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agellin How does one become a professional ethicist? Is there a background check? I assume you didn't steal candy or lie as a child? For those of us who like Barry Bonds but understand the outrage expressed in the court of public opinion, can't you just leave the man alone already? Last I heard, it's still "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law." Let Barry have his day in court and let's move on from there.
Al
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brandini You have ZERO basis for any of your comments, ZERO.
"Basketball refuses to do anything about pot use, because it would decimate the league." How many basketball players have tested positive for pot? Can you give me an exact figure? Or do you know of a handful and are drawing your conclusion based on that?
So because baseball hasn't had 'as many' run ins with the law it is obvious that baseball will not tolerate it. Hows this. I'm not eating turkey for Christmas dinner, does that mean I hate turkey? Try not to take the Michael Moore approach here.
"Baseball, like the rest of society, is bound by the laws..."
Again, zero evidence. Do you have the FACTS to support your case that baseball rejects EVERYONE of its 'criminals'? Or, as one of the other posters suggested, picking and choosing?
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pAllan Before you adopt such a condescending tone I would ask that you adopt the policy of proof-reading your own posts. It's only ethical.-
Jack Marshall Good point. I just fixed the one above, I think.
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Jack Marshall This isn't an argument, it's illiterate ranting. The NBA's casual attitude toward pot use is well-documented and has been the subject of many, many articles and much criticism.
You misunderstand the concept of culture. I've followed baseball for almost 50 years, and know my baseball history better than most: there are more league players having serious run-ins with the law...assault, gun possession, drugs, etc.---in any one NBA or NFL season than in any decade of baseball seasons. This both establishes and is the result of baseball's culture and role in America.
And ALL sports are bound by society's laws: that's why the catcher can't just shoot base-stealers. No league needs or should have to make special rules that say, "illegal drug use" is hereby banned in baseball. Athletes who live in American are bound by its laws
I don't have to prove the obvious. It's true. Honest. Read the statutes.
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conorsg3 Your premise that baseball has higher ethical standards than other sports is incredibly flawed and has no basis in fact. You ask if I think baseball would do anything about a marijuana arrest. Of course they would, as would football and basketball because if someone actually got arrested for marijuana possession, it would be because they had so much of it, they were obviously intending to sell it. No one gets arrested for possessing a small amount of marijuana, it's a misdemeanor that comes with a fine. Almost no sports (including baseball) even test for marijuana. Baseball turns a blind eye to a marijuana use and drunk driving and many other destructive types of behaviors.Furthermore, I disagree that baseball has less crime than football or basketball, at least relatively speaking. If you compare the crime rates of baseball players against their socio-economic peers prior to becoming professional baseball players, you will see the same thing that you see in football and basketball: the crime rate is slightly lower. Contrary to popular opinion, becoming a professional athlete (in any sport) actually reduces the chances of criminal behavior, albeit slightly. Ask any insurance actuary - the premiums go down for professional athletes compared to their socio-economic peers prior to becoming a rich celebrity. It just so happens that football and basketball (particularly basketball) draw from a socio-economic group that has a higher crime rate than baseball. That has more to do with the fans of the sport - it's not something that baseball itself cultivates.My point is your belief that baseball somehow upholds a higher ethical standard is pure fantasy. Baseball turned a blind eye to steroid use for a long time. Then, when the Feds busted a couple of steroid suppliers and exposed a number of baseball players, MLB could no longer pretend like there wasn't problem. So, they engaged in some theatrics: First, they tried to vilify a few players and they made up some new, slap-on-the-wrist rules. When that didn't work and Congress threatened to subject them to anti-trust laws, they prepared the Mitchell report and wrote some stricter rules so they could say- "See, we've done everything we could! Now let's put this behind us." Only they couldn't completely move until the unapologetic steroid poster-child they had worked so hard to single out, stopped breaking records and being defiant. That is why no one signed Bonds. The heads of MLB had worked very hard to make him the giant poster child of all that had been wrong and if only they could get him out of the game, the game would be clean. That was no accident. Nor was it unintentional that Clemens got so much attention in the report - the whole point of the report was to focus on aging players so that the public could turn it's ire and blame on players who were no longer in the game or wouldn’t be for much longer. There are not many players in their prime mentioned in the report and of those, none are superstars.Sadly, Mr. Marshall, you bought this song and dance hook, line and sinker. Despite baseball practically encouraging steroid use and not doing anything about until they were threatened to do so, you still hold on to the idea that somehow the sport has a higher level of integrity than other sports. And that's really where you went wrong with this entire tirade of yours. That idea was destroyed way back in 1919. By and large, the critics of this article are not fans of Bonds and I would guess that very few of them, if they were GMs, would have signed Bonds for the 2008 season. We don't like him personally and view many of his athletic accomplishments with doubt and skepticism. But at about the age of 10, unlike you, we stopped believing in fairy tales. And many of us are just plain sick and tired of the blame of steroid use falling on the shoulders of a handful of players. This was an issue that was so engrained into the very culture of the sport that no one who played during a 15 year period can be ruled out. I will always wonder about some of my absolute favorite players and frankly, I think it's ludicrous to blame that solely on Barry Bonds.Baseball is, in my opinion, the greatest sport. I love it and I want it to be fair and pure and I hope the rules reflect that. But baseball doesn't stand as a beacon of integrity. It's not a pillar of truth, justice and the American way. It's a business that is wholly entertaining. The people who run this business are of the same make and character as those who run basketball and football. And baseball players are no more likely to be honest people of good character than any other professional athlete. Baseball is not "the one professional sport that carries with it a duty to the American culture." Thinking that way isn't just fantasy, it's snobbery and rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
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Jack Marshall I salute you for a coherent and generally civil response. But you are wrong. It isn't fantasy, mine or anyone elses, that baseball holds a special place in Amewrican values, and that this gives it special responsibilities. Why was baseball's steroid problems the catalyst for Congressional hearings? Because Congress knew that perceived corruption of baseball, as opposed to other sports (steroid abuse in the NFL had been a problem for decades) was a national problem, not just a sports problem.
Read the fiction associated with the major sports: would the speech given by Terrence Mann in "Field of Dreams" be included in a film about any other sport? How can you say the idea of baseball's special cultural role ended in 1919: that's when baseball most strongly asserted it, by banning the Black Sox even after they had been acquitted in court.
You are right: the people running baseball are indistinguishable from those running other sports. But the sports are different, the expectations are different, their role in the culture is different, their histories are different. The standards are higher, whether they are always reached or not.
Your socio-economic argument has validity, but it is circular: the NBA and NFL don't have to tolerate the high levels of criminal activity, illegitimate kids, defaults on support payment. etc, but they do. Would baseball ever permit a player---sepecially a star---to behave like Dennis Rodman? A sport ignores its image, built by its stars, at great peril. Do you think the decline of pro boxing was accelerated by having a "champion" like Mike Tyson? At one time, boxing's peak, the heaveyweight champion was supposed to be a national hero and role model. Once that had been obliterated, the public interest in the sport waned.
The owners understand the sport they are in. Yes: since the elimination of an independent Commissioner ( Fay Vincent would have attempted to suspend Bonds long before he broke Aaron's record), baseball's ethical compass has been shakier. It is still crucial to the sport, however.
The "it's just a business" argument is demonstrably false. Yes, it is a business, and always has been. It is also more than that. Teams and players regularly act counter to a pure profit motive.
If you are right that most of those attacking my article wouldn't sign Bonds, why are you right? They wouldn't sign Bonds because "they don't like him?" That's not fair! Because he wouldn't do well? No, everybody refuses to admit that a 44 year old player is a bad bet. So why? Because he's under indictment. Because he's a corrupting influence. Because, AS YOU SAY, baseball needs to move on, and bringing Bonds back is two steps in the wrong direction.
You say, as do others, "And many of us are just plain sick and tired of the blame of steroid use falling on the shoulders of a handful of players." So what's your solution? Ignore the ones who we know are users? I'm pretty sure we only catch a small percentage of the corrupt corporate execs and politicians...are you advocating treating them leniently because there are others out there escaping punishment? See #8 below. This is a terrible, illogical argument, but I read and hear it all the time. Then you say, "This was an issue that was so engrained into the very culture of the sport that no one who played during a 15 year period can be ruled out." Oh, bullshit. If it was "ingrained in the culture of the sports," why weren't players open about it? Steroids are ingrained in the culture of pro bodybuilding, yes. But there is scant reason to believe that most players were using steroids...if most player use, then yes, I'll agree that it was ingrained in the culture. "Greenie" use was ingrained in the culture---and it was also open in the clubhouse.
You say, "I will always wonder about some of my absolute favorite players," and that's exactly why baseball wasn't going to hire back Bonds, once he was out. His prominence and success did a great deal to put the A-Rods and the Big Papis under suspicion, just because they were successful sluggers too. And it is not the same thing to blame the steroid fiasco on Barry Bonds (which I have never done) and to accept the fact that, as the most successful, high-profile, long-running, defiant superstar in the steroids sage, he is the symbol, the center. Be sick of it all you want: he is.
Finally, you ill-serve your argument by slipping into conspiracy nonsense, like so many here. George Mitchell is an honorable, honest, smart public servant. He had nothing to gain by creating a whitewash, and much to lose. The players named were an incomplete list because the Union wouldn't cooperate. There is no way it was good for baseball for Clemens to be outed. And really: how can anyone say that MLB "singled-out" Bonds? He singled himself out. He didn't have to use PED's, for example.
I'm sorry ( and depressed) that the concept that citizens and prominent individuals have a duty to the American culture "rubs people the wrong way"--- but it's true, and it certainly isn't "snobbery."
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conorsg3 Mr. Marshall, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I am terribly disappointed with your response. You distorted many of my points and make some rather ridiculous assertions.
1. Baseball holds a special place in my heart that other sports do not, but your attitude that it is more special than other sports, particularly from an ethical perspective is what is pure snobbery and I'm certain it rubs many football fans the wrong way. Your attitude that baseball and prominent individuals somehow bear a higher moral responsibility than others is so wrong and off base I find it particularly disgusting. EVERYONE holds an equal share of moral and ethical responsibility regardless of job, race, socio-economic standing or any other characteristic.
2. YOU have singled out Barry Bonds and over and over repeat that somehow his offenses are worse than Jason Giambi's or Paul Byrd's because of cognitive dissonance. BS - the crime's the same, regardless of its effect on you! You would not be as outraged if your team signed Giambi or Byrd as you would if they signed Bonds. I personally find that kind of unfairness and hypocrisy outrageous. THEY BOTH COMMITTED THE SAME CRIME! If you think Bonds should not be signed by any team, they you should feel the same way about Brendan Donnelley.
3. Congress went after baseball because it was much slower than football or basketball to enact penalties against steroids. They did not go after them because of a romantic speech in a movie. And furthermore, romanticism in fiction (seriously, you cite fiction as some kind of evidence??) is hardly evidence that baseball standards are higher. In fact, there is no real evidence. Baseball, throughout its history has always dealt with the same issues all sports have regarding cheating, corruption, etc.
