In the past few years a remarkable transformation has taken place in Major League Baseball. In the midst of the 2013 season, in which he won the Cy Young Award, Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Max Scherzer told reporters that players were “tired of guys who blatantly try to break the system” and expressed support for the development of “a fairer system that correctly punishes players . . . so that players don’t feel the need to cheat.”1 Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels, the 2013 American League Rookie of the Year, said, “To me, personally, I think you should be out of the game if you get caught. It takes away from the guys that are working hard every day and doing it all natural.”2 David Hernandez, a pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks, was emphatic: “I think you should be out of baseball. It sounds harsh but at the end of the day you’re making it harder on somebody else who is trying to make it in the game. You’re essentially ending somebody else’s career if you’re cheating and putting up numbers. You should be done. It’s not fair to all of us who have played the game the right way. I think there should be stiffer penalties from the get-go. Apparently 50 games isn’t enough to stop players from cheating. A lot of us feel that way around here. Basically you’re cheating us, the players. Not only the fans, but us, the union.”3 Boston Red Sox infielder Dustin Pedroia and Los Angeles Angels pitcher C. J. Wilson made similar comments.4 Later that year other players were outspoken in their criticism after Jhonny Peralta signed a lucrative contract with the St. Louis Cardinals following a fifty-game suspension for his involvement with the Biogenesis clinic that had been implicated in providing performance-enhancing substances to players.5 The Major League Baseball Players Association acknowledged that players were “disgusted” that some were continuing to use such substances despite years of efforts to eradicate them from the game.6
On March 28, 2014, Major League Baseball and the Players Association announced that they had reached agreement on what they described as the “most significant improvements to the disciplining and testing provisions of the Joint Drug Program since 2006.” Those provisions include the following:
• The number of in-season random urine collections will more than double beginning in the 2014 season (from 1,400 to 3,200). These are in addition to the mandatory urine collections that every player is subjected to both during Spring Training and the Championship Season. This represents the largest increase in testing frequency in the Program’s history.
• Blood collections for hGH detection—which remains the most significant hGH blood testing program of its kind in American professional sports—will increase to 400 random collections per year, in addition to the 1,200 mandatory collections conducted during Spring Training.
• A first-time performance enhancing substance violation of the Joint Drug Program will now result in an unpaid 80 game suspension, increased from 50 games. A player’s second violation will result in an unpaid 162-game suspension (and a loss of 183 days of pay), increased from 100 games. A third violation will result in a permanent suspension from Baseball.
• A Player who is suspended for a violation involving a performance enhancing substance will be ineligible to participate in the Postseason, and will not be eligible for an automatic share of the Player’s Pool provided to players on Clubs who participate in the Postseason. (Such Players are already ineligible to participate in the All-Star Game.)
• Every Player whose suspension for a performance enhancing substance is upheld will be subject to six additional unannounced urine collections, and three additional unannounced blood collections, during every subsequent year of his entire career.
• The Arbitration Panel will have the ability to reduce a Player’s discipline (subject to certain limitations) for the use of certain types of performance enhancing substances if the Player proves at a hearing that the use was not intended to enhance performance.7
• • •
In announcing the agreement, Tony Clark, the executive director of the Players Association, said, “Experience proves that increased penalties alone are not sufficient; that’s why the Players pushed for a dramatic increase in the frequency and sophistication of our tests, as well as comprehensive changes in a number of other areas of the program that will serve as a deterrent. Make no mistake, this agreement underscores the undisputed reality that the Players put forward many of the most significant changes reached in these negotiations because they want a fair and clean game.”8
These statements and actions represent a welcome change from the Players Association’s earlier long-standing opposition to drug testing. Whatever may have occurred in the past, it is clear that the players and their union, to their great credit, are now committed to an effective program with strong penalties for violations. Among other results it has enabled me to again view baseball as I did when I was a young boy growing up in a small town in Maine—not quite as innocent, perhaps, but still with hope for the future.
