"Mitchell should have looked inside the organization more deeply. The press should have asked more questions in the past 10 years. We should be pounding on their doors demanding explanations as to how this all could have happened."

That's not what Mitchell was hired to do. He was hired so that Selig and the owners could save face.

None of the stars of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were called by Mitchell or Congress to testify about amphetamine use. Nolan Ryan wasn't called to make a statement about his career path. Some records are more sacred than others.

This was a very limited fishing expedition in a very specific barrel.

I think a better analogy would be the mob (MLB) having one of their thugs (BLB) burn their restaurant down so they can reap the insurance money.

It just seems so clear that MLB was implicitily involved in the players' steroid use until it became incovenient to do so. They didn't just leave their doors unlocked and twittle their thumbs. They didn't fall asleep at the wheel - they were driving the bus off the cliff! Then they jumped out just before it was too late and pointed at the passengers as being reckless.

 Unfortunately, it seems Marshall bought that whole charade and even lauded it. Strangely, if you look at a lot of the content on his website, one would expect him to have the opposite stance. I would expect him to be ranting and raving about how MLB shouldn't be just scapegoating a handful of players, but should be taking a long, hard look at itself and how they've run the game. Based upon some of his comments on other topics, I would expect him to be demanding that the MLB executives do a Mitchell Report on themselves and go to the public with a plan to reform their ways. He should be complaining about how flawed and incomplete the report is, not praising it.

Hey John,

I think I may have misread your article (and maybe misinterpreted your whole stance on this issue). You seem to be arguing that, even though Bonds cheated, he should not be punished via collusion or being singled out intentionally. Is that the case?

If so, I have a couple things to say:

 -I agree with you. Like I said in my first comment, collusion is not the answer. It is just as ethically questionable as using PEDs, due to the unequal playing field it creates. I just think it's plausible that all 30 teams came to their not-sign-Bonds conclusions independently.

I would be interested in whether or not you feel this situation (independent judgement by all 30 teams) is acceptable, given the well-documented evidence against him. You seem to indicate that, if the owners didn't collude against Bonds, then you have no beef with this issue. You say: "I will recant what I have written over the last year if an independent arbitrator looks at the evidence and determines that MLB did not collude in this instance." Does that mean you feel Bonds cheated and should be punished (in a non-colluding, non-singled-out way)?

-I think that you and Jack are arguing two different points. Did you think he was arguing that collusion is acceptable or that MLB should not get punished for looking the other way? I don't see that anywhere in his post, but maybe I'm not looking closely enough.Regardless, your reply to him focuses on collusion and the MLB's culpability, so I'm a bit confused.

I think Jack just said that Bonds deserves whatever fate he gets; that there's more than enough evidence (criminal, physical, ethical, and otherwise) to warrant a team's owner not signing him in 2008. That same amount of evidence is not present with lesser (or just lesser-known) players (Giambi et al) because, again, not all humans are created equal, and neither are their transgressions.

Again, I think it's reasonable that all 30 teams came to these same conclusions independently without colluding. Therefore Bonds is unemployed while most others named in the report still have jobs.

-Ryan (Ryry's just a nickname :-)

P.S. Please don't compare this situation to racial injustice or to the Holocaust. Those pathos-laden tactics really weaken your argument :-)

I"f Bonds indeed 'robbed the house' MLB held the door open, told him where the safe was, the combination to the safe, acted as lookout, took a percentage of the booty and kept their mouths shut until another party called 911 before yelling "We wuz robbed!!!""

 Actually MLB even sold the film for a lot of money.

There are ethicists who argue that there is no such thing as conduct motivated purely by ethics. I don't believe that, but I also don't believe that the owners were motivated solely by ethical  motives: not signing Bonds can be defended as a business decision as well. I don't think it is hard to believe that some team owners would say, "I don't want a cheat like Bonds on my team...that's not what we stand for!" Another might say, "We just went through the whole Mitchell Report thing to get away from the steroid issue, and you expect me to sign Barry Bonds??? Are you nuts?" Another: "I'd love to sign Bonds, but we'd catch hell from the media and our fan base. I'll pass."  Most owners probably thought a little of all three. That doesn't mean that ethics wasn't part of the equation in many of the decisions involved. 