4. Yes, baseball would allow behavior similar to Dennis Rodman's as long as there wasn't a strong, negative reaction from the public. Baseball itself doesn't set morals or have its own inherent higher standards. Those ethical standards are set by its fans. I applaud you for demanding that your sport have those standards because as a fan, that is the only way to enforce such standards in your sport. I wish you would feel so strongly about all sports as ALL sports should have those standards, not just baseball. Baseball doesn't have a higher calling. This outrage against steroids in baseball has come because of the public's reaction. Congress felt that baseball, more than other sports was setting a bad example - not because baseball is particularly special, but because baseball was slow to ban steroids and, in fact, did much to promote its use within the sport. Baseball got scolded because it dealt with steroids WORSE than the NFL and NBA. So much for your higher standards.
5. Boxing went by the wayside because of several factors that had very little to do with the character of its athletes. There is no real draw for young talent - no well-run organizations like Pop Warner and Little League or YMCA programs to get youth involved. There is no coherent competition system, at least not the average fan understands - how does one work his way up to a title fight? What makes a fight a "title fight"? There is no local television showing the sport - only pay-per-view and HBO. Back when boxing was popular it was on the radio and regular television all the time. And, the sport itself had moved away from being one where real skills have take a back seat to the hope of landing one knock-out blow.
6. My solution is to dole out blame equitably. If you want Bonds banned, you should want Giambi banned. There is no fair reason why Bonds shouldn't be signed, yet Giambi is (or was). Your outrage should be equal against all players caught cheating. When did I ever advocate leniency? I didn't, you just pulled that out of thin air. What I oppose is acting like Bonds is somehow worse than everyone else. Not true - he's just as bad.
7. I suppose it is just my impression that steroids was ingrained into the culture of the sport. My evidence is simply that as a fan, offense and home runs were all the rage. Players like Sosa and McGuire and Bonds were the biggest heros in the game, despite plenty of evidence at the time that they were using more than vitamins and flax seed oil. It's an impression and an opinion because I cannot prove it and you cannot prove it wrong - you admit that if MOST players were using then I would be right; however we have no tests to prove it. So it's my impression because I really can't say with any conviction that I know most players were not using. You are free to disagree, but you'd be lying if you said you knew for sure. Regardless, this issue defines about 15 years of my sport.
8. Bonds may be the symbol of the steroids era to you and you may disagree that that is just how MLB would want it. He is certainly one of many, many offenders and I blame everyone involved in the game: the executives, the owners, the managers and trainers and ALL the players. Even the clean ones played a role in their silence, particularly by allowing THEIR union to fight tooth and nail against a drug testing policy. They are all to blame. There is no one person to vent it all out on. And you can disagree with my "conspiracy theory", but it certainly has worked on you. By the way, "conspiracy theory" is quite a misnomer - it is really a "marketing theory" or a "spin theory." Baseball spun the scandal and marketed it in such a way that a few players, old and leaving the game (Bonds, McGuire, Palmiero, Clemens) get all the blame and ire from people like you. And other, known drug users like Mota and Donnelley and Giambi continue to play the game everyday without any outrage from you. And there continues to be no HGH testing.
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Jack Marshall Conorsg3:
1. Prominent individuals undeniably do bear a greater responsibility for their ethical conduct. Leaders especially. This is the basis of all organizational ethics. Individually, yes, we all should be as ethical aspossible. But the consequences of unethical conduct (or the appearance of same) are much greater for high-profile, powerful, popular individuals. Surely you understand this.
2. Personally, I DO feel the same about Brendan Donaelly, Giambi, et al. ...I wouldn't sign any of them. But their impact on the game is not the same. Bill Clinton lying in court is worse than Fred Schmoe lying in court. Bonds breaking records using PEDs does more damage than Brendan hanging on for another season.
3. Congress did NOT go after baseball for the reasons you cite. Congress went after baseball because it's baseball, and baseball is different. Baseball is a cultural leader in ways the other sports are not. People screaming on this site don't accept that, but it is true. And I'm pretty sure the Congressmen involved would agree with me. Congress held a special hearing about the alleged PED use of ONE PLAYER! Doesn't that suggest something to you?
4. Sorry, re: Rodman. You're just dead, dead wrong. You refuse to accept the fact that different organizations have different traditions, standards and cultures, and that everything will change in a heartbeat if something "works." Well, that's not how the world works, or human nature.
5. Of course there were other factors in boxing's decline. Having unattractive, disreputable individuals at the pinnacle, however, hurt the most.
6. Bonds is worse BECAUSE: 1) he hasn't admitted his PED use 2) he has actively lied 3) he is under indictment 4) he has warped the record book 5) he is higher profile and a bigger star. 6) the best way to make a strong statement against PEDs is to punish the most prominent offender.
That said, I AGREE that other players should not escape. But the difficulty of identifying them does not mean Bonds was "singled out."
7. Right.
8. Reminder: the article was about why nobody signed Barry Bonds. Only a very small percentage of fans know what minor players were in the Mitchell Report....there was no impact, negative or positive, from signing them . I said not signing Bonds was the right thing to do. Was signing the others? NO! But baseball needed to work out a detailed way for named players to be punished and earn their way back. One time users needed to be traeted differently from long-time users. The Union was going to fight every attempt.
So yes, not signing Bonds, underr the circumstances, was easier than sorting it all out. It was STILL the right move.
It was not a conspiracy. 30 teams behaving logically independently is not proof of a conspiracy.
[Many good arguments, and polite too. Would that you had more company here. ]
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brandini "Personally, I DO feel the same about Brendan Donaelly, Giambi, et al"
That's false, you do not.
In your article you wrote that you would stop supporting the Boston Red Sox as long as the regime that employed Bonds was still intact. Yet comically you do not have the same angst toward the Red Sox for buying Paul Byrd?
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Jack Marshall From the author...An addendum: I was originally going to include the routine debunking of the favorite rationalizaions and excuses typically thrown out by Bonds defenders, but decided that it was tangential to the main theme of the article. Sure enough, the responder have trotted them all out again. So in the interest of saving time, here are the top nine, and why they are unethical, illogical hooey.
1. "The Presumption of Innocence" Myth. The presumption of innocence has nothing to do with rightly concluding that someone is guilty of misconduct when the evidence is overwhelming. Let us presume your companion, standing right next to you, suddenly ran up to someone on the street and strangled him right before your eyes, in broad daylight, then came back to you and said, "I'm sorry you had to see that, but I just had to kill the guy." Would you later maintain that there was a question whether he had actually committed the murder? In the eyes of the law, your deadly companion would still be technically "innocent," because a jury hadn't pronounced him guilty. But this wouldn't mean that there was the slightest doubt that he committed the act, and it would be unreasonable, indeed absurd, for you to claim otherwise. The huge amount of documentation and testimony gathered in the book "Game of Shadows" places Bonds perilously close to the status of your fictional companion. At a certain point, the presumption of innocence concerns only process, not truth.
2. "He didn't test positive." Bonds defenders often talk as if a positive drug test is the only evidence that can justify a reasoned conclusion that a player used steroids. This is a convenient fiction for a clever steroid-user, like Bonds, but it is neither logical nor true. Raphael Palmeiro's positive drug test actually tells us less about the extent and effects of his steroid use than Mark McGwire's physical transformation, record-setting home runs, connective tissue breakdown, post-retirement physical reduction and tearful refusal to answer questions in the Congressional hearings on steroids told us about McGwire's reliance on the drugs. Palmeiro's seasonal performance never spiked improbably like those of Bonds, Sosa and McGwire; he didn't display the typical physique changes and weight gain characteristic of steroid-using jocks. But can anyone come up with one single plausible explanation for Mark McGwire's refusal to deny steroid use when asked point-blank under oath, other than the fact that he had used them? He likes being humiliated, perhaps? He didn't want to show up his pal, Sammy Sosa, who also ducked the same question? He's shy? He never wanted to be voted into that musty old Hall of Fame anyway? In Bonds case, the lack of a positive drug test is more than compensated for by the abundance of other evidence…eyewitness reports, documents, tapes, Bonds' career path, his appearance, his associates and his conduct. When the police stop a weaving car and the bleary-eyed driver steps out, reeking of gin, staggering and singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home," the police don't need the breathalyzer to know he's drunk.
3. "It's Bonds' word against theirs." This creaky retort is typified by the quoted comments of Larry Walker, the former Expos, Rockies and Cardinals outfielder. "It's reached the point of, "What do you believe and who do you believe?' " Walker said. "Are we supposed to believe the guys who wrote this book or are we supposed to believe Barry? It's a coin toss. I don't know who's to believe and who's not." "It's coin toss?" On one side, we have two well-credentialed investigative reporters who spent two years gathering documents and testimony, including evidence uncovered in an ongoing Federal investigation. On the other we have Bonds, who falsely told reporters he "never used" steroids after he had told a grand jury he never "knowingly" used them, whose personal trainer is a convicted steroid dealer, who was the star customer of a supplement firm busted for steroid distribution, and who stands to lose prestige, reputation, money and his place in baseball history once his use of steroids is irrefutably substantiated. Gee, I wonder which side has more credibility? Confusing whom you want to believe with whom you ought to believe is an error that has allowed many scams, swindles and cheats to go forward with the help of willing dupes who should have known better.
4. "It's not Bonds' fault." Those who heard Congresswoman Maxine Waters make the argument that poor, helpless President Clinton was victimized by a sexually aggressive and ambitious young intern recognizes this approach, an attempt to relieve a misbehaving public figure from the inconvenient duties of accountability and responsibility. In the Bonds version, Barry was victimized by the intentional laissez faire attitude baseball management took toward steroids in the 1990s.
If one wants to argue that major league baseball executives need to take responsibility for their cynical negligence, he'llget no argument here. But one cannot then claim that their negligence exonerates Bonds. A person who takes advantage of lax authority to cheat, out-perform his competitors and make millions of dollars is an unprincipled opportunist. Bonds is fully accountable for his own misconduct, whatever penalties baseball leadership suffers or doesn't suffer for its mismanagement. Many, many baseball players didn't cheat while Bonds did, and we know Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, the players whose records Bonds surpassed, didn't take steroids to add ten yards to their outfield drives. Major League Baseball's failure to police its product is indeed management's fault, but any player who took advantage of it has only himself to blame. And we should blame him too.
5. "Steroids weren't banned in baseball when Bonds allegedly started taking them." So what? They were still illegal. Sports shouldn't have to ban illegal substances…they're banned already, by the U.S. government. There are also legal substances that are illegal to prescribe for the wrong purposes, and there are legal substances that some sports prohibit anyway. But most of the substances Bonds used, according to "Game of Shadows," were legally prohibited substances. The argument "but they weren't banned in baseball" is ridiculous.
