Duck doings

Today, at the Duck of Minerva, I blogged "New 'crimes against humanity'?" The piece considers the claims various political figures have tossed about concerning biofuel production. I also note some additional uses of this phrase in contemporary political debates.

On May 6, I blogged "The taboo," which is about the lack of debate concerning Israeli nuclear weapons -- especially in the US. Why is OK to talk of obliterating Iran, but not OK to talk about Israel's arsenal? [Note: this post originally appeared here, but I'm noting the Duck cross-posting because it was mentioned in a Chronicle of Higher Education footnoted from academic blogs post.]

Finally, May 2, I posted "Power outage" about the apparent decline in home runs in baseball following the most recent crackdowns against steroid use by players. Since posting some early season data, the major league HR rate has risen to 40.7 at bats per homer (from 41.8 in April). That's still down significantly from the rate during the rest of the aughts.


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Highly paid guinea pigs

Occasionally, the email announcement circulated daily at my university includes a call for volunteers to participate in various kinds of medical studies. Apparently, students and others in need of quick cash can make money serving as human guinea pigs.

For this reason, I'm not at all surprised that major league baseball players started using steroids in large numbers. Literally millions of dollars are at stake -- especially if the drugs enhance performance, as they reportedly do.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of December 15 examined the statistics -- and paydays -- of the numerous baseball players named as steroid users in the Mitchell Report.

More than one in three players - 33 in total - immediately improved in the first season compared with their career averages.

The list of 27 hitters and 19 pitchers who allegedly "juiced" and raised their statistical performances includes stars such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Jason Giambi....

The Journal Sentinel looked at a select group of all stars, named in the report, including Jason Giambi and Pettitte, to analyze the impact on their contracts.

The other all stars were catcher Paul Lo Duca; second baseman Roberts; shortstop Miguel Tejada; third baseman Troy Glaus; outfielders Bonds, Matthews and Gary Sheffield; and pitchers Clemens and closer Eric Gagne, who just signed a $10 million one-year contract to play for the Brewers.

According to the salary analysis, the players were given a collective raise of more than $25 million by the time of their next contract. The raises include signing bonuses paid in the first year of the new deal.

For my numerous past blog posts about this topic, just click on the labels below.


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Steroids research

Professor Roger Tobin has a new paper (pdf warning) soon to be published about the effects of steroid use on home run rates. He estimates that even a modest increase in muscle mass can have a substantial effect on HR rate.

Hat tip: Alan Nathan.

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Books of 2006

Last year, I posted a complete list of books I read in 2005. I'm not sure the post was revisited much, but I decided to make a 2006 list too.

Note that I do not intend to list books that I reviewed, unless those reviews were published. In my academic job, I chair a committee that awards $200,000 annually to the best "ideas for improving world order." Most of our nominees have written books and I read my share of the nominations.

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of lots of books related to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list them here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

Finally, I'm also excluding the books I read aloud to my youngest daughter, even though some of them are fairly substantial.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure?

Non-fiction

The Purpose of Intervention, by Martha Finnemore.

Blood and Oil, by Michael T. Klare.

Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled the Climate Crisis and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster by Ross Gelbspan.

The European Dream, by Jeremy Rifkin

Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby.

The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems, by Will Carroll.

Game Time: A Baseball Companion, by Roger Angell.

I also read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2006, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. It was edited by Steven Goldman and Christina Kahrl.

Of these, all were worth reading, though this was not Angell's best book. Carroll's writing is rough around the edges, but I learned from his look at steroids in my favorite sport. Rifkin's work is overlong, but parts of it would be great for an American student audience. Klare and Gelbspan were used in class last spring.

Fiction

A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby.

The Quiet American, by Graham Greene.

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad.

The Hot Kid, by Elmore Leonard.

Hombre, by Elmore Leonard.

The Simple Art of Murder, by Raymond Chandler.

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler.

Deep Blue Good-by, by John D. Macdonald.