As far back as I can remember my brothers, my friends, and I played baseball. It started as soon as I could hold a bat and throw a ball: pickup games, Junior League (the rough equivalent of the modern Little League), American Legion summer league. I wasn’t good enough to make the varsity team in high school or college, so I played in a variety of softball leagues, then and later in college and the army.
After playing baseball all day we listened to and talked baseball in the evening. My brothers and most of my friends followed and rooted for the Boston Red Sox, although a few supported the New York Yankees. We all were up to date on the many statistics of baseball: the standings, the batting averages, the pitching records. As with baseball fans everywhere our discussions were endless and inconclusive, especially when the subject was Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio. Although our support never wavered, we agonized over Boston’s close loss to St. Louis in the seventh game of the World Series in 1946 and their rout at the hands of the Cleveland Indians in a one-game playoff for the American League Championship in 1948. As year after year passed without a championship the intensity of our support increased even as our expectations declined.
On many summer days when there was no game or team practice my friend Ron Stevens and I would walk the short distance to the Colby College diamond, where the two of us played our version of a full baseball game. We had one bat, a few old baseballs, and one glove each. He stood at home plate as I pitched the balls to him. After he hit all of them we trotted out to pick them up and continue the game. When he made three outs it was my turn at bat. We called each batted ball: ground out to the second baseman, single to left field, fly out to right field. These were, of course, highly subjective judgments, so there was a lot of debate about each call. On and on we went, through seven innings, which was the usual length of Junior League games. Since there were just the two of us our games took a very long time, often a full morning or afternoon.I
It was not until I was in high school that I got to see my first Major League game. As a birthday present, my brother Paul and his wife, Yvette, took me to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play the Yankees. I was deeply impressed by the size and beauty of the park. I had played in and watched a lot of local baseball games at which the attendance ranged from zero to a few dozen. To be among a crowd of thirty thousand people watching a game was for me an unforgettable experience.
The teams were tied at the end of nine innings. In the top of the first extra inning Joe DiMaggio came up to bat with the bases loaded. After taking a couple of pitches he swung and hit a hard line drive to left field. The crowd leaped to its feet in anticipation, then heaved a collective sigh of relief when the ball veered just outside the foul pole as it cleared the thirty-seven-foot left field wall known to baseball fans everywhere as “the Green Monster.” But we were barely back in our seats when, just two pitches later, DiMaggio hit one harder and longer. There was no doubt this time as the ball sailed out of the park, high over the head of Joe’s brother Dominic, the Red Sox center fielder, for a grand slam home run. In the home half of the inning the Red Sox went down meekly, retired in order. To complete our anguish Ted Williams struck out to end the game. But to me it was still a great day, one I’ll always remember, especially to be able to see both DiMaggio and Williams in my first Big League game.
Paul’s memory of the day is not of the game. He recalls that when we ate before the game, I (then a finicky eater) took so long picking the onions out of my plate of spaghetti that we were almost late getting to Fenway. Aside from the game, what I remember most vividly about the trip is that we stayed overnight at a hotel in Boston; that was an exciting first for me. There was only one bed and it wasn’t very large, so it was a night of close encounters. Paul slept in the middle, and I had only a narrow sliver of mattress on one side. The next morning he complained that I had kept him up all night; he rejected my explanation that I had to hang on to him to keep from falling out of the bed. Not surprisingly, that was the last time Paul took me to a baseball game.
It was a long way from there to the inner sanctum of Major League Baseball. That came much later, on the morning of March 10, 2006. Just as I opened the door the phone rang. I was in Anaheim, California, at a hotel in Disneyland, about to leave for the annual meeting of shareholders of the Walt Disney Company. A large crowd was expected. As chairman of the company’s board of directors I would preside over the meeting, so I didn’t want to be late. My first instinct was to ignore the call, but as the ringing continued I paused; it might be an emergency at home. I picked up the phone.
“Hi George, it’s Bud Selig.”