6. "You can't trust Game of Shadows because it was written to make money." A mighty odd argument in defense of a man whose juiced athletic accomplishments have made him as rich as Dan Brown or Stephen King, don't you think? Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the reporters who wrote "Game of Shadows," make their living on their credibility. Publishing a libelous book full of false allegations will not help either their finances or their careers. This defense had more legitimacy when applied to former American League MVP Jose Canseco's revenge-driven steroid expose; after all, Canseco's status as a venal liar and all-around low-life is well-documented. Canseco's claims, however, have proven to be mostly accurate, and there is no reason to expect less from "Game of Shadows."
7. "It's racism." Attempts to play the race card to trump the mass of evidence against Bonds are both despicable and futile, but some people keep trying. Hall of Famer Willie McCovey voiced this sentiment:
Knowing what I have gone through in sports, there are always those little, you know, racial overtones…I don't think it would be this big a deal if McGwire was still playing and was in the same shoes chasing that record…I don't think they would be spending all this time to dig all this dirt up on him.
The travails of Roger Clemens have pretty much put this canard to rest. A star using illegal performance enhancing drugs to shatter major records will always be a "big deal" regardless of the star's race. Barry Bonds was just the most successful, most prominent, and quite possibly the most blatant and unapologetic steroid-user in sports history. They dug up "dirt" on Barry Bonds because he handed them a map and a shovel with the suspicious circumstances of his on-field performance since 1999.
8. "Lots of baseball players have cheated; why pick on Barry?" Why? Because the fact that others get away with unethical conduct never justifies their actions or mitigates any else's. Why? Because it's impossible to punish those who aren't caught, but those who are deserve the punishment they get. Why? Because some forms of cheating are worse than others, and using steroids is right at the top of the list. It puts pressure on other players to do the same to compete; it pollutes the game's integrity; it substitutes drugs for dedication and practice; it encourages young players to endanger their lives; and it's illegal, unlike spitballs and corked bats and stealing signs. Yes, lots of players have cheated, but the vast majority of players have not, and a cheating player who rises to the pinnacle of the sport like Bonds threatens to make cheating the norm rather than the exception.
That's why.
9. “Bonds was great before he took steroids. Who knows how much difference they made?
Well, the fact that Bonds’ late career performance improvement is unprecedented gives us a strong indication that the difference was significant. But even accepting the dubious proposition at the heart of this argument, this is completely invalid. Perhaps Ben Johnson would have won the gold anyway. It doesn’t matter. The A student who cheats on a final examination cannot escape the consequences by proving that he would have earned a superior grade anyway. The basis for condemning cheaters is because the act of cheating itself is inherently dishonest, regardless of whether it was “necessary” or how well it “worked.” The logical extension of this bizarre rationalization holds that the less you need to cheat, the more excusable it is. In fact, the opposite is often true. The vast majority of players who used PEDs appear to be those at the margins, desperately trying to prolong their careers or recover from injuries. That doesn’t excuse them, but at least there was a powerful reason for their misconduct: professional survival. We can empathize with that. But a super-star like Bonds who takes PEDs to become a mega-super-star is indulging his greed and ego at the expense of his sport. The mediocre cheater may rob another player of a roster spot, but the impact of his cheating on a season, and certainly on baseball itself, is likely to be minimal. A player like Bonds’ however, who re-writes baseball’s records, does lasting, systemic, and quite possibly irreparable damage.-
brandini RE: #1
You can prove this? You're a lawyer and you are telling me that evidence is evidence? You've never tried to knock a persons character down to better the outcome of your client? Or have you ever built up one of your clients to make them look better then the individual you are fighting against?
The evidence in this case, while strong, is still not overwhelming. We have only the word of 'drug dealers'.
RE: #2
Yes they do. Without a test there is only the word of the officer v. the word of the driver. He could have spilt Gin on him to make up for the smell. He could have ingested an abundance of carbon monoxide to make up for the staggering, etc. At worst, the driver would get a wreckless/dangerous driving charge, but without a blood alcohol sampling, he would be free of any criminal charges. Look it up.
RE: #3
Credibility? You mean the blind eye that everyone showed in the 90s when baseball NEEDED home runs? How are we to believe the reporters NOW when they didn't know what was going on THEN. Suddenly all of them have had epiphanies and remembered seeing something 10 years after the fact. Yea, that's a credible source.
RE: #4
Define 'cheat'. Did he break any of the rules of the game of baseball? You admit that doing steroids was only 'against the law' but not against the laws of baseball.
RE: #5
Is DWI not illegal?
How about speeding?
Domestic violence?
Would you kick someone out of baseball for a DWI? Or speeding? If so, you are in the minority.
RE: #6
At first I didn't trust the two reporters as they seemed to be cashing in on a hot topic. They were also reporting on evidence that they had no right in having.
RE: #7
It is racism. Not that Bonds did steroids, but that he is the black sheep of an era.
RE: #8
"but the vast majority of players have not"
Can you prove this? Answer, no.
#9
So you are drawing the conclusion that Bonds did steroids in 2006 and 2007? I mean, how many players post a 1.000+ OPS during their age 42/43 seasons?
Oh, wait, you are just using PART of the facts.
There inlies the problem with this whole issue. People are simply utilizing PART of the story. They have had a hatred for Bonds since day one. They have also had a hatred for records being broken the day they were made.
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Jack Marshall 1) You are misusing the presumption of innocence, and you don't understand it. I don't have to prove it. You are being intentionally obtuse, 2) No, they don't. If a driver refuses to take a test, the word of the officer is enough for a conviction. 3) There is the requirement of proof, and there is being dense and stubborn, and resisting obvious conclusions from over-whelming evidence. You are the latter. 4) How many times do I have to point out that if something is illegal, it IS banned in any sport, organization, or activity taking place in the US, and doing it to gain a competitive advantage over law-abiding participants IS cheating? I'm sorry, but your argument here is just idiotic. 5) See above. Wow. 6) I agree that they had no right to have the evidence, but that doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist, or does it, on your planet?. It's published, it's there, you have to deal with it. 7) Bullshit. Quadruple bullshit. Bonds would have exactly the same trouble and rep if he were as white as snow. A lazy cop out. Believing this crap is "signature significance" that you cannot be taken seriously. 8) The burden of proof is on you, buddy. Not me. My conclusion is far more likely than the opposite. 9) I didn't say that, and it doesn't matter. Bonds cheated. Once you cheat, you're a cheat. Either you take the penalty, admit it, express remorse, and ask forgiveness, or you are still an offender. I haven't been aware of Bonds doing any of the former.
And may I point out that this is all mostly irrelevant to my article. It was about why Bonds wasn't signed, and it was correct. Whether he was or wasn't a steroid user, the vast majority of the public and media believe he was, and that's the situation the owners had to deal with. My analysis had zero to do with my feelings about Bonds...ZERO. I was discussing how organizations deal with personnel with negative values attached to them.
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Jack Marshall Here's what makes me an ethicist 1) It's my fulltime profession, and has been for 9 years...and my family is not starving to death... 2) 26 bar associations, 18 other professional associations, 12 Fortune 500 companies, several national and local non-profits and charities, 9 major national law firms, the U.S. government, USAID and the Government of Mongolia pay me to run ethics trainings for their employees, develop materials, and consult on how to build an ethical culture. How did I end up in this profession? A major in leadership and character studies at Harvard, a JD at Georgetown law with a concentration in criminal law, work as a local prosecutor, then an executive of numerous organizations where I developed ethics standards. Then I developed an experise in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the Law profession's rules of professional conduct, a reputation for actually fostering better ethical conduct and teaching ethics without letting it get boring, an an audience for my ethics commentary on my website, "The Ethics Scoreboard." I was a fellow at The Ethics Research Center, and an associate at Ethics, Inc. I accept regular appearances to discuss ethics topics for National Public Radio, and local and national news channels, and am the ethicist on a panel of experts for "O" Magazine. And I co-authored a book covering ethical issues with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ed Larson. I am also an adjunct professor of ethics at American University, and writing a book on baseball ethics.
Since you asked.
As an ethicist and a lawyer, I understand the difference between being fairly judged as unethical and getting a fair trial before being imprisoned or fined. You obviously don't. But you have lots of company, if that's any consolation.
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brandini So you are telling me that Mets and Jays fans (and other 'also ran' franchises) felt better in October watching other teams in MLBs playoff then their favorite simply because of an accusation?
Also, as a lawyer and an ethicist I find it depressing that you are: a) taking the opinion of a drug dealer (ie all of the sources in the Mitchell Report), and b) acting upon Napolean Law (guilty until proven innocent). How ethical is it to circumvent due process and figure that a person is guilty based on a tiny amount of evidence?
Is it ethical to have a pre-conceived notion prior to writing a piece of this sort? You assert that a team adding Bonds would be making a 'questionable assumption' that Barry would add offensively, do you have anything to back this up (ie his previous season in the Majors which was among the best in all of baseball)?
Lastly, you call Bonds a 'cheat', why? Did he break any rules? Did he do something out of the ordinary? Let's agree that he did PED's, was that against the rules of baseball? Were they throwing the book at Bonds' peers while Bonds invariably threw his teammates under the bus? What logic can one have to assert that Bonds 'cheated'? How would one define 'cheat' or 'to cheat' in order to conclude that Barry in fact did cheat?
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David in Toledo My problem with this judgment is that Bonds is singled out for banishment and literally countless others keep right on playing and there is no standard of proof to justify the distinction.
How much did Bonds use? How often? Did he stop and continue to play at a major-league level, just as Giambi did? How much did his use help him? On what ethical basis does one single Bonds out from the literally countless others?
Henry Aaron had his highest OPS+ season at age 37. So did Barry Bonds. How much of Bonds's age 37 success came from determination to reach a goal, how much from 21st century physical training, and how much from juice? Until we can answer that question, we should be cautious about distinguishing Bonds from Giambi, LoDuca, Byrd, etc.
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cookiedabookie Nobody like Pacman? Elijiah Dukes is certaintly close. -
bml This strange article turns on the assertion that baseball cared more about integrity than other sports in the past, so it should care more now. Eh? I'm not an "ethicist," but since when does what you've done in the past have any bearing on what you should do in the future? Shouldn't you do what's "right," regardless? Morever, the piece can't even support its own bizarre and specious thesis. Lo, where is the evidence of this alleged attention to integrity that has marked our noble pastime throughout the eons? On every point brought up by the author, the actual situation is in fact almost the complete reverse of what he claims. In the modern sports era, the NFL and NBA have been vastly more active than baseball in instituting both drug-testing programs and disciplinary programs for off-field behavior. Neither is there any sort of informal ban on bad apples--and on that topic, I literally cannot believe that an actual lawyer would endorse a system of unwritten collusion against players ACCUSED of wrongdoing! Whether or not it's good for society as a whole, it is certainly good for MLB's desire not to get sued for hundreds of millions of dollars that such a system does not actually exist, as Jason Giambi, Dmitri Young, Brett Myers, and Tony "The Snoozer" LaRussa could surely tell the author, although I would not recommend they do so, given that if he had other heard of these people he would probably put them under citizen's arrest for violating the Guilded Era contact between the game of baseball and the orphans of America that exists only in his head.