Nightmare in Pink, by John D. Macdonald.

A Purple Place for Dying, John D. Macdonald.

Meet Me at the Morgue, by Ross Macdonald

Baseball and Benevolence, by Mark Valenza

The Seventh Babe, by Jerome Charyn.

Double Play, by Robert B. Parker

Spanking Watson, by Kinky Friedman

Saving Faith, by David Baldacci

Of these, I put the best first, then the genre fiction, and then the worst. I really like Nick Hornby's work and this book was very entertaining. John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee stories are a pleasant diversion, but the Pink one is kind of dated -- and none of them were as good as Leonard's latest paperback.

Currently, I'm about halfway through James Ellroy's oddly written The Cold Six Thousand, which I think one reviewer said was narrated by a hopped-up Dr. Seuss, hungry for violence. Also well underway is Richard Ned Lebow's The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, which figures into my latest writing project. More on that soon.



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Rocket's glare

"I'm not the man they think I am at home"

From "Rocket Man." Lyrics by Bernie Taupin, Music by Elton John

Did Roger Clemens secretly receive a 50 game suspension for violating major league baseball's steroid policy? Various rumors linking Clemens to steroids have been circulating on the internet for at least a month -- though sports writers have talked about the steroids rumors for much longer.

To those who are conspiracy-minded, a 50-game suspension (that's the new penalty for a first offense) would explain why Clemens didn't sign a contract with any team until about one-third of the season had been played. Granted, it's not the only explanation. After all, Clemens first retired from the Yankees several seasons ago and every comeback year is touted as his last.

But Clemens was eligible to sign with 29 major league teams at the beginning of the year and could have played for the Houston Astros beginning May 1 (due to a technical aspect of baseball's labor rules concerning arbitration and free agency). Did he wait until mid-June because baseball insisted?

According to the 2005 policy, which would arguably have been controlling on Clemens had he tested positive near the end of the 2005 season, players who are in the "clinical track" of the abuse policy cannot be identified.

A Club whose Player is on the Clinical Track is prohibited from disclosing any information regarding a Player’s participation in the Program to either the public, the media or other Clubs.

Who is on the "clinical track," as opposed to the "administrative track"?

That was up to the discretion of the Health Policy Advisory Committee. HPAC didn't discipline players, but by moving the player to the administrative task, they could make the player eligible for punishment by the baseball commissioner. The "clinical track" seemed to be reserved for confessed users who sought medical care for their drug use.

That discretion would seem to have given the HPAC some leverage over relations with players. Likewise, a popular but unsigned player like Clemens would have some leverage over baseball. If he decided never to return to the game, everyone presumably loses. He's an inner circle Hall of Fame player who ordinarily attracts fans. When people think steroids, they think Barry Bonds, not Roger Clemens.

The HPAC is now gone, by the way, as the November 2005 revised drug policy created a new Independent Program Administrator who reports positive test results to the various parties. However, so far as I can tell, the new policy doesn't say anything about disclosure of test results or penalties -- though baseball has obviously been announcing some positive tests and suspensions.

The Major League Player's association doesn't seem to have a copy of the revised agreement on their webpage, only the summary I linked above.

I previously blogged about the importance of transparency to the success of the anti-steroid policy. Public disclosure of steroid users (and their penalties) helps deter steroids use. Think about what the test disclosure last summer did to Rafael Palmeiro's career. He was essentially finished after that. Surely other players noticed.

I have no idea whether the rumor is true about Clemens, but if it is...then a star player managed to avoid the limelight and perhaps preserved his HOF sheen. And just maybe he paved a route for stars to avoid negative publicity that taints their legacy -- and the game. That cannot be good news for those wanting to see steroids removed from professional baseball.

If the Clemens rumor is false, well, this post is just wild speculation. But the logic will remain valid. Baseball needs a transparent anti-steroids policy. Cynical fans might make the same sorts of inferences about stars whenever there is a prolonged absence.