“Hi Bud, what’s up?”
“I need your help.”
Selig, the MLB commissioner, told me that he was deeply concerned about the problem of the use of performance-enhancing substances by the players. The recent publication of a book on the subject by two San Francisco writers had generated widespread publicity and growing criticism of baseball.9 Selig asked me to conduct an investigation to find out, as best I could, what had happened, and to make recommendations to improve the League’s drug-testing program. He had been pleased at the results of the Blue Ribbon Commission a few years earlier and felt that I could do the job that was needed now.II The Blue Ribbon Commission’s report had a major and positive effect on baseball. Many of our recommendations found their way into the collective bargaining agreement that was entered into between the thirty clubs and the Players Association in 2002. It was the first such agreement reached in Major League Baseball without a work stoppage since 1972, and there has not been a work stoppage since. Clearly Selig was hoping for a similar result on performance-enhancing substances. But there were significant differences in the two situations.
“Bud,” I said, “I’ll be happy to talk further with you about this, but there’s one thing I need to be clear at the outset. This won’t be a committee, like the Blue Ribbon Commission, this will be just me. I’m your friend, but you understand that if I do this I must have complete independence to follow the evidence wherever it leads and to report on what I find, whatever that is.”
“I understand,” he said, “and I agree. You have my commitment that you will have my full support and total independence.” Neither he nor I could know then what I would find, conclude, or report. But, to his credit, he never wavered in those commitments.
It took several lengthy meetings to work out the details. I was retained by the commissioner and in turn retained the law firm of which I was then chairman, DLA Piper. I put together a formidable team, led by three of the most able lawyers I have ever met: Charlie Scheeler headed up the investigation, John Clarke was assigned to draft the report, and Peter Pantaleo served as my principal advisor. When the commissioner announced my appointment at a press conference at MLB headquarters in New York on March 30, 2006, we hoped that we could complete our work by the end of the year.
Within days of the announcement our optimism vanished. We still thought we could finish by the end of the year, but we no longer knew which year. It quickly became clear that the players’ union was surprised and upset by the commissioner’s decisions to have an investigation conducted and to appoint me to head it. Our research made clear that baseball and drugs went back a long way, and the issue created animosity between the club owners and the commissioner, on one hand, and the players and their association, on the other.10
Although I anticipated the union’s negative reaction to my appointment and to the investigation, I was surprised to learn, through a few public and many private comments, that some owners and even some officials within the commissioner’s office also were opposed to the investigation. Selig had acted despite the negative views of the Players Association and contrary to the views of some of the owners. It was courageous of him, but it didn’t bode well for me and my colleagues. Lacking subpoena power, we could not compel the cooperation of witnesses or the production of documents. How were we supposed to conduct a meaningful inquiry and submit a credible report when all of the players and some of the owners were opposed to the investigation?
We began by reaching out as broadly as possible:
• I initiated a dialogue with the Players Association.
• We initiated an effort to establish a baseline of usage, based on existing data from players’ preseason physicals, without identifying any individual players.
• We attempted to make contact with the players, current and former, who had been publicly implicated in the BALCOIII scandal, and their attorneys.
• We tried to engage with all current players.
• We reached out to the federal prosecutors who were handling the criminal investigation of BALCO.
• We began to conduct interviews with officials from each of the thirty clubs, including owners, general managers, managers, coaches, trainers, and other club employees.