I think the most illustrative part of this article is the paragraph in which, given 110+ years of major league history to sort through, the author's ONE example of baseball's exceptional attention to integrity is an instance in which a team had reservations about the character of a potential draftee and then drafted him anyway. Truly, I think we would all do well to tell our children the instructive tale of the time the Red Sox ALMOST didn't give Clay Buchholz millions and millions of dollars. Lord knows that it is a parable I use to guide myself every day.
(Incidentally, Buchholz was not caught stealing school equipment in high school; he was caught stealing equipment from a middle school while he was in junior college. Also, baseball teams draft a total of 1,500 players a year and sign many more as free agents, many out of obscure high schools and mud hovels in far-flung countries, whereas the other pro sports leagues select a vastly smaller number of players picked almost exclusively from major colleges in America; this means that the Great Buchholz Inquiry of Ought-Five--and really, any at-length investigation of a draftee's charcter--is an incredibly rare exception to the rule.)
I give this article a rating of "donkey" on my own personal made-up 20-Point Animal-Based Scientific-Sounding Continuum of Making Sense.
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kyleb This might be the worst article I have ever read in my entire life. It starts with "I had been gleefully anticipating the 2008 baseball season for one additional reason than the usual ones: no more Barry Bonds." Oh, well at least we know this article is going to be impartial.
Seriously, this is ridiculous. I could point out more of the nonsense, but bml already did.
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Ryan Langrill Baseball sure likes to pick and choose its ethical battles, then. How many drunk drivers are employed by baseball teams? The Cards have LaRussa at the helm, and I can think of some others off the top of my head who still get shots at jobs (Ponson). Drunk driving is a much greater evil than steroid use. And do you really believe that anyone would hesitate picking up Urbina if he weren't in prison? John Rocker also had no problem getting a job until he started sucking.
Baseball teams will tolerate any amount of ethical depravity on the part of its players. The reason Bonds wasn't signed is because teams don't want the media backlash, because that would be more costly than the potential benefit from Bonds. It's that simple.
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ElegantMule The suggestion that Bond’s needs to be regarded as innocent until proven guilty is a red herring. The argument that the piece made was pinned on Bond’s effect on the public perception of any team willing to sign him: In the court of public opinion Barry has already been proven guilty.
As for Barry being singled out, Barry’s crime IS different from any other user’s. Stealing is wrong, yes, but steeling billions in a massive Ponzi scheme is worse then stealing a handful of grapes at the supermarket. Bond’s cheating did not turn him from a AAAA player into a bench player, or even a marginal Major Leaguer into an All Star, but from a first ballot Hall of Famer into (arguably?) the best offensive player ever. When you use illegal drugs to become the greatest player in your sport you’ve singled yourself out, you can’t cry foul when others treat you differently also.
I agree that lauding MLB as somehow morally superior to other sports seems specious and unsupported; Baseball has its bad apples and always has, and they stick around as long as they have ability. But the steroid scandal is the worst on field black eye the league has suffered since the Black Sox, and Berry is it’s poster child. Any team that saw fit to sign him would have damaged its perception in the public eye, and I think this concern - not some imagined collusion - is what has kept Barry of the field.
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brandini Barry is baseball's poster child because 9 out of 10 reporters hated him before this scandal. If Bonds was Albert Pujols, how quickly do you think baseball sweeps this under the carpet? Probably as quickly as they swept the allegations that Pujols was linked with PED's at the beginning of this season.
See, facts work when making an argument.
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Jack Marshall Uh-huh. That argument would have held a couple of drops BEFORE Roger Clemens got fingered and the press turned on him. Roger was always a scribe darling---so was Mark McGwire. There were no "allegations' about Pujols...just rumors and "gee, he's awfully big and strong!" innuendoes.
Facts do work, once you learn what a "fact" is. Keep plugging!
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brandini Actually, Pujols was linked with the big amphetamine bust at the beginning of this season. The link was eventually dropped, but it should have been a much larger story then it was. -
brandini In regards to Roger Clemens,
Even with a pending trial, there is much less association between steroids and Rocket then there is with Bonds. Had Clemens not made himself look like an incompetent fool around the time of the Mitchell Report, I'm certain the majority of the media would still be clasping his reer.
The fact is, Bonds is an easy target for a media that already does not approve of him. Much like Bush and the American presidency.
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ElegantMule Facts work when making an argument, eh? Let’s look at those facts:
Barry is baseball's poster child because 9 out of 10 reporters hated him before this scandal.
You’re telling me you interviewed something like 100 professional reporters - you’d never want to be accused of using a small sample size - and 90 percent said “screw journalistic integrity, we really hate that bastard!.” Or maybe you made that “fact” up, because even pretend facts will do.
If Bonds was [sic] Albert Pujols, how quickly do you think baseball sweeps this under the carpet?
Do I need to explain the difference between a fact and a hypothetical question? No? Good.
Probably as quickly as they swept the allegations that Pujols was linked with PED's at the beginning of this season.
Your vast sources inside MLB told you about this conspiracy? I guess when you know hundreds of reports who will answer your “Do you hate Barry” question in time for you to post a whinny reply you should have the inside information. Otherwise this “fact” is just innuendo joined with paranoia.
Also, Albert Pujols, who everyone loves so much, lost the Gold Glove this year to someone who UZR ranks as 17.2 runs worse at first base. Baseball sure does love big Al.-
Jack Marshall Bless you, bless you, EM! I was feeling all alone out here! -
brandini RE: The Gold Glove
We all know the Gold Glove is not rewarded to the fielder who is the best, rather the one who makes the most flashy plays. Given that Pujols missed half a month of the season, it's not a huge surprise that he didn't win the award despite being largely more qualified. You did get the memo that Pujols won the MVP award, right?
RE: Pujols Allegations
That you don't even recall this is proof of the quality job the media did. Even Mr Marshall and his limited understanding of baseball recalls this issue.
RE: Hypothesis
The fact was that media hated Bonds and loves Pujols. I then posed a question based on that fact.
RE: 9 out of 10
I imagine I undershot this 'fact', although the figure was obviously more to make a point then a fact. The FACT was that a vast majority dislike Bonds. Whether it's 9 out of 10, 85 out of 100, or 93, 786, 546, 982, 320 out of 100, 000, 000, 000, 000 is meaningless. Certainly if I did a survey and posted it on a message board it would hold an ounce more credibility but does the fact differ? Can you honestly tell me that you believe most baseball writers like Bonds? Keep in mind these are the same baseball writers who essentially axed Bonds when was charged with perjury (something that is all but certain to be dropped) - boy, won't their faces be red!
It's awfully nice that you came to the defence of Mr Marshall, but you didn't offer anything to the conversation-much like Mr Marshall.
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pAllan This does not mean that athletes of bad character don’t find their way onto baseball rosters, but it does mean that they need to 1) be very good and 2) not put their lack of character on public display if they want to stay there.
It seems to me that Mr. Bonds fits both of those qualifications.
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Jack Marshall You are joking, right? Bond's defiant PED use has been a pulsating beacon for years, and you call this not putting his lack of character on display? How IS life in that cave of yours?-
pAllan He never admitted to knowingly taking these substances. He is a baseball player so of course he is on public display, but he never put the steroid use on public display. It was only due to the journalists who had it out for him because of his unfriendliness w/r/t the press that it ever became public. We don't even know if it is true or not.-
Jack Marshall Sorry, Allen, with all due respect,that's gibberish. Bonds, as a baseball player, used PEDs to put himself on 1000 magazine covers. He used PEDs to enable what was already a great talent to break through physical barriers in the game that had never been approached before. He never admitted to "knowingly" taking these substances---he just admitted to accepting a mysterious drug from a man he knew was a steroid-pusher and user who was serving as his strength coach---on the representation that it was "flax seed oil"---just like Marion Jones! His pal and trainer rotted in jail rather than have to testify against Barry under oath---I wonder what THAT could mean...you don't "know," right? A book by reputable reporters is published that thoroughly trashes Bonds' reputation, guarantees that he'll lose millions in potential endorsements, but he never sues for libel in court...where even if he lost the libel claim, the evidence in "Game of Shadows" would have to be defended. You don't "know" why, right? The same guy just happens to be the only player in MLB history to have an order of magnitude improvement in hitting ability after age 33, and you don't "know" that it isn't a coincidence, correct? Even in the law, knowledge can be deduced by relevant circumstances.-
Sorrentocircle Bonds not suing for libel does not prove that Game of Shadows is truthful. Bonds can have any number of reasons to not sue: not wanting to dignify the book, not wanting to waste legal resources, or a simple lack of interest in the book.
Say that my friend and I are at a bar. My friend tells a lie to a girl in an attempt to impress her. I know it's a lie, but because he is my friend I do not correct him. That does not make the lie true. Getting away with a lie, for whatever reason, does not change what the truth is.
So, if the authors of Game of Shadows lied, that lie is on their conscience. Bonds not repudiating that lie does not make it true.
Now, you could make your own decision based on what evidence the authors present and that would be fine. But don't let the lack of a legal suit by Bonds automatically validate their claims.
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Jack Marshall Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that the lack of a lawsuit by Bonds "proves" that he used PRD's. Of course I can think of other reasons not to bring such a lawsuit...it's expensive (Bonds has plenty of money, however) and he's likely to lose (the standard is actual malice for public figures.) "Not dignifying the book" isn't a plausible excuse: the book is already dignified by its well-respected journalist authors and its best-seller status. If it was written by, say,Judith Reagan, you'd have a point. And Bonds DID sue the authors in what I felt was an intentional effort to mislead the public into thinking he HAD sued for libel (the suit was to challenge the book's use of illegally leaked Grand Jury testimony), loudy announced and silently withdrawn later.
But those pale, in my view, compared to the downsides of not suing for libel. And I'm pretty sure if your friend's lie was going to cost you respect, your reputation, the percieved legitimacy of yur greatest accomplishments, future employment and millions of dollars in appearances and endorsements, you would not just let it go. That would make no sense.
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Sorrentocircle But you did say: A book by reputable reporters is published that thoroughly trashes Bonds' reputation, guarantees that he'll lose millions in potential endorsements, but he never sues for libel in court...where even if he lost the libel claim, the evidence in "Game of Shadows" would have to be defended. You don't "know" why, right?
I'm saying that we don't know the precise reason why Bonds did not sue for libel. I believe you are implying he did not sue for libel because the book is true. Am I mistaken?
Will you admit that not suing someone for libel does not prove that a lie did not occur?
I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with you about Bonds. I could not really care less about him. I just found a piece of your argument that I thought could be a little better thought out. I am not attacking you personally or as an ethicist or an American University Adjunct. Please do not attack me personally or as an internet peruser or as someone trying to make a (however small) point.
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brandini Answer:
Jack Marshall will not admit to being wrong ever. He will simply suggest that the point is not vital to his argument and blame you for making a bigger deal then it is.
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brandini "His pal and trainer rotted in jail..."