Think about other players linked to steroids in the press: In 2005, Barry Bonds somewhat mysteriously missed most of the season due to multiple surgeries. Gary Sheffield reportedly just had surgery and is set to miss the next three months of the season.

I'm not trying to fan wild rumors -- just advocating for more openness in the policy.




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Filed as: baseball and steroids

'roid rage

I know exactly where I was on the evening of April 8, 1974. Do you?

I was sitting in my family's living room, watching the Atlanta Braves play the Los Angeles Dodgers in Fulton County Stadium. Al Downing was pitching for LA and America was waiting to see if Hank Aaron would break Babe Ruth's longstanding home run record. In the fourth inning, Aaron hit his dinger, pitcher Tom House caught the ball in the bullpen, and American baseball had a new Home Run King. Aaron finished with 755 home runs in his career.

This past weekend, Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth for second place on that list by hitting his 714th homer. Last Monday night, I watched two Bonds plate appearances, and through the week I saw many more, but the slugger did not make history until this weekend. Unfortunately, I missed seeing it live.

Oh well.

Many baseball fans hate the fact that Bonds has caught Ruth because they think that the star of the Giants has used steroids to become a freak. While others too stand accused, Bonds is threatening to own the game's most cherished records. He already claimed the single season mark.

The all time record is even more important and historically significant. Since 1921, Babe Ruth has been first or second in major league baseball's all-time home run list. That's 85 years!

Then again, few fans ever talk about the taint surrounding Ruth's record. He hit all of his official home runs in an era of racial segregation. Ruth never batted against Satchel Paige or any other Negro League great in a major league baseball game. Jackie Robinson didn't play for the Dodgers until 1947. Ruth had been retired for 12 seasons.

Some baseball historians point out that the game wasn't fully desegregated until the early 1960s. The Boston Red Sox, Ruth's original team, was the last team to sign an African American player. Pumpsie Green made the majors in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

By this way of thinking, Aaron too played in a partially segregated era. Willie Mays did as well -- along with Harmon Killebrew and Frank Robinson. If one lumps Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro with Bonds, then 1000s of home runs in baseball history have some sort of blemish.

People who hate Bonds probably won't like this conclusion: Maybe Reggie Jackson should be viewed as the true Home Run King?


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Filed as: Baseball

Senator Mitchell's steroid probe

Steve Finley, outfielder, does not care for major league baseball's latest plan to investigate alleged steroid use over the past few seasons:

"It seems if you write a book about something, there's going to be an investigation," Finley said. "It seems that has followed the publishing of the book. I don't think that's right. You didn't hear anything about this until the book was written."

[Baseball Commissioner Bud] Selig said during the World Baseball Classic earlier this month he would wait to respond to the book until he had all the information and a chance to read it.

The commissioner appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, currently a director of the Boston Red Sox, to lead the investigation. For now, it will be limited to events after September 2002, when the sport banned performance-enhancing drugs - though Mitchell could expand the probe.

"If there was not a rule, how can you go back and punish people for that?" said the 41-year-old Finley, entering his 18th major league season.

The AP story emphasizes that Finley is a new teammate of Barry Bonds, and is thus defending his fellow player. However, shortstop and fellow Giant Omar Vizquel offers another take:

"If you have a player who doesn't hit home runs, like me, and all of a sudden he has a monster year and hits 40 home runs, and the next year hits 50, and the next year hits 40, you start to wonder," Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel said.

Why is this so interesting?

Well, Hank Aaron himself hit homers at a pretty good pace late in his career. In a Knight Ridder story, Vizquel declared:

"There is so much stuff in baseball that you don't know about players or about pitchers or about anybody," Vizquel said. "Who knows what Hank Aaron was taking."

This may sound farfetched, but a former teammate of Aaron's says that players had access to steroids in the earlier era.

