Mitchell report due today

[Edge]

Personally, I believe many of these players did steroids. However, I have big problem with the overall report. Essentially, they put together a case that wouldn't really last in court and for that they named names. I just thing that opens up a can of worms that should remain sealed.

[SirKodiak]

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/idiology/ by John Brattain
some quotes from the article, but the whole article should be read:

The thing is, unions are supposed to protect their membership. What has to be borne in mind is that human life—despite protestations to the contrary—is relatively cheap. Workplace safety is often overlooked since measures to create a safe environment cost money that eats into profits. A typical employer wishes to receive maximum output from the workforce at as little cost as possible. A union exists to insure that an employee has a degree of safety.

Here is where Fehr and Orza blew it—what they failed to understand (or simply ignored) is that by trying to keep an environment where players could use performance-enhancing drugs without concern of sanction, they were doing ownership a huge favor. Steroid-fueled performance was incredibly profitable and ownership didn’t want the gravy train to end. Players were risking their health by taking substances that possibly came from dubious sources and manufactured in unsanitary and unhygienic conditions.

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, Fehr and 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.

What it boiled down to was that an aspiring major leaguer had to choose to use cheap anabolic substances created under dubious conditions or allowing players who were doing precisely that to get an available job. A lot of players gained MLBPA membership because they were willing to use these drugs to reach the major leagues. Further, two players on the same Double-A/Triple-A team competing for a 25-man roster slot may have been in a rigged contest if one was on the 40-man roster (and not subjected to testing) and the other was not.

A union that potentially creates/allows a situation where ingesting potentially toxic substances is a prerequisite to employment has lost its way. The MLBPA should be the one insuring that its membership have a healthy, safe, fair environment to work in. Pathetically, it appears that management is the one trying to create that safe workplace but is meeting resistance by the organization that should be protecting the workers it represents.

[Arctic Blast]

Interesting perspective on the role (or, more to the point, complete NON role) played by the PA. It does bring up the question...who exactly is the PA supposed to be representing here? the suspects, or the rest of the players being tarred with the same brush because of their proximity?

Kind of reminds me of the situation the NHLPA often puts itself in...protesting s suspension received by one player for an attack on the other. How can they possibly represent both sides? They can't.