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Friday, June 23, 2006
Poor George tumbles down baseball’s rabbit hole
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
I’m starting to think we were better off when everybody in baseball was on drugs and nobody cared.
For those of you who turned away from baseball’s drug investigations long ago, mistakenly believing the Braves’ season would provide therapy and not nightly viewings of bullpen flambé, this is what you’ve missed lately:
• George Mitchell came out of retirement and learned a difficult lesson: Life bites without subpoena power. The former Senate majority leader was asked to look into these steroid stories that keep ruining Bud Selig’s morning Cocoa Puffs. Problem is, Mitchell can’t get former or present players to talk about past drug use, their own or anybody else’s. Right now, Poor George would settle for solid evidence of an amphetamine-popping Chihuahua.
• Mitchell, who could buy another retirement home with what he’s being paid, has asked Selig to sanction any baseball employee, from general manager down to ball boy, who he deems “uncooperative” in his investigation, according to The New York Times. In a related story, Mitchell would like the offices of Major League Baseball moved to Nuremberg.
• Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed two San Francisco Chronicle reporters in hopes of compelling them to divulge who leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO case to them. As a member of the media, I realize we’re not always so popular. But consider this: Two reporters could end up spending more time in jail to protect sources than any of the five defendants in the BALCO case, including Victor Conte.
Sell drugs, go to jail for four months. Write stories about a guy who sells drugs, well NOW we’re talking about something serious.
The Bush administration is urging a federal judge to pressure the reporters, I guess because the Bush administration has nothing else on its plate these days.
Hey, here’s a thought: Solve today’s problem of only semi-effective drug testing. It’s a little late for yesterday.
For argument sake, let’s assume the worst. Let’s say 80 percent of Major League players once used steroids, HGH, amphetamines or some performance-enhancing drugs.
OK, now what? Forget records. Hall of Fame voters, sports history books and fans will take care of artificially inflated numbers. Asterisks aren’t necessary. But exactly how does threatening to fire a trainer unless he confesses he saw a player stick a needle in his tush seven years ago solve anything?
“The question I’ve had all along is, ‘What’s the goal?’ ” said the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Fainaru-Wada, who co-authored “Game of Shadows.” The book relies on interviews and grand jury testimony to detail Barry Bonds’ alleged use of steroids.
“I’ve never heard [Selig] say what their objective is with this investigation. If they want to find out the facts related to BALCO or Bonds’ situation or the book, the fact-finding shouldn’t be that difficult. There’s 30,000 pages of documents.”
Selig knows what happened. He’s been an owner and a commissioner, so he’s well versed in all levels of deceit and denial.
All he has to do is stand up and say, “We goofed. We knew about the drugs, but we closed our eyes because Sosa and McGwire sold tickets and did wonders for our TV ratings and we were all getting rich. We all share the blame. But it all stops here. Right now.”
Instead, everybody is looking like the lost Stooge. This week, the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco put a PDF of a federal court brief online. Segments that referred to the grand jury’s steroid investigation were redacted in print. But it was discovered the passages that were “blacked out” electronically could be read simply by pasting them into a word document.
Oops.
References to several e-mail messages between Conte and Fainaru-Wada clearly outed Conte as a source — although it didn’t provide direct proof he leaked the BALCO documents.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office referred to the PDF blunder as “an unfortunate error.”
No. A typo is an unfortunate error. These are people trying to nail Bonds for perjury?
Shining light that he is, Bonds says through an attorney that he would love to cooperate with Mitchell’s investigation. But he needs assurances that anything he says can’t be used against him while the FBI is looking into perjury and maybe even tax evasion.
So what we have here are two competing investigations bumping into each other; neither is going very far.
Aren’t you glad you stopped paying attention?
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