More eyebrow-raising, at least to me: Steve Finley hit only 2 home runs at age 24 playing for Baltimore. Granted, that was in only about 235 plate appearances. Since that year, however, Finley has always had at least 400 plate appearances (typically 500 to 600 or more). Finley went from hitting a few homers in his 20s to becoming a serious power threat in his 30s:

HR Age
03 25
08 26 Houston (Astrodome tough hitter's park)
05 27 Age 27 is often seen as a peak.
08 28
11 29
10 30 San Diego: Never before slugged > .434
30 31 Slugged .531
28 32
14 33 Hit 15 extra doubles/triples.
34 34 Moved to Arizona. Good hitting conditions.
35 35 Slugged .544
14 36
25 37
22 38
36 39 Spent one-third of year for LA Dodgers.
12 40 Angels. Injured much of the season.
?? 41 New SF Giant.

I'm not accusing Finley of using steroids, but he is one of those players that no one ever talks about.

Which is stranger? Steve Finley went from 11 to 36 HRs, ages 29 to 39. That's an increase of 25 dingers, and 227%!

Bonds went from 46 at age 28 (near peak) to 73 at 36. That's an increase of 27, but only 59%.

Incidentally, I never replied to Avery's discussion of the ethics of athletes using steroids, which he posted on the Cardinal Philosophy blog. Essentially, Avery equates steroid use to other costly measures athletes take to improve their game, like weight-training or lots of practice.

Maybe.

But, I will make this point -- steroids have been a controlled substance in the US since 1990. If Jose Canseco and teammates used these drugs to create the Oakland dynasty of the late 1980s, Avery's argument carries a great deal of weight. Non-US athletes (Dominican players, for example) who use steroids at home in the off-season may also be acting perfectly legally (though now against the rules of baseball).

But if sluggers of the 1990s were using steroids, they were violating US law and that seems different to me than just weight-training or extra practice.

Finley, I would note, is certainly on Avery's side:

"They're [players are] the ones that risk their health," he said. "This is not just about baseball. This is about long-term. This is about your life after baseball. Your baseball life is very short."

Finley doesn't reflect on the evidence that steroid use may shorten one's life.


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Steroids update: Bonds edition

I've blogged about steroids and baseball in the past, but Sports Illustrated today published the most comprehensive story I've yet read detailing allegations about slugger Barry Bonds (708 career homers; ranked #3 all-time).

Given the revelations by Jose Canseco (462; #26), positive test for Rafael Palmeiro (569; #9) and non-denial by Mark McGwire (583; #7)...the home run binge of the past decade or so suddenly looks quite sad, in retrospect.

I'm hopeful that fear of this sort of negative publicity cleans up the game. I would think that the overwhelming majority of players even tempted by steroids would worry about the nasty consequences for their public image -- if caught using. Or, as in the case of Bonds, if facing serious public allegations.

Then again, track-and-field has been fighting this problem for decades, literally. While some evidence suggests this problem goes back a very long time in baseball, the negative publicity (backed with evidence) has really only started to accrue.

I'm looking forward to the 2006 baseball season, but the evidence compiled in the latest story about Bonds made my stomach turn.


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Filed as: Barry Bonds and steroids

Pitt stop

I watched "Troy" on HBO "on demand" last night and it was much better than I expected ("the soft bigotry..." issue). In fact, I stayed up later than I intended just to see the entire thing in one sitting. It helps to have outstanding original material for the story, obviously.

After seeing the film, I have one question: Where does Brad Pitt get those kind of arm and shoulder muscles? He used to be kind of a skinny guy.

I guarantee you that if a baseball player looked like this (that's Pitt in his breakthrough movie, "Thelma and Louise," as J.D., 1991) and then looked like this (as Achilles, 2004)...people would be screaming about steroids.

I stood next to Barry Bonds in Florida during spring training 1987. He looked about like this. I'd guess that he was even then more muscular than Brad Pitt was in 1991. Bonds was about to turn 23 in March 1987, when I met him, while Pitt was 28 in 1991. News flash: they are practically the same age. Pitt is about 7 months older.

