I’d be all for the 104 positives being named, and the game moving on if that is at all possible. In my opinion, if you don’t do that, then the other 600-700 players are going to be guilty by association, forever.A-Rod being named has put an even bigger black cloud over the game then there has been before. He was one of the few greats of the steroid era that was look at as somebody who played the game the right way. Now, with his admission of guilt the league and everyone in it suffers. Now nobody is innocent. The only solution is to release the other names and try to move on. It may actually accomplish what the Mitchell Report was supposed to accomplish.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Schilling is Right, Release the Other 103 Names
From 38 Pitches:
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13 Comments:
I loath Curt Schilling, but he's right, the sooner the better, Sad that he & Jose Canseco are telling the truth, even though they are 2 of the biggest jerks in the world
That headline made me do a double take, but I do want to see those other names. I bet we never will though.
For once I agree with Schilling.
Release the names of all the other 103 players right now and deal with it.
That's the only way for Baseball to move on.
You know times are bad when four out of four Yankees fans agree with Curt Schilling.
Here's one who disagrees with Shilling and you. I'll repeat here what I told my dad and brothers yesterday:
I "want" the names released, too - in the sense that it is unbelievably unfair that A-Rod is singled out here.
Nevertheless, doing so would be to commit 103 more wrongs. There was a confidentiality agreement - a contract - here. Violating that agreement 103 more times doesn't make the first violation okay.
I say release them. The sanctity of baseball is not upheld by the players alone but by the fans and its history. Lets send a message to the younger guys and begin doing the right thing.
So let's do the right thing by doing 103 more wrong things?
Here's a great article about this very issue from Doug Glanville, a former teammate of Alex's. Esp. pertinent is this section:
"But before we get self-righteous, we should look in the mirror and ask ourselves whether exposing A-Rod, or any player for that matter, is worth stepping all over rights, privacy, confidentiality and anonymity.
"There is a lot of outrage out there about Alex. Not surprising. But what really surprises me is the lack of outrage about how a confidential and anonymous test could be made public. We seem to gloss over the fact that these players voted to re-open a collectively bargained agreement in a preliminary effort to address the drug problem. When privileged information is shared it effectively hurts anyone who has expected privacy in any circumstance, just as when someone made Brittany Spears’s medical records public.
"The 2003 test was only supposed to assess whether the number of players using performance-enhancing drugs exceeded a certain threshold. If it did, as part of the agreement, a full drug policy would be instituted in the following testing year. One that was more comprehensive with penalties. This was at least a step in the right direction.
Eric,
That's probably because he knows he tested positive too.
And I understand the issue here, but I think the way to get past this is have all the names out there and move on. Because otherwise, everyone is presumed guilty, at least in the court of public opinion. It's unfair for the guys who didn't cheat.
I have no sympathy for anyone who cheated, nor do I feel they deserve to be protected by the players association. If these guys were gonna be sent to jail or suspended for a positive result, then I could understand protecting them.
The best way to ensure people don't cooperate in the future - on whatever issue - is to flagrantly disregard a previous agreement. The result is no one talks, no one cooperates because no one can trust anyone.
In journalism, the failure to protect the anonymity of sources that speak or proivide info on that condition means those sources dry up. In law, going back on an agreement you made with one lesser criminal (or even innocent eyewitness) in order to mab the bigger criminal fish means informants stop speaking, and the bigger fish get away. The same goes here in the attempt at the greater good: in this case, the good that came out of the anonymity agreement was real testing with real penalties. Violating the sanctity of contract now hindersfurther progress and will actually undermine efforts to "clean up the game" in the long run.
So, this is not just about individual rights - something I and our country as a whole has traditionally valued very much - being trampled. That's a huge issue. More, it has practical consequences for the future.
Also, let's say the 103 names are released. That will do NOTHING to alleviate suspician of anyone not named. All it will mean is that the others were smart enough to avoid detection in a test they new about ahead of time. So the very purpose you have for violating 103 confidentiality agreements isn't even met. And for what? the great cost I explained in my previous comment.
In order to protect everyone's privacy, lets just have them release the names of the players who didn't fail the drug tests!
Eric,
I think it will do a lot more than that for those not listed. But we can just agree to disagree on this one.
Yankspdx,
That's not a bad idea.
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