He was recently released as it was found to be un-ethical to keep a man in jail who was telling the truth. Interesting how baseball ought to uphold mde-up ethical standards but the courts do not.
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Bukanier Committed internet fans don't care about or maybe like Bonds for one reason, and one reason only: The ESPN crowd hates him.
This is the way postmodern society works.
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Jack Marshall Oh...committed internet fans are idiots then? They base their analysis of important issues on who takes the opposite opinion? Good to know: silly me, I thought they were interested in ideas, facts, and analysis. It IS, however, completely consistent with Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Scale, described in the article.
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Sabertooth "Idiots?"
What an ethical display of the ad hominem. Not your first.
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gdragon "Baseball, like the rest of society, is bound by the laws...it doesn't have to specify that every felony is prohibited by baseball too. "
Wait... so it kind of seems like in this situation the standards and rules of the American justice system should be applied, but when one is discussing Barry's guilt in the given matter ("innocent until proven guilty") they shouldn't?
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Jack Marshall The Author replies to this amazing wave of confusion:.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a standard for govenment-imposed justice, not a public or personal verdict: using this, as Barry's fans are wont to do, is simply ignorant. If you know a liar, do you have to try him in court to be certain of it? I'll let Barry alone when people who should know better keep asking why nobody signs him. I'd love it if I never had to hear about the man again. Why? Because he sucked all the fun out of the game, and made his defenders defend illegal and unethical conduct.
Brandini, on the other hand, adopts the ridiculous argument that because baseball was a little late adopting a wholly unnecessary rule against what was already ILLEGAL under US law, Barry wasn't cheating. Baseball, like the rest of society, is bound by the laws...it doesn't have to specify that every felony is prohibited by baseball too. This may be the lamest of all the Bonds defenses...but it's a close competition. David in Toledo likes another bad argument--that cheating has to be punished according to demonstrable results. If the most brilliant student at Harvard is caught cheating, the fact that he "didn't have to cheat," or was "likely to succeed without cheating" or that "other students were cheating too and didn't get caught" won't help him (or her) one bit. Nor should it. And to say that the evidence agains Bonds is merely "an accusation" is ridiculous. Does anyone really believe this? Really????
BMI doesn't understand the concept of "culture," or ethics, for that matter. Standards of right and wrong evolve, and most certainly have roots in the past. BMI and his cohorts are WHY I can be a professional ethicist, because so many people believe that you can just cruise along making ethical judgements in a vacuum. Wrong. Also dangerous.
Those, like Ryan, who claim that baseball has a high tolerance for thugs and miscreants are simply choosing to ignore the evidence. Has any baseball team ever tolerated the number of criminals, or even a small percentage of same, accumulated by the Bengals of recent vintage? Would any baseball team allow a player to keep taking the field while standing trial for rape, like Kobe? Basketball refuses to do anything about pot use, because it would decimate the league. Do you really think baseball would ignore a marijuana possession arrest? Do these commenters really think any poll wouldn't designate the NBA and NFL as having a far, far less stringent standard for player conduct than MLB? Which sport has the least number of players in trouble with the law...pick any period: last 5 years---10 years? No contest. What a desperate argument!
The faulty analogies are particularly entertaining. Drunk driving may or may not be worse than illegal steroid use, but unlike steroid use, it doesn't provide a competitive advantage, now, does it? Habitual drunk driving by any player would certainly attract sanctions. One instance, as with Chamberlain? Profoundly embarrassing, and handled by the legal system. And I am pretty certain that such arrests DO negatively affect a team's regard for a player involved: see Mo Vaughn.Brandini still trots out the hoary "if the writers didn't hate Barry" myth, even though Clemens, and McGwire werescribe favorites. And, incredibly, he hangs the steroid suspicions on Pujols, of whose steroid use there were no "allegations," but just rumor and innuendo....all, ironically, fueled by the suspicions Bonds has cast on every slugger.
bmi's argument is so fanciful that it isn't worth responding to. Right: the NFL and the NBA have a more stringent standard of player conduct than MLB. Does anyone, even NBA and NFL players, believe that?
And to those who cry "bias," let me say that I was, early on, a Bonds defender who felt that the innuendoes about steroid use based on his appearnace alone were unfair. But the circumstantial evidence that Bonds cheated is beyond mountainous. The conduct of his boyhood pal/trainer alone makes it absurdly unlikely that Bonds wasn't juicing.
The conclusion of the article isn't remarkable or even very controversial, unless one just doesn't want to believe that ethics matters, even in sports, especially in baseball. I'm sorry for those who don't. Luckily, MLB understands. If it doesn't, you're left with John's conclusion, the teams that could have benefitted from Bonds were all negligent and stupid, or another conspiracy theory, to explain why Barry never got to bat in 2008. Heaven forbid that the better answer is that baseball, albeit tardily, displayed some integrity.
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red_duck I must disagree with your treatment of cognitive dissonance, which is inconsistent with both the original and modern interpretations of the theory and appears to be the crux of your transition from ethical principle to more material negative impact on teams. Your article implies that the only way to resolve dissonance is to change both of the conflicting cognitions (that is, Steven King moves from -6 to 2, while Energy Conservation moves from 10 to 2 in your example). This is but one of several ways of dealing with dissonance, and perhaps the least efficient.
In modern approaches to Festinger's theory, the individual is presented as having valenced cognitions or affects towards two objects, and a cognition or affect regarding their relationship (picture three objects connected by arrows). In your example, there was a strong positive cognition towards conservation, and a moderate negative one towards Steven King (I'll assume a strong positive between King and conservation, as you appeared to do). From this approach, cognitive dissonance would occur if you "traced the paths" to get from the individual to either of the objects. For instance, going straight from the individual to King would state a negative cognition, while going from the individual to King through conservation would imply a strong positive one.
One can correct cognitive dissonance by altering any of the paths in whatever way reduces dissonance. One could change either or both of the cognitions involving the object, either by changing valence or simply diminishing importance. For instance, the individual could begin to like Steven King more simply because he supported conservation, or decide not to care that much about conservation.
Alternatively, individuals can change the cognition relating the two objects. Just because King supports conservation doesn't mean the individual has to form a positive affective link between the two objects. Perhaps the simplest way to deal with the example is to not care that Steven King conserves energy (there is, of course, a more complicated way of dealing with this, which is to split Steven King into King-the-writer and King-the-celebrity, and create a no-valence cognition between them. Not terribly important).
This option could affect a baseball team in an interesting way. Without getting into dissonance structures with lots of objects, one way a fan can deal with dissonance by not really thinking of Bonds as a member of the team. Fans to this often (Tommy LaSorta's "true Dodgers," for instance). If one supposes that fans like teams more when the win, and Bonds could help a team win, it's possible that Bonds could actually increase a fan's liking for a team while becoming more and more disliked personally. This resembles Keene's True Believer Syndrome, provided you think of die-hard fans as analogous to cult members.
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Jack Marshall Red Duck: Great exposition. I simplified Festinger a great deal, but I don't think the conclusions are affected. (And judging from the commentary here, I'm not sure I simplified the theory ENOUGH.) Yes: one wouldn't have to associate King with conservation. If, however, he began to talk and write incessantly on the subject, appear in commercials, etc, then it would be more likely that affinity to his books would change.
I don't see how a more direct association, like Bonds, PEDS and baseball, could be or would be partitioned. I think seeing Bonds as "not really on the team" is far-fetched, and, I venture, impossible, if he's in the dugout, in uniform. And sure---if winning is the top values, it would make that fan like the team more, like Bonds more from that...And??? Probably feel less negative towards PEDs.
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bwilson24 I agreed with much of the article, but your assertion that baseball is the only pro sport that values integrity is wrong. Professional golf, more than any other sport, values integrity, to the point where the athletes call fouls and penalties on themselves...
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Jack Marshall You are right about golf, and tennis too has tried hard to maintain its values. I do not think, however, that golf is a sport that many Americans or the culture generally use as a values barometer, or one that is accorded very much influence outside the links. It is not the source of many role models for kids, for example, although Tiger Woods is a big exception to that right now.
Then there is the problem that a huge proportion of recreational golfers cheat routinely, according to surveys. But that's a different story...
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gsulife mr marshall, a favor if i may. please stop by the blog written by keith law (found at meadowparty dot com/blog/?p=455) if you want to know what your arguments are worth. he will humble you.-
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gsulife another thing you'll notice about keith law - he doesnt need to be defensive and qualify what he says. you are the one who needs to aim higher.-
Jack Marshall Thanks, gsulife., for the URL---I hadn't been aware that Law had weighed in. But since he weighed in with nothing but insults and intentional (or accidental) misrepresentations of what I wrote, no, I'm afraid I wasn't "humbled."
I do regret the nasty tone of my earlier version of this reply. I'm not used to having people say that reading an essay of mine "makes you dumber," and replied in kind. I should have shown more restraint.
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sidnancy Mr. Marshall:
It is articles like yours that give baseball fans a bad name.
Are you really ready to argue the supposed ethics of baseball? Gaylord Perry, who admitted to cheating throughout his career, is in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose, who is banned from the same hall for off-field problems, is nonetheless glorified it its exhibits. The NFL allowed African-American players more than 45 years before MLB.
Baseball has absolutely tolerated illegal drug use/abuse; ever read "Ball Four"? In my mind, the only difference between that era and steroid use is the righteous indignation of the press.
I'm sorry, but I don't see any ethics in sport. Teams, and individuals, will bend or break the rules to the extent that they think they'll get caught. I once read that athletes have cheated since the first marathon runner strapped on sandles, and I don't expect it to end anytime soon.
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Jack Marshall You have managed to over-simplify a very complex topic. Perry is a complex issue. Rose is as well. Baseball's breaking of the color barrier is universally recognized as a civil rights landmark. Why didn't the NFL have a similar impact on American culture earler, if baseball doesn't have special influence? You prove my point.
Ethics isn't easy. Baseball has contiuously strived to deal with these issues and reflect well on the game and on the culture. It has not always been successful, and it has made mistakes.
Not every competitor cheats. Not every team tolerates cheating. People in all businesses have values. Part of saying that baseball is held to a higher standards in ethical matters is that it SHOULD be held to a high standard. Your approach just leads to a complete lack of integrity...it's a surrender to chaos.
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sidnancy How is Perry's cheating a "complex issue"? Because cheating is clearly amoral, and thus undermines your "baseball is more ethical" arguement? He tried to circumvent the rules, for competative advantage. That doesn't seem very complex to me.
Too, baseball's breaking of the color barrier is in large part considered a "landmark" because it was the most segregated of the major sports at the time (the others being college basketball and pro and college football; the NBA wasn't formed until 1949). Barak Obama's election victory is big news not because American politics has been especially inclusive; it's because we're behind other countries in electing non-traditional leaders (even southern Asia has elected a number of female leaders).
You define steroid use as cheating; after reading the long list of players who are accused or have admitted to using, are you so sure "not every team tolerates cheating"? Usage seems so widespread that I find that assertation quite a stretch.