Has Bonds gotten significantly bigger than Pitt? Click on those links and decide for yourself.

Or maybe it's time for a congressional investigation of movie stars...


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Starburst?

On Friday, July 15, Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles was on top of the world. On that evening, he registered his 3000th major league hit. Only 25 other men in history have achieved that feat.

Some sportswriters noted that Palmeiro became an immortal on that night. His place in Cooperstown, NY, at the Baseball Hall of Fame was assured. Of course, serious baseball fans would likely say that his place was already secured. After all, Palmeiro hit his 500th home run in early May, 2003. He was only the 19th player ever to achieve that milestone.

Only a few stars have both 3000 hits and 500 HRs, and two of them are considered "inner circle" HOFers: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray.

Today, Palmeiro broke new ground. He became the first star player to be suspended because of baseball's anti-steroid policy. Blogcritics call him a "cheat and a liar."

Fans remember that Palmeiro, after being named as a steroid user by Jose Canseco in the former teammate's bestselling book Juice, looked members of a congressional committee in the eye and denied ever using steroids. Former star slugger Mark McGwire would not do the same.

Today, he repeated those denials. However, he also acknowledged that he had exhausted his appeals and would serve his 10 game suspension.

You know this is serious because Palmeiro already has his apologists, including a minority owner of his former team, George W. Bush:

"He's a friend," the president said in a White House roundtable interview with several Texas reporters. "He's testified in public, and I believe him."

Bush, recall, mentioned the scourge of steroids in the 2004 State of the Union address.

There are others who think Palmeiro's denials could be truthful, though they base their position on science rather than character. From the AP:

The director of Baltimore's Office of Substance Abuse studies says a baseball player could test positive for steroids without knowingly ingesting the drug.

Anthony Tommasello, who's also an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, says substances called prohormones are found in over-the-counter protein supplements.

Tommasello says prohormones could be found in sufficient amounts in protein supplements to trigger a positive test for steroid use.

Saddened by this news, I tried to cheer myself up tonight by watching Bernie Mac in "Mr. 3000."

In that film, a retired former player attempts a comeback to the game because a statistician has learned that he has erroneously been credited with 3 extra hits (a suspended game's stats were double counted). Because "Mr. 3000" had been viewed as selfish, baseball writers refused to admit him to the HOF despite his key credential.

I won't spoil the ending, but will say that at the very end of the movie, the 47-year old former athlete is shown advertising Viagra. Coincidentally, Rafael Palmeiro already spent two years as a spokesman for that performance-enhancing drug.

So I'm left where I started. Will Palmeiro's new image problem ruin his all-but-certain HOF case? We'll have to wait 5 years after he retires to find out.

Steroids update: baseball 2005

The baseball season is a month old and steroids are still dominating the news.

Commissioner Bud Selig has called for a much stricter penalty for those found using performance enhancing drugs. He wants the first offense to cost the user a 50 games suspension and the second offense to be 100 games lost. The third offense would be banishment from the game: "three strikes, you're out."

The union says the current plan is working (the latest suspended player is Twins pitcher Juan Rincon) and no stronger penalty is needed. Since the issue is deterrence, I'm not sure when we'll know whether players are now clean.

Meanwhile, former pitcher and pitching coach Tom House says that baseball players were using steroids and human growth hormone as far back as the 1960s. House's revelation is interesting because many in the media have denigrated the current crop of sluggers compared to the generation that matured when they were younger. Note: House is the guy who caught Hank Aaron's 715th HR ball on April 8, 1974. He was drafted in 1967 and was in the majors by 1971.

Willie Mays played his last season in 1973; Aaron played through 1976; and Frank Robinson through 1976. The career home run list is dominated by guys who played all or part of their careers since 1970. For every 1990s slugger (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro), one can name a 1970s counterpart (those named, plus Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt).

