gethro

I just got around yesterday to reading the Selena Roberts piece in Sports Illustrated about it revealed a lot about the MLBPA's guilt in this whole thing, especially Gene Orza, the COO: The resistance to steroid testing among union officials was intense. In a panel discussion in March 2004, Orza openly mocked baseball's crackdown on steroids, saying, "I have no doubt that [steroids] are not worse than cigarettes." According to the 2007 Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball, Orza stalled MLB in its attempts to test players for "reasonable cause" and declined to speak with Mitchell Report investigators. In September 2004, according to the Mitchell Report, Orza violated an agreement with MLB and tipped off a player (not named in the report) to an upcoming, supposedly random, drug test. In its statement last Saturday the players' association said, "As we have explained previously, in detail and in public, there was no improper tipping of players in 2004 about the timing of the drug tests." One major league player, however, told SI that he was forewarned by Orza in '04 that he would be tested on Sept. 24, "so make sure there's nothing in your system." Then there are the three players who told SI that Rodriguez was alerted by Orza to a coming test in September 2004, at the end of his first season as a Yankee. so, yeah, I see your perspective entirely. I kind of group them into 'management' because I prefer to look at the debate as the people who committed the acts vs. the people who enabled the acts to be committed.

We considered Players/MLBPA as one institution and management (owners, coaches, and commissioners office) as another. When we broke it down further, it became difficult to cut it off. At first we included, fans, media, coachers, players, Bud Selig, owners, etc.

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