Further, baseball has not "continuously strived to deal" with ethics. The baseball world knew Canseco, McGwire, and by extension most of the late 80's-early 90's A's teams used steriods, but looked away because "chicks dig the long ball". Yet, the commissioner's office has painted itself as completely in the dark until the past couple of years.
Similarly, gambling was rampid and well-known before 1919; it was only when it infiltrated the World Series that anyone seemed to care. Even then, it wasn't "baseball" that banned the players but an individual in a newly appointed, completely autonomous position.
Finally, why "should" baseball be held to a higher standard than other sports? It isn't some romantic, quasi-religious experience that people like Bob Costas make it out to be; it is an entertainment that generates busloads of cash that owners and players alike want a bigger share of, and will do literally anything to get.
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Jack Marshall - The spitball is a complex issue because 1) it was once legal 2) there was a period where it was legal for some and not for others 3) Perry used the spitball as much as a bluff as he did as a real pitch 4) because of its history, it was looked upon by many with nostalgia, and Perry's use of it was seen as a cute throwback to the old days. 5) there was never a threat of it becoming widespread, because it was notoriously hard to throw well.
That said, baseball made a mistake putting Perry in the Hall.
- You are just historically wrong about the color barrier. It WAS because it was baseball that it made such impact.
- Baseball keeps trying to do the right thing. It recognizes its special visibility and prestige. It has to. That's one of its greatest assets. Don't believe it if you don't want to. You're still wrong.
- The Commissioner appointed by the owners as "Commissioner of Baseball" wasn't "baseball"? Come on!
- You say: "It isn't some romantic, quasi-religious experience that people like Bob Costas make it out to be; it is an entertainment that generates busloads of cash that owners and players alike want a bigger share of, and will do literally anything to get."
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sidnancy I think your first paragraph proves my point better than I've been able to. You've painted a clearly amoral act as "complex" because it was "nostalgic" (and the grandfather clause has nothing to do with Perry as it covered pitchers who used it in 1920, and he wasn't even born until 18 years later!).
Please, show me where baseball has done "the right thing" when it wasn't prodded by either public outrage at widespread, accepted behavior (gambling or steroids) or competative advantage (Jackie Robinson). Again, it celebrated the home run surge of the stereoid era, until the public started screaming; then it didn't any more (ironically, Ty Cobb stated in his autobiography that they outlawed spitters to increase HRs). Also, you still haven't explained how steroid usage is so much worse ethically than the rampant (yea, I spelled it wrong above) amphetamine usage of the '60's and '70's.
If baseball truly "recognize(d) its special visibility and prestige" it would have been at the forefront of issues like race and drugs, not following the other sports. Until you show me one instance where they've lead the curve, I'll continue to believe that baseball's just another sport.
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Jack Marshall Oh, brother. Let me try again. The spitball and baseball's (and the public's response to it) are complex because of the factors I mentioned. Those are all rationalizations of conduct. You do "get" that all violations are not equally serious, right? Because some conduct was once an accepted part of the sport, it is likely to be less offensive to some, and I understand that. It is the difference between conduct that is inherently wrong (that is, it doesn't need a rule to declare it wrong) and conduct that is forbidden because of a rule. And, of course, simply because baseball was too tolerant of one form of cheating doesn't justify future cheating.
Baseball was at the forefront of race. Football and basketball were small potatoes in 1947. Believe what you want: you're historically wrong. America was segregated in 1947.
Baseball's special status as "the National Pastime" is both an asset and a curse. Nobody likes being held to a higher standard. The people who run baseball are no better than the people who run supermarket chains. The sport is in the hero business, and heroes have to be good, or seen as good. You can go ahead and believe it's just another sport if you want to. Whether or not "they lead the curve" is not the issue.
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sidnancy Because some conduct was once an accepted part of the sport, it is likely to be less offensive to some...
You still have not explained baseball's blind eye to amphetamine useage, and its original blind eye to steroid usage.
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Jack Marshall That's easy: baseball screwed up!
A lot of people here seem to think that saying baseball has a special role in American culture and a special obligation to uphold basic ethical values means that they always have, always do, and never make mistakes. I never wrote that. I never believed that. And I don't have to defend a position I never took.
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sidnancy Here's the problem:
You're trying to paint baseball as morally and ethically superior to any other sport, but there is no evidence that it is so.
You do "get" that all violations are not equally serious, right?
You do "get" that you're an ethicist, right? Cheating, no matter how small the percieved offense, is always morally wrong.
It is the difference between conduct that is inherently wrong (that is, it doesn't need a rule to declare it wrong) and conduct that is forbidden because of a rule.
Are you saying using steroids is inherently wrong? Why, because they're illegal (like amphetamines)? Or because of the pallative effect (like amphetamines or cortizone)? Or because of the performance enhancing effect (like amphetamines or cortizone)? There is nothing inherent in steroids that separates them from any of a number of other substances/acts in baseball history that raises them above those others. Just like all of those others, baseball turned a blind eye (or even facilitated/promoted the effects) until public outcry was too great to ignore.
Baseball was at the forefront of race.
If that were true, then Negro League players other than just All-Stars and Hall of Famers would have been brought into MLB. As it was, they were at the "forefront" only to the extent that they brought in the best of the best, while ignoring the "very good" who were still better than the white players already in the league.
Football and basketball were small potatoes in 1947. Believe what you want: you're historically wrong.
Believe what you want, you are the one who is wrong. In 1949, Ohio State averaged over 75,000 fans per home game, and Michigan averaged almost 94,000 - numbers few teams can match even today. The Cleveland Browns, in the "minor league" AAFL, averaged over 56,000. Meanwhile, the Dodgers lead the NL in attendance with an average of 21,000 fans, which was surpassed by all but 2 NL teams this year, and more than doubled by four. Even the Yankees averaged fewer than 30,000 fans per game, the same as the woeful Padres or Nationals this year. By this measure, at least, it is baseball that has gained popularity in the last 60 years, not football. Football, both pro and college, was certainly not "small potatoes".
The sport is in the hero business, and heroes have to be good, or seen as good.... Whether or not "they lead the curve" is not the issue.
But to be seen as "good", don't they have to do the right thing when it's right, not when they're pressured to (like steroids) or when there's something in it for them (like bringing in Jackie Robinson)? True heroes, like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, etc., are always the ones who led the curve; that's what makes them heroes.
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Jack Marshall This is a good example of changing the subject. College basketball and college football were regional sports---to some extent, they still are. And we were talking about pro sports. College sports obviously have ethical imperatives because of their link to education and building character.
Believe it or not, most baseball execs did NOT believe that the black players, even the stars, were as good as the white players. That is the essence of bigotry. And I personally find your reducing the courage of Branch Rickey, who was a great, moral and visionary man, to mere dollars and cents offensive, not to mention unsupportable.
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sidnancy I don't know how I missed this at the time, but your comment is really, really funny (in a completely ignoring the facts sort of way):
College basketball and college football were regional sports---to some extent, they still are.
In 1947, how many MLB teams were there west of the Mississipi? Please explain how college sports were more regional than MLB.
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Jack Marshall I'm not going to debate the nature of college sports with you. The audiences and national fandom of amateur and professional sports are completely different, and were even more so before television. It's irrelevant to the discussion. Your understanding of "regional" is pretty narrow. Before expansion, there were lots of Yankee fans west of the Mississippi. But you would not find more than a handfull, if that, of Boston College football fans in Indiana. That's all.-
brandini You pick and choose your examples carefully. Why Boston College? One of the smallest, least popular schools in division one. Why not Miami? Ohio St? USC? Michigan? Notre Dame? Texas? Penn St?-
Jack Marshall I didn't choose the example carefully at all. Amateur college sports are an entirely different culture and audience than professional team sports. It's completely tangential to the issue. The connection to education and youth obviously dominates the ethical equation, but the impact and implications of ethical scandals at the college level are primarily---not entirely, but primarily--focused on a particular school, locality and region.
But this is still a tangent.
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brandini But you are missing my point. Whether or not this is relavent to your argument, the fact remains, that you are hand picking your facts. When they are challenged you proclaim that is not the focus of your article.
Yes there are lots of Yankees fans all over, but how many Blue Jays fans are outside of Canada? No there isn't a lot of support for BC across the board in America, but there is a great deal of support for the bigger schools all over.
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Jack Marshall You have a warped idea of how one is supposed to use analogy and argument. I'm supposed to examine every college and college conference, with polls to prove which actually constitute a national following? Baloney. The argument that college athletics belong in a discussion of professional sports' ethical impact within the national culture is weak and misguided...and tangential.
Nit-picking over tangential issues in an article with a clear message and objective is a dishonest and unpersuasive form of debate---a lot like focusing on proof-reading errors. I have found virtually all of your arguments, here and on your blog, (which John was kind enough to compliment, I have no idea why), simply repetitious re-statements of your unshakeble opinions: 1) you don't think baseball executives feel they need to pay attention to ethical values. Fine. I get it. You're wrong. 2) you don't believe baseball, because of its history and place in American culture, has an enhanced responsibility regarding its tacit endoresment of unethical conduct. Great. You are amazingly wrong. 3) You don't think it is fair to designate Bonds as either a certain steroid-user and the well-deserved poster boy for the steroid era. This is in the category of "My mind's made up; don't confuse me with logic and facts." 4) You believe, like an astonishing number of others who should know better, against all logic and common sense, that it is more reasonable to attribute the refusal to sign Bonds to a sinister (and inexplicable) conspiracy or, in the alternative,a sudden and unexplained vacuum of baseball acumen by multiple executives, than to a not-that-difficult decision based on the combination of widespread skepticism over the skills of a post-40 player with bad knees, the determination not to be the team to re-inject steroids into the discussion of on-field performance after suffering through the Mitchell Report to change the subject and cleanse the game, and the fact that hiring employees under federal indictment for felonies does not generally make one proud of either working for or rooting for a team, a corporation, a law firm, a bank, or a skunk-factory.
Terrific. You are welcome to your delusions. I enjoy debates, on-line or otherwise, with open-minded, logical, respectful adversaries who bring enlightenment and strong counter-arguments to the discussion. You just quibble, and don't bother to think about any ideas that clash with your preconceptions. .
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brandini "You have a warped idea of how one is supposed to use analogy and argument. I'm supposed to examine every college and college conference, with polls to prove which actually constitute a national following? Baloney. The argument that college athletics belong in a discussion of professional sports' ethical impact within the national culture is weak and misguided...and tangential."
Fine then! Don't use an argument that is 'weak and misguided...and tangential'. That is my point! Between the college issue and several of your arguments made in the article I'm trying to figure out what exactly your evidence. I mean, is that how you debate? When proven wrong you simply assert that the point is of lesser relevance?
Don't place this on me, not in the least bit. This is all about you sir. You are the one that grabs an issue and runs with it until one points out the fallacies within your statement.
In regards to you stating I am wrong with my opinions, could you give me some educated and rationale proof? Could you point out with FACTS that I am incorrect?
