Who’d have thunk Jose Canseco would tip the scales?…

Hard to believe but one year ago tomorrow, the now imfamous Steroid Hearings occurred on Capitol Hill. A well respected player and Viagra endorser would wag his finger, a player creditied with helping to restore the interest in MLB after the ‘94 strike would openly shed tears when asked about his alleged steroid use, and Selig and Fehr would get a tongue lashing that pushed forward reopening the Collective Bargaining Agreement (a second time) to get a substantive Joint Drug Agreement.

Poor intentions aside, Canseco’s book caused the hearings. The hearings caused the first adjustment to the Joint Drug Aagreement. The hearing’s outcome caused the JDA to be adjusted yet again.

Pardon me as a gag on this comment… “Thanks Jose.”

While March Madness got started, many, this author included, watched the drama unfold. Rarly has Congress’ meddling in baseball matters had any substantive outcome, so looking back on what has transpired, it seems nearly miraculous.

The hearing had the ostentatious title, “Restoring Faith in America’s Pastime: Evaluating Major League Baseball’s Efforts to Eradicate Steroid Use”. Maybe “steroid use” will be lowered, but if anyone thinks performance enhancing drugs aren’t and won’t be a part of the baseball landscape, well… Mr. 25 on the Giants may convince you otherwise this year.

I collected a vast majority of the documentation surrounding the hearing, and a trip down memory lane seems appropriate:

• Rep. Tom Davis in his opening statement: In February of this year, former MLB All-Star Jose Canseco released a book that not only alleges steroid use by well known MLB players, but also discusses the prevalence of steroids in baseball during his 17-year career. After hearing Commissioner Bud Selig’s public statements that MLB would not launch an investigation into Mr. Canseco’s allegations, my Ranking Member Henry Waxman wrote me asking for a Committee hearing to, quote, “find out what really happened and to get to the bottom of this growing
  scandal.” End quote.I agreed before I’d even finished reading the letter.
• Jose Canseco in his opening statement: I had hoped that what I experienced first hand, when revealed, would give insight into a darker side of a game that I loved. That maybe it would force baseball to acknowledge it condoned this activity for the sole purpose of increasing revenue at the gate. Unfortunately, by our presence here today, it is clear that MLB is not interested in admitting the truth. It is also clear that although others have tried to come out in support of my revelations, fear of repercussions from MLB haunts their conscience.
• Mark McGwire in his opening statement: I do not sit in judgment of other players — whether it deals with their sexual preference, their marital problems or their personal habits — including whether or not they used chemical substances. That has never been my style and I do not intend to change just because the cameras are turned on.
• Rapheal Palmeiro in his opening statement: I’ll be brief in my remarks today. Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids. Period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never. The reference to me in Mr. Canseco’s book is absolutely false.
• MLBPA Executive Director, Don Fehr in his opening statement: We have always believed that Constitutional principles such as those contained in the 4th Amendment, while not perfectly applicable in a private employment setting, remain important principles that we should not casually abandon. There is both the view that we should never have agreed to the testing of individuals without cause; and there are those who believe we should have random, mandatory steroid testing, and should have had such testing earlier. For making this new agreement we have been criticized by my mentor and predecessor, Marvin Miller, the first MLBPA Executive Director, and a man to whom all players owe a great debt. He has said publicly that it was a mistake to reopen the contract, that testing should only be for individual cause, and that we will rue the day we took this step. His opinion is not one to be dismissed lightly.
• Commissioner Allen “Bud” Selig in his opening statement: Baseball’s policy on performance enhancing substances is as good as any in professional sports. Notwithstanding the quality of our new policy, Baseball will not rest and will continue to be vigilant on the issue ofperformance enhancing substances as we move toward my stated goal of zero tolerance.

Of course, we all know what happened after the opening statements: Congress grilled Fehr and Selig. Recall that the hearings occurred but a scant few days after the first time the CBA was unsealed and the update to the JDA occurred. One “B-12″ shot later, and continued pressure from members of Congress, the contract was opened a second time, and the more stringent policy we now have was put in place.

When the current testing and penalty program was implemented (First positive: 50 games. Second positive: 100 games. Third positive: Lifetime ban, subject to right to seek reinstatement after two years of suspension, with arbitral review of reinstatement decision), this author asked Marvin Miller to comment for an article for The Hardball Times.

“[Reopening the contract] is foolishness in the extreme,” he said. “None of this of this had to happen. A contract ought to be a sacrosanct agreement that cannot be abrogated. And, the very act of one party asking another to abrogate what was derived in good faith, is something to be condemned in very certain terms. It is unprincipled on the part of Selig and the people he represents.” When asked if he felt the threats by members of Congress to pass law imposing testing penalties had teeth, Miller’s reply was, “In my opinion [Congress’ threat] had no teeth.” Asked if he felt the Players’ Association been weakened by this decision, Miller replied, “No question about it.”

The question remains, has the game been altered for the better? Is the integrity of baseball better off than before the hearings? “Barry Bonds” says otherwise, at this time. If the season passes and there are less than the 13 that failed testing before the harsher penalties were in place, then Selig and Fehr can say they’ve done some good, and are certainly well on the road to removing steroids from baseball. Clearly, doing nothing would not have been the answer.

Selig, on the other hand, has the unenvious job of trying to deal with the Bonds issue. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 16th, 2006 at 8:34 am and is filed under Baseball Insight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.