I went directly to the head of the Players Association. I had met Don Fehr, its executive director, when, at the request of the U.S. Olympic Committee, I chaired a commission investigating allegations of impropriety and corruption by members of the International Olympic Committee in connection with the selection of Salt Lake City as the site for the Winter Olympic Games in 2002.11 Fehr, who had been active in Olympic matters for many years, was a member of the commission. We worked closely together, along with the other commission members. I liked and respected him and had the impression that the feeling was mutual. Our several discussions on the baseball investigation were cordial but unproductive. He and the players were upset that Selig had not consulted with them about the investigation or about my being chosen to head it. He insisted that the Players Association had come a long way from its initial opposition to drug testing in any form, and he emphasized that the owners had not pushed hard for tougher testing in the collective bargaining process. I responded that, while any conclusions were necessarily preliminary and tentative, based on the many estimates I was aware of it appeared that a minority of players were users. The Players Association had an obligation to all of its members, including the majority who did not use performance-enhancing drugs and who, as a result, were faced with the unacceptable choice of using or of being placed at a competitive disadvantage. He never explicitly rejected that argument, but he emphasized his obligation to all players, including those about whom as yet unproven allegations might be made. He never declared that the Players Association and its 1,200 members would not cooperate in the investigation, but that’s the way it turned out. The Association subsequently rejected my requests for relevant documents and urged the players to refuse to talk with me.
One of the first questions I encountered after accepting this assignment was “How big a problem is steroid use in baseball?” Major League Baseball had been able to start random drug testing in the minor leagues in 2001 because the approval of the Players Association was not required, but the Association always had resisted testing at the Major League level. In August 2002, however, under enormous public pressure, the MLB clubs and the Players Association had reached a collective bargaining agreement for the years 2003–6. For the first time this agreement included a form of mandatory random drug testing. Drug testing beyond 2003 was not automatic under the agreement. The “survey testing” that was conducted in 2003 was anonymous. Despite the fact that the players knew in advance there would be tests, enough players tested positive to trigger mandatory drug testing for the 2004 season and beyond.
I reached out to many experts in the field, most of whom expressed the view that steroid use was much higher than these figures suggested. The point made most frequently was that the survey test was meaningless because the players had known about it in advance, and even then many of them had tested positive. Some also cited the case of Marion Jones, the track and field star, which became public at about this time, and other cases, to demonstrate that athletes could pass tests and yet still be illegally using steroids.IV I learned during the investigation that no drug-testing program, no matter how well administered, can be expected to catch all cheaters. Many athletes and their advisors have become very skillful at evasion, and people are always creating new and—at least for a time—undetectable substances.
In an interview with a member of my staff, a cooperative club physician stated that every player is required to take a comprehensive physical each year at the beginning of spring training. These physicals include blood tests. We then spoke with a number of experts in endocrinology and learned that there are a number of markers, such as changes in cholesterol levels, that can be telltale signs of anabolic steroid use. (These markers would not, however, detect the use of human growth hormone, hGH.) Alone these markers were not sufficient to establish that a particular player used steroids. But, we wondered, could the aggregated data from the thousands of physicals conducted since the beginning of the so-called steroid era provide a reliable estimate of overall steroid use in baseball over time? If it could, that would be extremely helpful in developing recommendations to improve the drug-testing program. We could estimate the size of the problem, which would allow us to appropriately scale the proposed remedies. And we would not need to identify individual users to do so. We also could determine the effect of drug testing on overall use. Was drug testing reducing drug use? As simple as the question seems, no one knew the answer.
I retained Dr. James Heckman, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago who is an expert in constructing statistical studies from huge amounts of data. He told me that, with assistance from an expert endocrinologist, he likely could develop reasonably accurate estimates of overall steroid use in the MLB on a year-to-year basis. To do so he would use a process called latent variable analysis.V I knew Heckman was the right man for the job. In 2000 he was the co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Award in economics for his work on latent variable analysis.
There had never been a study like this conducted in any sport. The results would not only be important for baseball, but they could provide a window into how prevalent illegal steroid use was in all competitive sports. Such a study would have been an important milestone for years to come.
But major hurdles remained. Federal and state medical privacy laws prevent the disclosure of medical records, such as the players’ physicals, without the consent of the patient. And the patients would not give their consent. Without that, the clubs could not provide the information.
