the past two generations to enhance their performance is not even mentioned in the mind-numbingly superficial analysis of the PED issue that is being trotted out by most media outlets. Sure, Barry Bonds hit quite a few home runs during a time in which he was apparently using PED's. But should Pete Rose be denied the record for breaking Ty Cobb's total base hits standard simply because he used performance-enhancing amphetamines throughout his MLB career?

As noted here last year in connection with release of the Mitchell Commission report, witch hunts, investigations, criminal indictments, morality plays and public shaming episodes are not advancing a dispassionate debate regarding the complex issues that are at the heart of the use of PED's in baseball and other sports. On a very basic level, it is not even clear that the controlled use of PED's to enhance athletic performance is as dangerous to health as many of the sports in which the users compete.

A truly civilized society would find a better way to address these issues.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on February 10, 2009 (boomark / email).