There's an ethical quandary (See a great book, "The Pig Who Wants to Be Eaten") about who is more ethical: the person who just routinely sees the right thing as the natural thing to do, and the person whose instincts are unethical but who does the right thing against his instincts. Then there's the person who does the ethical thing now so people will trust him later, allowing him to screw them over. Who knows?  Everything is supposition, and mine is no better than yours.

Thanks Jack for taking it in the spirit it was given. No harm in agreeing to disagree. I feel bad for the grief you received but let's face it--Barry Lamar Bonds makes idiots of us all...no matter what you say or write about him there are a lot of folks that will accuse us of taking leave of our senses.

Take care and thanks for the reply--I think THT would be more than happy to post a rebuttal to my piece if you're so inclined. Besides, my life is easier when I don't have to come up with a topic for an article :-D

Best Regards

John 

Mr. Marshall - we've got back and forth a bit before, so why not here too?

I agree 100% that not punishing someone for a crime because you can't punish everyone who committed the crime is both wrong and silly. However, maybe I missed something, but I don't see that argument being made in Bonds case, and I don't think it applies. I don't think anyone is arguing that Bonds shouldn't be punished. What bothers me is the suggestion that he should be punished in a way that Giambi is not.

What's happening here isn't selective prosecution whereby you only have the time or resources to go after a subset of offenders so you choose, in your best judgement, the most egregious or high-profile subset. I think we can both agree that the two situations you present above (prosecuting a few high-profile offenders or many low-profile offenders) is neither ideal nor fair. It's the result of human limitations whereby the ideal situation - prosecuting all offenders - cannot be attained. I like to think I'm in touch with reality enough to grasp that the ideal is rarely obtainable and often the above situation is inevitable. Sometimes one has to make judgement calls of a subjective nature - as in what makes someone higher-profile than someone else.

Those type of judgement calls are highly subjective and based more on opinion than fact. They should be avoided if at all possible. In this case, we know Giambi used as he himself has admitted it. Is he not one of the worst steroid offenders? He won the MVP in 2000 and a mere 4 first place votes separated him and Frank Thomas. Assuming Thomas didn't use PEDs, didn't Giambi in effect cheat Frank Thomas out of an MVP? I personally feel Frank Thomas is a first ballot hall of famer, but I'm sure many people disagree. Would as many disagree if Frank had 3 MVPs instead of 2? Probably not. So you could say that Giambi's steroid use affects another player's chances of getting into the Hall of Fame. Furthermore, the A's edged out Seattle that year by half a game. Couldn't you argue that Giambi's cheating cost Seattle home playoff games? Think if they could have played the Yankees that year at home - perhaps they would not have lost in 6 games. Seattle may have even won the World Series!!! Furthermore, Cleveland was only 1 game behind Oakland and, if Giambi had not cheated, perhaps they would have been the wild card instead  and would have gone to the playoffs. One could argue that Giambi cheated Cleveland out of the playoffs and Seattle out of a World Series. 

My point is not that the above arguments are valid. It's that these types of judgement calls as to who was a worse offender or who is higher profile, is subjective and wishy-washy and not at all scientific. In this case - there is no reason for it. We can punish Giambi just as easily as Bonds - there are no resource limitations requiring selective prosecution between these two. (Obviously there are limitations in punishing every steroid offender in baseball - but those limitations do not mean we have to chose some subset of those named in the Mitchell Report.) Selective prosecution should never mean that you deliberately choose not to prosecute someone for a crime for no other reason than they are not high-profile enough. It's like saying, it's okay to cheat, just don't be too good at it or too popular and there won't be reprecussions. After all, the only ethics that matter are those of the richest, most successful, most popular, highest profile individuals. Bologna! Selective prosecution should be avoided if at all possible.

Ah but, Giambi at least was apologetic and cooperative. Well, that should get him some credit, shouldn't it? Of course an apology doesn't get Seattle home field advantage or get Cleveland into the playoffs. It doesn't get Frank Thomas an MVP. And how should Giambi's Hall of Fame status be viewed through the wishy-washy lens of this subjective reasoning? Shouldn't we be less harsh on him when evaluting his Hall status than we are on Bonds?