For months we worked with the Players Association, the clubs, and the Commissioner’s Office to solve this problem. We proposed that all of the medical data would be “de-identified”; in other words, before Heckman’s team would see any data, the players’ names and all other identifying information would be removed by a separate group of experts who would have no involvement in the data analysis. We agreed that under no circumstances would any individual player be named as a steroid user as a result of this study, an issue of great importance to the players and their union. But the Players Association refused to waive its members’ rights under the privacy laws; as a result we could not get agreement to proceed from the Association or from the clubs. After months of negotiations we had to abandon the project.
This was my second biggest disappointment in the investigation, the first being the uniform refusal of current players to talk to me. It was not without irony. Since we could not reliably estimate overall use on a basis that did not require the identification of individual players, we had to rely even more on evidence of illegal use by individuals. This ultimately led to the identification and publication of the names of over eighty players for whom we developed credible and compelling evidence of use. Prior to the publication of my report I had many discussions with the leadership of the Players Association, and others, before making the difficult decision to name these players in the report. The Association strongly urged me not to name any players, but after receiving and considering a wide range of advice, I concluded that was not an acceptable course of action. If I had been able to receive reliable estimates of overall use from Heckman’s study, it is possible that I would not have had to name individual players.
On April 27, 2006, I sent identical letters to attorneys representing four current and three former players who had been publicly named in allegations relating to the BALCO investigation, asking for several categories of documents. In compliance with the requirements of the collective bargaining agreement between the clubs and the players, I sent to the Players Association contemporaneous copies of the letters that were sent to the attorneys for the current players. The Players Association insisted on receiving copies of the letters to the former players as well. When I declined to do so the Association sent an email to players and agents advising them that our investigation was not following the rules for dealing with players as outlined in the collective bargaining agreement. That assertion was wrong. Former players are not members of the Association (or of the players bargaining unit), so the Association has no right to be included in communications with those individuals. But the message to current and former players and agents was clear: Don’t cooperate with Senator Mitchell’s investigation.
Over the next few months we sought repeatedly to communicate directly with all active players, within the constraints imposed by the Basic Agreement, to encourage their cooperation with the investigation. I wanted to make to them directly the argument I had made, unsuccessfully, to their representatives at the Players Association: that the majority of players who abide by the rules are the principal victims of the minority of players who cheat. In September 2007, after extensive negotiations with the Association about the terms under which such a communication would be permitted, I received consent to send a memorandum to all active players, but only on the condition that it be accompanied by a memorandum from the Association.
My memorandum was dated September 6, 2007, and was distributed to all current players shortly thereafter. It read, in part:
I have been retained by the Commissioner of Baseball to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged illegal use of performance enhancing substances in Major League Baseball. I have pledged to conduct an investigation and to complete a report that is independent, thorough, and fair. I believe it’s in your interest to help me achieve those objectives.
The illegal use of performance enhancing substances is a serious violation of the rules of Major League Baseball which directly affects the integrity of the game. The principal victims are the majority of players who don’t use such substances.
• • •
The memorandum from the Players Association warned the players about the perils of cooperating with me. It suggested the possibility of criminal prosecution of individual players for the use of such drugs, even though no player has ever been so prosecuted, before or since, even the many who have publicly admitted such use. The memo from the Association had its plainly intended effect: an almost total lack of cooperation by players with the investigation. Of the 1,200 players who received these memoranda, only two spoke to me voluntarily.VI
In our review of public information we learned that several players had expressed their concern about the use of steroids. These outspoken players were “clean” and above suspicion. I asked to meet with all of them; I wanted to get their views directly and to learn more about their careers. As required by the Basic Agreement, I wrote to the Players Association asking to meet with these players. I was deeply disappointed by the response: all but one declined to talk to me. These were, after all, players who had been publicly outspoken against the use of steroids in baseball, and even they refused to talk to me.