Notice, I've just identified every player in the top 11 career HR list, save Babe Ruth. Number 12 is Mickey Mantle.

House told the SF Chronicle's Ron Kroichick that 6 or 7 pitchers per major league team were on these drugs during his 1970s career:

"I'd like to say we were smart, but we didn't know what was going on. We were at the tail end of a generation that wasn't afraid to ingest anything. As research showed up, guys stopped."

House was listed at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, and he ballooned to 215 or 220 while on steroids.

House claims that the drugs did not add zip to his fastball, but reliever Juan Rincon significantly increased his strikeouts per inning pitched last season.

Want more evidence that this is not a new probelm? Lyle Alzado, the football player who admitted using steroids, started his professional football career after being picked in the 1971 draft. Note this fact: Alzado says he started using steroids at Yankton College, a tiny NAIA school in South Dakota.

Imagine how widespread steroids would have had to have been in sports to reach a tiny NAIA program in South Dakota in the late 1960s.

Behind the iron curtain, the infamous East German women's swim team used steroids to achieve dramatic victories at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic games. Thousands of athletes were drugged, including young teenage girls!

This is a new issue causing the HR burst of the past decade? Hmmmm.

What do the data show? ESPN has been tracking HRs per game. In 2005, teams are hitting 0.955, down from 1.123 last year (which was up from 1.043 and 1.071 in 2002-03). That means teams are hitting only 85% as many this year as they did last year, but note:

1. Cold weather hurts offense and this has been a wet and cold spring in many major league cities. We'll have to monitor these numbers through the summer. I think ESPN is comparing this year's April data to full season data for other seasons.

2. Single season fluctuation of this magnitude isn't that unusual. Go back and compare 1987 leaguewide HR numbers to the three years prior and after. It's a major outlier as the league hit over 700 more HRs in 1987 than in 1986, and then dropped by almost 1300 in 1988!

I'll be following this story as the summer progresses.

Steroids

Sorry, more sports talk.**

I've been reading a little about major league baseball's steroid policy. SABR's Business of Baseball committee has a number of documents related to the March 17 congressional hearing, including a letter from Representatives Tom Davis and Henry Waxman to Commissioner Bud Selig (pdf version). In that letter (html version), the members of Congress take baseball to task for a number of loopholes in the steroid policy. They discuss substances that aren't banned, weaknesses in the testing regimen, etc. Many in Congress want baseball to take this as seriously as the Olympics do.

In terms of my professional interests, one major loophole is lack of transparency in the testing and penalty processes:

In public statements, Major League Baseball representatives have emphasized that players who violate the new policy will be publicly identified and suspended from baseball for ten days. In fact, the details of the new policy reveal that the penalty for a first offense can be either a suspension or a fine of $10,000 or less; that there is no public identification of players who are fined instead of suspended; and that even if players are suspended, the public disclosure is limited to the fact of their suspension with no official confirmation that the player tested positive for steroids. In contrast, the Olympic policy calls for a two-year suspension for a first offense....

In addition, contrary to public statements by Major League Baseball, the policy does not require public disclosure of positive steroid tests. In fact, the policy appears to prohibit such disclosure. The policy states that “the results of any Prohibited Substance testing … shall remain strictly confidential.”[11] In the case of a fine, the policy also states that “any disciplinary fines imposed upon the Player by the Commissioner shall remain strictly confidential.”[12] Under the policy, there appears to be public disclosure only in the case of a suspension, and even then the disclosure appears to be limited. The policy states that “the only public comment from the Club or the Office of the Commissioner shall be that the Player was suspended for a specified number of days for a violation of this Program.”

I'm a fan of public accountability, and people in baseball apparently agree that this could me a mechanism for cleaning up the game.


Commissioner Bud Selig says that the potential for negative publicity will assure that the steroid policy works:

Major League Baseball officials have also indicated that the names of players who test positive for steroids will be disclosed to the public. Commissioner Selig has stated, “The fact that it is announced and everybody in America will know who it is, that’s a huge deterrent … No player wants that.”