My answer is definitely "NO." Why, because of the very reason you state: "Part of the function of prosecution is to send clear messages to the public and culture that certain conduct will not be tolerated and is wrong." By treating Giambi differently than Bonds you send the message that it is okay to cheat as long as you apologize for it, or that it is okay to cheat as long as you only win 1 MVP and not 4 (I say 4 because, presumably Bonds won 3 prior to taking steroids).

In the case of baseball, there is no justfiable reason to punish some of the known steroid users and not others. Selective prosecution just for the sake of selective prosecution is wrong.

Jack,

 I have many problems with your arguments re: Bonds.  For now, I'll just address the selective prosecution point:

The problem with selective prosecution is that, in addition to the (arguably) good reasons for selective prosecution that you cite, it is not difficult to imagine many nefarious reasons for such a practice.  In fact, the possibility for nefarious motivations behind selective prosecution may be so costly to society that one could reasonably argue that we shouldn't allow such a practice no matter the possible benefits of it.

Let's look at Bonds' case, since we're already there.  Mightn't it be possible that much (or some, if you like) of the greater venom towards Bonds relative to other cheaters is based on his dark complexion?  The "selective prosecution" argument forgives a lot.  

Jack,

I agree with you that getting the highest profile offender might sometimes be a good idea. However you really have to push on than and say ok heres the highest profile guy we are going to punish him and any following offender runs the risk of being punished just as hard.

I think though that this is actually not what is happening. The general message seems to be let's get Bonds and than all of baseball will be clean and we will have nothing more to worry about and thereby shoving under the table all the offences that are still hapening. I think you cannot just be happy with getting rid of one man but that there has have to show a continuing effort to rid baseball of steroids. Getting rid of one man and then rejoice seems wrong to me. 

David, I agree with your baseball comments. A few interesting facts, though, about Clinton...

In 1993 a Democrat House and Senate passed the extension of the Independent Counsel Act. In 1994 that same House and Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act, which gave sexual harassment plaintiffs the standing in court to investigate the prior workplace history of defendants. Clinton signed both into law. Without them, he never would have had to perjure himself in the Paula Jones lawsuit, would never have been investigated by an independent counsel, and would not have been impeached.

David: All I meant was that baseball's all time home run record is one of baseball's most hallowed achievements, and having the top number tainted by steroids hurts the game. I don't think allowing greats to hang on a little too long and to be able to add to their records is in any way a comparable "taint."

There is no evidence of collusion. That 's why I mentioned, in th article, the other factors arguing against hiring Bonds---his age, etc. It isn't, or shouldn't be, hard to imagine that the four or five teams that might possibly benefit from Bonds' sevices could independently reach a reasonable conclusion that they didn't want to hire him. IF Bonds were at his peak, with healthy knees, and 35 years old, but everything else was the same, and THEN nobody signed him, I think that would present a prima facie case for collusion.  I didn't write (or didn't intend to imply) that ethical considerations alone caused teams not to sign Bonds---just that they served as a tipping point with all the other factors. 

I am very confident that there was no collusion here, and that the Player's Association will get nowhere with a claim that there was.

That's very logical, Sara, and to some extent, you are right: a struggling player who sees his replacement-level competition get over the hump usung steroids is going to consider it. But that comes after a threshhold determination that the conduct is acceptible. If the player is ethically and morally opposed to using PEDs, they are not likely to be considered an option The small potatos users may indeed encourage the pragmatic decision to cheat, but it is the industry leader, the superstar, who changes attitides about whether it is culturally-approved to cheat....because he doesn't "have" to, and because part of his role is to set standards.

In Illinois today, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corrupt officials at various levels of state and local government, and their financial success may inspire similarly inclined officials to jump into the slime-pool. But when the Governor of the state is seen selling US Senate seats, it threatens to validate corruption as "business as usual." There are few maxims as dead-on as "The fish rots from the head down."

The  

 Where the hell am I going to find a blackberry in 1998?

(laughing)

R & D?

Good point.

Best Regards

John