The one who did talk with me was Frank Thomas, twice voted the Most Valuable Player in the American League and later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. When I spoke with him he was with the White Sox, so we met in Chicago in October 2007. There were no dramatic revelations; he conditioned his willingness to meet with me on the understanding that he would not identify other players. But he did express his views and he answered my questions. Although he would not name names, he was otherwise direct and forthright. He was clear in his belief that the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball was widespread and that it had an adverse effect on him and other players who did not use them. He was proud of his record and of the fact that he had compiled it the “hard way.” To him it was a question of fairness. He didn’t cheat, but he had to compete with players who did. Thomas supported the drug-testing program as a way of curbing the use of performance-enhancing drugs. I had been impressed by his athletic ability before I met him; after our meeting I was even more impressed by his integrity.
Another active player, about whom we received allegations of the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs, requested an interview, which he attended accompanied by his wife and his personal lawyer. During the interview he told me that the Players Association had urged him not to cooperate with me, but after talking with his wife and consulting his personal lawyer he decided to ignore that advice. He admitted that he had obtained performance-enhancing drugs but provided persuasive evidence, which we were able to independently verify, that he had not used them. He was not named in the report as a result.
Shortly after my appointment was announced I placed telephone calls to three men in San Francisco. The first two were Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the journalists who had written the book Game of Shadows that had generated so much publicity and concern about the use of performance-enhancing substances in Major League Baseball. I was disappointed that they refused to talk to me. I had more success with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. That office had jurisdiction over the cases that arose from allegations that BALCO had supplied performance-enhancing drugs to numerous MLB players and other professional athletes. Scott Schools, the U.S. attorney, agreed to talk with me. I offered to travel to San Francisco, but he told me that he would be in Boston in the near future and suggested we meet there. A few weeks later, over breakfast at a restaurant overlooking the Boston Common, we had a pleasant and productive discussion. I told him that, having been a U.S. attorney myself, I had at least some idea of the pressure he was under in a case that had generated so much publicity. I assured him that I would not say or do anything that might in any way hinder or jeopardize his investigation. My investigation was private and civil and had to be subordinate to his, which was public and criminal. I pledged that I would honor his requests in that regard. At the same time, I said, our investigations had at least some overlapping objectives and there might be opportunities down the road for cooperation that could enhance both. He agreed to further discussions, and I had a good feeling as we parted.
I immediately made plans to travel to San Francisco to meet with the assistant U.S. attorneys who were handling the BALCO cases. Matt Parrella and Jeff Nedrow are experienced and able federal prosecutors. Our common backgrounds—mine as U.S. attorney for Maine and then as a federal judge, Charlie Scheeler’s as an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore—served as a basis for what proved to be the most important meeting of the several hundred we held during our investigation. Parrella and Nedrow appreciated our deference to their investigation and recognized the existence of some parallel interests. Importantly, they also introduced us to Jeff Novitzky, a federal agent; he and Charlie bonded quickly and, with Parrella, served as the point men in the cooperation that developed. They introduced us to Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee, both of whom admitted to distributing performance-enhancing drugs to major league players. Without their cooperation and participation, our investigation would have produced far less than it did.
Our meetings with those important witnesses, and the information they provided, are set forth in detail in our final report.12 We also obtained a great deal of information from the more than seven hundred interviews we conducted of persons, almost all of them men, involved in every aspect of professional baseball, from former players to clubhouse attendants and executives at all levels. Much of it was general; some of it was helpful, some unhelpful; and some of it plainly false. Several club officials, former players, and managers had made strong, negative public statements about drug use, but when we talked with them, almost without exception they recanted or modified their statements, claimed they were misquoted, or claimed to forget entirely their prior public statements. Others, some of whom had spent years, even decades in baseball, claimed to have been unaware of any aspect of the subject before their interviews, despite the enormous publicity that had occurred. A few actually said that they had never before heard or read anything about the subject of steroids in baseball and first learned about the issue from our questions!
Radomski and McNamee, by contrast, provided direct, eyewitness testimony and, in some cases, documents (canceled checks, receipts, letters, etc.) to corroborate their testimony. From emails we received in response to our many document requests to the clubs, we were able to verify that some clubs were aware of, or highly suspected, substance use by some of the players that Radomski identified. Several club executives openly discussed use by players they were evaluating (and in some cases went on to sign up for their team).