The problem is, I am more then happy to think about new ideas. I would have absolutely no problem with a reasonable explanation against Bonds and certainly would accept it, if factual. What I am not going to accept is a mis-mash of made up facts and analogies.
That's all I wanted and asked for. That was the point of my articles, to prove that what you were saying was ignorant and incorrect. That's why I pulled it apart on multiple levels with FACTS.
So Mr Marshall, can you do the same thing. Can you show me why baseball execs should follow a make-belief American cultural standard? Can you tell me how few people truly CARE about this standard? Can you tell me why one individual, who's legacy was not even remotely made due to steroids, should be the poster-child for steroids? Can you prove me wrong that statistically, Bonds would have been at least an average DH (playing for the league minimum)?
Just step up to the plate with FACTS and prove me wrong.
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Jack Marshall First of all, call me Jack. That's my name.
There are no statistics that can prove baseball has a different and more powerful role in the culture than other sports. I believe it does, and I believe there is good reason to believe that it does, but every aspect of that belief could be challenged. Baseball is, for example, the only professional sport that isn't subject to the anti-trust laws, creating the illusion that it is a sport rather than a business. I know that the reasons behind the ruling are complex and really have little to do with what the SCOTUS opinion has come to stand for, but still, it makes baseball different. Because it is a summer sport, they play baseball on the Fourth of July, and it has always linked itself to patriotic images. There are still occasional NBA players who refuse to respect the National Anthem. It would be a much bigger deal if this happened in baseball. Because of the historic link between baseball and fathers and sons, American literature has given baseball much more mythic stature. There are no football novels like "Shoeless Joe" ("Field of Dreams") or "The Natural," or even "Bang the Drum Slowly."
Baseball's good and bad moments have had far greater national impact than other sports. The Black Sox Scandal on the bad side, Jackie Robinson on the good side. Did you notice how often Robinson was invoked during the last week, as we inaugurated a black president. Nobody discussed how the embryonic NFL had a few black players in the Thirties. Robinson pre-dated Brown v. Board of Education by six years...and many legal commentators believe (no, they can't PROVE it with "Facts"---that's what analysis is all about: deducing what is going on when the facts are scattered and inconclusive.) Baseball is still called "The National Pastime" even though other sports have bigger audiences---what does that mean? I think it means that because baseball is a team sport that focuses on individuals, its structure is closer to iconic American ideals. Baseball, from the Little League creed, through Grantland Rice's famous poem ("It isn't if you win or lose, but how you play the game" was written about baseball, not college basketball) and beyond, has marketed itself and created its image based on these ideals.
Baseball is the most broadcast sport on radio, and in closing in on cable and satellite TV. I know this is BECAUSE there are a lot of games, but its effect is to make the game more pervasive and influential in the culture. That is a logical conclusion---you want to disagree? Fine, it’s your opinion. But the fact is that Congress, wanting to grandstand on steroids, picked baseball to do it with, just as it has held circus hearings about baseball before.
I grew up in Boston, and I'm sure you know that the Red Sox are part of the flesh and blood of that community. The whole city, even non-baseball fans, pays attention to the Red Sox year round, and identifies with it. Baseball heroes there are required to really be as admirable as possible (there have been exceptions, like Canseco) and are used as figures to extol civic pride and values. That city, I assure you, would revolt if the Red Sox signed a Barry Bonds, because most of the public would consider it a reflection on the city and a terrible message to children. I know all cities are not tied to baseball like this, and in my current city, D.C., a pro football team plays the same civic role while the baseball team is nearly invisible. But baseball, because it is older, more storied, with more heroes (because it is an individual focused sport), more of a year-round presence and ("Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet") frequently used as a national or even universal metaphor (have you ever heard anyone say, "Football is like Life"?) approaches that central role in the national culture. You don't buy that? Good for you; I respect the opinion. But it is not an absurd contention. Bill James suggested exactly the same thing during the Keith Hernandez/Willy Wilson cocaine mess, saying that the recreational drug problem, which had been going on for years, only caught the culture's attention when baseball was infected. That was his observation; observations are not facts, but nobody, as I recall, suggested that James was an idiot. I agree with him, and have my own observations. Like a lot of stat-freaks, you have an excessive belief that pure facts (and there are very few pure facts) are the only way to acquire wisdom. It's a narrow view.
As for your bizarre contention that Bonds’ "legacy was not even remotely made due to steroids”, well, the facts just contradict you. Check out James' 2008 Gold Mine, where he reprints an article about the players with the most unusual (statistically unprecedented) careers of all time. Bonds' uniqueness rating is twice the #2 on the list. Why? Because he suddenly became a different kind of hitter after 35, when virtually every other hitter in the history of the game was getting worse. What a coinkydink! And who were #2 and #3 on the list? Why, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire! ANOTHER coinkidink! Yes, Bonds HAD a legacy that had nothing to do with steroids when he was a Hall of Fame bound, 3X MVP. But when he morphed into the Incredible Hulk and started shattering every home run record imaginable, using a steroid pusher as his trainer (that's a fact) and being a high-profile client for a steroid-pushing company that catered to cheating athletes (another fact), and became the most successful steroid cheat in baseball history (yes, another fact---unless you just want to ignore the mountain of evidence, as you evidently do), that made him the poster child for steroids, and he richly deserves the role.
I can't say Bonds would or wouldn't have been an average DH, and neither can you. Not many players last over 40, but they all break down. How many players lasted over 45? I can think of three--maybe there are a couple more; it doesn't matter. The overwhelming odds are that any player who continues playing after 40 will break down by 45. Ok...Bonds was 42. It's about 99-1 that he'd break down at 43, 44, or 45. It's not certainty, but it isn't a great margin, either.
The really funny thing is that while there are legitimate arguments to bolster my position---that the executives of each team realized that bringing back Bonds after the Mitchell Report would undo the cultural statement that document made, alienate fans and hurt the game...in other words, be wrong.---there are none to support the two alternative explanations of why Bonds didn't play---that there is a mass, financially reckless and pointless conspiracy to stop Bonds from playing, or that the teams are stupid. The owners are colluding now because a completely different group of owners colluded 25 years ago and got nailed for it? Not persuasive. All the owners and GMs are too dumb to realize that Bonds just might have gotten some teams over the hump in 2008? That’s unlikely, to say the least. Occam’s Razor applies: the simplest explanation is usually the right one. How likely are you to be hired when you have a pending trial on multiple charges of perjury, when the perjury involves denying illegal drug use? Is that really such a leap for you? Go try it. Good luck.
Do people care about heroes and whether their stars stand for good values? I care. I believe lots of people do---I know many who do. I also know that many people cheer for professional wrestlers and despicable celebrities. They SHOULD care. Baseball is better off with fans who care than those who don’t. If baseball recognizes that, then it will not ignore the values of the caring fans, since the uncaring fans aren’t paying attention.
I haven’t bothered to read your articles, once you leapt out of the box disparaging my profession, my discipline, and my qualifications. You had lots of company, and their arguments, for the most part, were just insults and non sequiturs. My job, as an ethicist, is to get people to look at the ethical components of decision-making, and to open up new ways of examining problems and issues. Unlike a lot of posters here, I have no stake in being “right,” for I am frequently wrong and like to be enlightened when I am. But “you’re an idiot,” isn’t an argument; rationalizations (“lots of other players used steroids”) aren’t valid arguments, and misconceptions (“innocent until proven guilty” has no meaning outside a courtroom) are not arguments.
I can't "prove you wrong," of course. You see the world differently. I don't much like a world where people like Barry Bonds can cheat, get away with it, earn millions in the process, undermine the integrity of a whole sport and make cynics out of a substantial number of the public and media, and then still be defended by bloggers who argue that values don't matter. But that's your world, and you are welcome to it.
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sidnancy I wanted to make another point on your original article, but kept forgetting. You state, "Can anyone imagine a pro football team hesitating for one second from drafting a promising prospect because of something like (Clay Buchholz)?" Famously, 4 time All-Pro Randy Moss dropped to the 21st pick in the 1998 NFL draft because of his legal woes. So yes, even the Dallas Cowboys (a team with a history of off-field problems) passed on Moss because of non-sport issues.-
Jack Marshall Wow. So his legal problems caused him to drop all the way down to the 21st pick, in the First Round, out of all the players drafted in 1998? OK---a couple of teams hesitatated more than "a second"---you proved me wrong.
In high school, Moss was convicted of battery in a race-related brawl, served time in a work-release program, then broke his probation with a conviction for pot possession, and served an extra 60 days in the slammer. I think that goes just a bit beyond what Clay Buchholtz did, don't you?
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sidnancy - Buchholz was also drafted in the 1st round.
- How far did Buchholz fall in the draft? Moss, by all accounts, would not have dropped past the Cowboys with the 8th pick (costing him millions of dollars) if not for his troubles.
- The relative talent level between Moss an Buchholz was vast - as a 22 year old, Moss was Offensive Rookie of the Year; as a 24 year old, he was an established star; as a 24 year old, Buchholz hopes to make the opening day roster.
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philosofool I'm sorry you're so cynical, but no organizations are completely amoral, and baseball, as I continue to point out, has a special motivation to pay attention to the values it displays. Costas gets it.The historical record of the american slave trade, the Nazis and numerous other lower-profile cases hardly bears out your claim that no organization is without conscience. Only disgusting rationalizations can justify these institutions. The very worst things that have ever happened have been perpetrated by institutions unwilling to resist evil men: no single person is alone capable of what the Nazis did.-
Jack Marshall Now you are accusing me of justifying the Nazi Party? (You forgot the Ku Klux Klan. ) Yes, organizations can become completely corrept, as the bad individuals drive out those who have ethical values. Even the Nazi party didn't start out as completely amoral---it theorized a set of values that were invalid, indeed, suicidal. It had some legitimate goals. It became completely corrupt---even then, there were members who recognized what was happening and tried to stop it.
Using the slave trade as an example is bad history and bad philosophy. It was a practice that was accepted by the culture of the time...most of those practicing the trade did not think it was wrong. They learned. Baseball didn't think it was wrong to segregate its game...neither did most of the country. It learned. You can't judge past cultures by today's values.
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sidnancy Using the slave trade as an example is bad history and bad philosophy. It was a practice that was accepted by the culture of the time...most of those practicing the trade did not think it was wrong. They learned.
Not true. Slavery had been outlawed by every other major nation decades (or centuries) before the United States (Great Britain, for instance, in 1772). Further, the South only "learned" it was wrong at the point of a gun. If not for losing the Civil War, slavery surely would have continued for quite some time in the Confederacy.
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Jack Marshall Your comment is a non-sequatur. The practitioners of slavery did not, for the most part, believe it was wrong. That was why "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had such an impact---it made the moral, ethical argument that the practice was wrong and used actual cases to show how. The fact that other countries ban a practice does not mean, and has never meant, that the US accepts the standard, or has to. Most Western countries have banned capital punishment. I happen to think it is justifiable in certain circumstances. Each culture makes its own decisions over time.-
pAllan The practitioners of slavery did not, for the most part, believe it was wrong.