Selig's arch-enemy Donald Fehr, head of the Player's Association, agrees. This was in the Boston Globe this week:

"The biggest deterrent is exposure. Once that happens, that costs all kinds of things in the job," Fehr said after meeting with Baltimore Orioles players Tuesday. "There's the reputation issue, there's the question everybody's going to look as to whether or not any statistics that individual put up are legitimate or not -- and that can affect future contract negotiations."

Stars and non-stars appear to agree too. I've seen a lot of quotes from players in the media; allow me to pick just a couple for illustration purposes.

Oakland A's journeyman outfielder Bobby Kielty:

"Right now, the strictest penalty is probably having the names publicized.''

Curt Schilling, star pitcher of the Boston Red Sox.

He said he had no problem with naming names of players who test positive, adding, "No player that isn't cheating has a problem with that. It's very clear now that if someone is a positive, they're done. They might still be able to play after a suspension, but they're forever labeled as a cheater."

The consensus is quite interesting, eh?

Anonymous steroid testing in 2003 yielded 5-7% positive results. Apparently, that's around 90 players. In 2004, only 12 players tested positive.

Baseball responded to the congressional criticism by renegotiating the penalties for positive tests:

Players and owners tentatively agreed Sunday to close at least that loophole and require the suspension of any player who tests positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs....Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations, said Sunday he expects the policy to be changed to "just the straight suspension." Players still need to approve the deal, but Manfred said, "We do have an agreement with (union head Donald Fehr)."

I have not yet learned if the names will be publicized under the new deal.


**Note: I have three of he final four teams in my NCAA tourney bracket.
How'd you do?

Baseball fever

Here's my favorite Globe headline of the week: "Pitchers and catchers report." That link, by the way, takes you to a photo slide show of Red Sox pitchers (and maybe some catchers). Curt Schilling is featured in many, as is new acquisition David Wells.

One outfielder also showed up: 1988 MVP runner-up Mike Greenwell. He finished behind Jose Canseco in that year's award voting, and now thinks that he was cheated. So he's giving some interviews and gaining some publicity.

Given the revelations of this off-season, a lot of baseball fans are having some doubts about their favorite players. In 1987, my first year of rotissiere baseball, I drafted Oakland rookie 1B/3B Mark McGwire in the 24th round. I think we had 10 teams, which would have made him at best the 217th player picked. McGwire went on to hit 49 HRs that season -- and I had a championship team and favorite player (though he didn't completely supplant boyhood hero George Brett and he has been replaced by Jim Thome, who remains active).

Anyway, Canseco fingered Mark McGwire as a steroid user.

Press reports are starting to address this claim. These quotes are from the same article, though I've left out a few paragraphs:

Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan is one of many who have defended McGwire. Duncan, who was on the Oakland A's staff when McGwire broke into the majors and in St. Louis with McGwire retired, knows McGwire as a man who was relentless in his workout habits.

"You look at Mark and he is a specimen of a man and I personally don't think it came from building substances,'' Duncan said. "I think it came from hard work and I think it came from a guy who really nutritionally and physically took care of his body and improved his body.''

On Sunday, McGwire released his strongest statement denying the accusations.

"Once and for all, I did not use steroids or an other illegal substance,'' he wrote. "I feel sorry to see someone turn to such drastic measures to accomplish a personal agenda at the expense of so many.''

Tony La Russa, who managed both players in Oakland for nearly a decade and McGwire in St. Louis, called the allegations a "fabrication'' while interviewed for the "60 Minutes'' segment, a claim he repeated in an article he wrote that appeared in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle.

"Mark McGwire's historic career did not involve the use of illegal or unethical performance-enhancing substances,'' La Russa wrote. "Canseco's credibility has steadily declined to the point of zero.''

I hope this is the truth.