On the snowy afternoon of December 13, 2007, I released the report of our investigation at a press conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York. There were hundreds of reporters present, and a bank of dozens of television cameras was arranged in the back of the room. Along with my team, I was joined by Richard McLaren, a law professor and a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and Dr. Gary Green, a professor of medicine at UCLA who studies the use and detection of performance-enhancing substances, both highly regarded experts in their fields.
I concluded that for more than a decade there had been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by MLB players in violation of federal law and baseball policy. The evidence we uncovered indicated that it was not an isolated problem involving just a few players or a few clubs. Each of the thirty clubs had players who used such substances at some time in their career. Club officials routinely discussed the possibility of substance use when evaluating players. The response by baseball had been slow to develop and was initially ineffective. For decades, citing concerns for the privacy rights of players, the Players Association had opposed mandatory random drug testing of its members for steroids and other substances. But in 2002, under public and congressional pressure, the effort gained momentum after the clubs and the Association adopted a mandatory random drug-testing program. While that program was effective in reducing the detectable use of steroids, the use of human growth hormone had risen because it was not detectable through urine testing.
The report outlined the substantial information we had uncovered regarding the use of steroids and human growth hormone by MLB players. Much of that information came as the result of the cooperation of Radomski, McNamee, and other witnesses, including former players. More information was gained as the result of our other efforts, including interviews of active coaches and club personnel. While I was criticized by the Players Association for naming players who had used illegal substances, I made it clear in the report that I did so only where I had credible and compelling evidence, including in some cases eyewitness testimony or corroborating documents.
While much of the press coverage of the report focused on the players who were identified, my recommendations for reform were the heart of our efforts. I suggested improvements to the joint drug prevention and treatment program that is part of the Basic Agreement between the clubs and the Players Association, including requiring periodic reports of aggregate testing activity, making the joint program more independent, increasing the frequency of testing, and improving the collection process to ensure effective testing. I also recommended that the commissioner more aggressively investigate evidence of use or possession of prohibited substances, especially by establishing a department of investigations that would be charged with this task. Other recommendations were improvements in drug education; random, unannounced testing of clubhouse personnel; and the establishment of a hotline for reporting anonymous tips. The commissioner announced that he would adopt immediately all of my recommendations that were not subject to the collective bargaining process. Later the Commissioner’s Office and the Players Association agreed to changes to the joint drug program that incorporated most of the remaining recommendations.
Looking back years later, the most important recommendation I made may have been the establishment of a department of investigations within the Commissioner’s Office to gather evidence of substance use from sources other than drug tests. That department’s work led to suspensions arising out of the Biogenesis clinic matter, which became public in 2013. Thirteen MLB players were suspended for the use of prohibited substances they received from that Miami clinic. As I’ve noted, one of the most fundamental lessons is that drug testing is not a foolproof detection method: it’s more of an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between the cheaters, their enablers, and those who use science to try to prevent cheating. With this new investigative capacity, MLB has another powerful weapon in its enforcement arsenal.
Some social problems persist, despite laws and other efforts to prevent them. Every society has laws prohibiting crimes, but no one expects an end to crime; it is a serious problem that must be aggressively punished and deterred. So it is with the use of performance-enhancing substances in sports. There will continue to be those in sports who want so badly to gain a competitive edge that they are willing to cheat, and there also will continue to be those who see profit in meeting that demand. As the money offered to premier athletes continues to rise rapidly, the risk-reward ratio skews increasingly to more risk taking. All sports, not just baseball and not just professional, face a serious and continuing challenge. To its credit Major League Baseball, after a halting initial response, has moved vigorously to meet the challenge. For that, Commissioner Selig deserves great credit. Credit also should go to the players and their Association; after decades of resistance and delay, they have come to understand that their interest lies in a strong, effective, and fair program of testing and vigilance to limit the use of performance-enhancing substances to an absolute minimum. I am heartened by the fact that more players than ever are speaking out against steroid use, and I am hopeful that the tide is turning against substance use in baseball and other sports.