This is where you are stretching yourself pretty thin to the point of being offensive. Your argument is that because the slave-owners didn't believe that it was wrong means that slavery wasn't unethical. Now our government determines our own sense of right and wrong? If your article weren't so ridiculous in the first place, I wouldn't believe you would stoop so low.-
Jack Marshall The fact that you can't comprehend the argument does not make it offensive. I repeat: we learn what is right and wrong over time. Yes: if something is wrong it was always wrong, but one cfannot designate people as bad or wrong-doers when the culture they live in believes, however mistakenly, that certain conduct is NOT wrong, but right. 50 years from now, the US may have concluded that an unborn fetus is beyond question a human life desrveing full protection under the law. Will that make pro-choice activists of the current day "murderers"? Unethical? If you're offended by complex issues, I recommend not discussing them.-
pAllan Now you are comparing the rights of full grown men and women to those of a fertilized cell? I recommend you not take a complex issue and simplify it to appease the lowest common denominator. Good day, sir.-
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pAllan Thanks for the illiterate ramblings. Enjoy life among the 20% who approved of Bush's Presidency.-
Jack Marshall You are hilarious, Allan. You can't grasp the concept of analogy, your unshakeable views are driven by rationalizations, ideological bias and misconceptions, and when confronted with real arguments, your response is personal attacks, nit-picking over typos, and ultimately, a ridiculous attempt to cast a completely apolitical discussion as the product of my political views, of which you have no knowledge whatsoever.
Now, I'm going to proof this really, really carefully, and stop wasting my time.
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Jack Marshall Well, I tried. You really are too dense to get through to at all. I'm sorry.
I was comparing how ethical standards evolve over time. But recognizing the analogy between the abortion issue and slavery is hardly new or illigitimate. It's great to watch someone be arrogant when he is so completely ill-informed. Good day to you too.
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philosofool No, I'm not at all accusing you of trying to justify the Nazi party. I'm saying that your premise is false because if it were true it would justify the Nazi party.
My slave trade example is not bad history. Nothing I said was mistaken about what went on. Moreover, your assertion that slavery was accepted practice is bad history: slavery was highly controversial at the time of the American Revolution, to the point that slave ownership was illegal in half the states of the U.S. before 1800 as well as in many nations in Europe. (John Locke, in his Second Treatise of Government, rejects the Hobbsian state on the ground that it is the moral equivalent of slavery, which he argued was unequivocally wrong. He wrote that Treatise in 1690. Accepted practice my ass--that's a post hoc rationalizing justification of something that deserves no justification.)
The slave trade example is hardly bad philosophy. Of course I can judge past cultures by "today's values" (of course, there is little such thing as a uniform standard of modern morality, but that's beside the point in present discourse) just as I can judge murderers by my values. In so doing, I have to be careful to recognize my own fallibility. Moreover, I should be careful to recognize mitigating factors, such as the difficulty of recognizing the moral value of the traditions of one's own culture. But just beceause a set of values are mine or my culture's does not alone mean that they apply only for me or people in my culture. (This is a long argument, see James Rachaels "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism".) But slavery, a practice which kidnaped people, exposed them to a 1/3 chance of death, and then robbed them of every shred of liberty they could posses, was both obviously wrong and social conditions surrounding it were hardly mitigating, the false judgements of it's practictioners notwithstanding.
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Jack Marshall "Obviously wrong" my foot. It's obvious now: if it was obviously wrong then, it wouldn't have been controversial. Is abortion "obviously wrong" now? Will we be able to say that pro-choice advocates were evil-doers determined to do wrong, or that pro-life advocates were wrongfully trying to take away women's rights, in 100 years when (perhaps), society has reached a consensus? You are deluded. When concepts of right and wrong change, you cannot go back and change the rules, holding those of the past to new standrads. THAT'S unethical. And unfair And also illogical.
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gsulife this whack job has taken the bait and publically challenged keith law. check it out at laws blog (link above). if keith responds, which i doubt, he will consume this fraud. keith doesnt lack the self-confidence that would make a man spend this much time trying to defend himself; however, if he does respond it will be classic.-
Jack Marshall What are you, head of some kind of Keith Law cult? Keith is a smart and knowledgable analyst, but he's not going "consume" me any more than I am going to convince him. We have different perspectives, and though he, unfortunately, chose to belittle my article rather than discuss it, I respect his views. He doesn't respect mine. Ah, well. C'est la vie!
By the way, did you notice that Keith referred to O.J. Simpson as "a murderer"? I'm sure you did. But O.J. has not only not been "proven" to be a murderer in a court of law---he's been found "innocent" of murder. Yet Keith Law, your Lord and Master, recognizes that this does not preclude a reasonable and fair analyst, like him, from deciding, based on what he knows and has observed, that Simpson is, in fact, a murderer. Just as I, a humble whack job, can legitimately and fairly conclude that Barry Bonds, based on a mountain of evidence, circumstantial though it may be, has been a PED user.
Which was the point of my original analogy that Keith, by design or error, misrepresented in his initial post.
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philosofool I strongly disagree that the Mitchell report showed any commitment whatsoever to ethical conduct. It declined at all to mention the exent of PED use among baseball players except where is come up with names of players.
If the Mitchell Report had expressed a serious commitment to investigating steroid use, it would have contain a statement either like (1) or like (2):
- While it is impossible to determine the identity of each and every player that has used PEDs, we can accumulate evidence about the overall rate of PED use among bsaeball players in the major and minor leagues. That is, we can estimate, based on our evidence, whether there is widespread, modest or limited use of PEDs. Based on that evidence, we conclude that between x and y percent of MLB players have used PEDs rarely within their careers, and that between z and w have been persistent users. Our confidence in this estimate is .... [explaination of the evidential techniques used in this assessment, with an assessment of the confidence we should have on that basis of the estimates.]
- In an ideal world, we would have evidence that allows us to estimate the extent of PED use in baseball. However, our investigations have not revealed evidence that allows us to estimate the rates of PED use. This means that the overall rate of PED use in baseball may be widespread, modest or limited, and on the basis of the evidence that the commission has available, we cannot say which it is. [Explaination of the available evidence and why it supports not conclusion about the overal rate of PED use.]
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Jack Marshall Either of those would have, I agree, improved the Mitchell Report. I don't think that because something wasn't done perfectly, it is fair to conclude that it wasn't sincere, however. Many, if not most, readers were able to understand that the Report was incomplete and the players implicated were primarily identified through the trail created by one key source. The Report did not suggest that these were the only players who used PED's, and it should have been obvious that this was just the tip of a larger iceberg. But it was still a statement, a self-critical statement, and an unusual one, fingering members of the baseball community. I think it is unreasonable and unduly cynical to dismiss it to the extent you do.
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EvanAtMVN To me, this was the key to the entire article:
When Bonds rises on the scale, so do drugs and cheating: fans of the team signing him will become more likely to start mouthing the familiar, lame rationalizations Bonds defenders, sycophants and enablers have been using for years. (This was seen in the attitudes of Giant fans, who continued to support Bonds while the rest of baseball fans were substantially critical.)
And I couldn't agree more with that statement.
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Jack Marshall Yes, it was, Evan. Thanks.
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Ellroy As a creative writer I have to point out your severe breach of both ethics and accuracy. Sir Thomas More did not say "It profits a man nothing to sell his soul for the whole world," any more than the historical Mark Antony said, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." Credit where credit is due: the person whose authority you're relying on is playwright Robert Bolt.-
Jack Marshall Sorry Ellroy---back off and do your research. Much of "A Man for All Seasons" is taken directly from More's writings and his trial's transcript, including that line. It may have been paraphrased somewhat...that is irrelevant to its use in my piece. Anyway, Thomas More is both a character in a play and a real historical person...it is not "unethical," just inexact, to quote the character without making the distinction---especially since the statement is just as powerful no matter who said it. Your comment is pedantic, as well as incorrect. Linda Loman said, "Attention must be paid." So did Arthur Miller, who wrote the play it comes from and created Linda Loman. Attributing the line to either is correct. (As you are a "creative writer," I am a professional director, a playwright and a dramaturg who has his own professional theater company. I don't need to be lectured on the use of quotes from historical literature.)
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Barry Bonds is Unethical?
The Outsiders Look at the Insides of Baseball —
Over at the Hardball Times there is a well-written, albeit illogical, rationale regarding why teams did not sign Barry Bonds for the 2008 season. THT writer John Brattain has spent much of the season putting together a series of asserting that MLB has intentionally avoided Barry and done so wrongfully. To start, I will reaffirm everyone that I am an official Barry Bond apologist. I always thought the needle-throwing incidents, while humorous, were inappropriate and appeared to align with jealousy and envy over anything else. That is, I simply do not feel ...
THT: Marshall: The baseball ethicist: Why nobody signed Barry Bonds
BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog —
THT: Marshall: The baseball ethicist: Why nobody signed Barry Bonds “We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.” Signing Barry Bonds in 2008 would have been as logical as the producers of the Naked Gun series deciding to hire O.J. Simpson to reprise his role as “Norberg” for Naked Gun 4, because, you know, he was sooooo funny in the first three films, and how could you do Naked Gun without bumbling Norberg? It would make as much sense as Disney hiring Lindsay Lohan for a new Herbie movie, because she’s as cute as ever. Pete Rose is a ...
Wednesday Wangdoodles
ESPN Feed: neyer rob —
... or whoever, and they'll live with Tex's declining production or they'll trade him for pennies on the dollar. This isn't necessarily a winning strategy. But it can be. • I'm not sure I buy the Baseball Ethicist's argument that baseball is different (has the B.E. never heard of Willie Wilson or ...
On Logic and Barry
The Outsiders Look at the Insides of Baseball —
... an article over at the Hardball Times. An article which seemed to ruffle a bunch of feathers and even got 'voted down' at Ball Hype (something I have personally never seen from a THT article). That said, there was ...
Jack Marshall
THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball —
A professor of ethics wrote an article on the Hardball Times website, to which there are many many many comments, which have also spilled over to Keith Law’s blog.
Not my cup of tea, but for those who like camomile…
Just Let it Go...
The Outsiders Look at the Insides of Baseball —
Not just yet. I'm going to take a look at three of the main aspects regarding the Barry Bonds issue as pertaining to the article written by Jack Marshall over at the Hardball Times. I know, I have went over this article twice already, but I feel as though there are a couple more issues which need to be addressed. ...
I hate you
1835 Miles Away —
... I would just like to know that if none of the other 103 names come out what these ethicists (sorry, I mean writers) are going to do with their votes for this era? Please, if you are not voting for Rodriguez now and had no idea before Saturday he used steroids, then DO NOT vote for any player that has played during the last 20-30 years. Do not pick and choose based on your gut. You shouldn’t have voted for Rickey Henderson (he did play for Canseco’s A’s), you shouldn’t have voted for Rice (did you know they had steroids in the ‘80s?), and ...