Since the day my report on drugs and baseball was released the question I’ve been asked more often than any other is this: “Given what you’ve learned, do you still like baseball?”
In the past few years I have learned a lot of unpleasant facts, but I’m as much a fan now as I ever was. During the season the box scores of the previous evening’s games are the first thing I turn to in the morning paper. It was inevitable that I and most other fans would be saddened and disturbed to learn of the extent of performance-enhancing drug use in baseball. As in business, politics, the arts, and the professions, indeed in virtually every aspect of life, learning that our childhood heroes are fallible humans is disillusioning. As we grow up, we get over our disappointment and we understand this as just another example of the enormous complexity of life. We come to terms with the reality that we all are fallibly human. Each of us will, throughout our life, make some mistakes and bad decisions. At the age of ten life seems simple and clear. By the age of forty the contrary realization has long been obvious.
That knowledge frees us to sit in the stands on a warm summer evening, preferably with our children, taking in the sights and sounds of a great spectacle. The contrast of the deep green grass of the outfield and the white lines set on the reddish brown dirt of the infield; the ease and fluidity with which a small group of enormously talented men run and throw and catch a small, hard, white ball; the power and precision of a pitcher throwing a ball ninety-five miles an hour to a predetermined point sixty and a half feet away; the almost superhuman reaction of the batter, who has a fraction of a second to decide whether or not to swing; the electric crack as the ball meets a bat swung quickly and with stunning power; and the sudden roar as forty thousand fans jump as one to their feet.
You stand, cheering and clapping, as does your son. With a big smile on his face he turns, high-fives you, and then gives you a big hug. You hold on, longer than you should, because you know that soon he will be slipping away from you, and a moment like this may never recur. There’s not a word or a thought about drugs. My answer is yes, I still love baseball.
I. One summer day, while playing baseball, Ron’s life changed. I was pitching and he was catching for our team. A foul tip struck his throwing hand and dislocated his right index finger. Late that night he suffered his first epileptic seizure. We spent so much time together that I was instructed by his parents and his doctor how to respond when he had a seizure in my presence. I loved him so much that I found unbearable the thought that I might have contributed to his condition by throwing the pitch that dislocated his finger. But I was reassured by his father that there was no way of knowing whether there was any relationship between the dislocated finger and the seizure. Advances in medical science enabled Ron to control his epilepsy through a program of drugs created for that purpose. He went on to a successful life in business. Although our paths diverged and we saw less of each other later in life, he remained the best friend anyone could ever have.
II. In 1999 Selig appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to evaluate the economic structure of Major League Baseball and to make recommendations to improve competitive balance in the sport. I was one of four independent commissioners; the others were Richard Levin, then the president of Yale University; Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; and George Will, the author and syndicated columnist. When the report was completed I was asked to present it at a news conference. The Report of the Independent Members of the Commissioner’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics, July 2000.
III. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was then at the center of a widely publicized investigation of the use by Major League baseball players and other athletes of illegal performance-enhancing substances.
IV. The Lance Armstrong case broke years later and provided dramatic affirmation of this point.
V. Latent variables, also known as hidden variables, are variables that are not directly observed but can be inferred from the presence of other variables through mathematical models. In this case steroid use, although not directly observed, could be inferred from the presence of other health-related data documented in the records of the players’ annual physical exams.
VI. In May 2007 Jason Giambi publicly admitted that he had used steroids and that he had been wrong for doing so. This admission, which was consistent with earlier reports that he had admitted such use before the BALCO grand jury, created the possibility of discipline by the Commissioner’s Office. Instead, the Commissioner’s Office, Giambi, and the Players Association agreed that he would be interviewed by me. But they also agreed that I could not ask him to identify any other player about whom he had knowledge of illegal use.