I Want To See Baseball Players In Jail

Yes, you heard it right. I want to see baseball players in jail. Send Barry to Folsom, Roger to Levenworth, LoDuca to Riker’s, and Gagne to whatever the most terrible Canadian jail is (do they even have jails?).

So give me the late pass. I know the Mitchell Report dropped like two months ago, but I am still so bent (read: pissed) that I got to write this article. For those who are not familiar with the “steroid in baseball” scandal, here is a quick primer: In mid-December, Former Senator George Mitchell released a 400+ page document highlighting the endemic use of steroids by baseball players. There have been other reports on steroid use in baseball, but none more comprehensive than the Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report actually names baseball players who are believed to have used performance-enhancing drugs. If you want more specific information on the contents of the Mitchell Report, a quick Google search will led you to the actual report.

I do not really have any beef with the contents of the report. The report, from the section I read, is well-written and facts-oriented. The real problem is with the post-report movement (or lack thereof) by Major League Baseball, the MLB Player’s Union, and law enforcement agencies.

I was listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered” the day the Mitchell Report dropped. An entire segment was dedicated to the Mitchell Report, including an interview of Former Senator Mitchell. The interview was conducted by Robert Siegel, who I think is an even, non-B.S. interviewer. The exchange went as follows:

NPR: You suggested Major League Baseball take a very forward-looking approach to this problem. Why? Why shouldn't it clean house? Why shouldn't it go back to what happened in all those years when it didn't have an adequate policy for dealing with steroid abuse?

Mitchell: Well, first, of course, most of the events described in my report are old, from two to nine years old. At the time they occurred, there was not a penalty for a first violation of the program. Under the law, you have to apply the penalty provisions in effect at the time of the conduct, so for many of them, there isn't any penalty.

Secondly, more than half the players have already left the game. They are beyond the jurisdiction of the commissioner. He doesn't have any authority to discipline them even if he wanted to.

Third, and perhaps more important, everybody has to work together and look forward. To be mired in contentious disciplinary proceedings for months and years will keep everyone focused on the past precisely at the time that they ought to be focused on the future.

NPR: Although, while they may not have been violating Major League Baseball rules – they may have been lacking rules – you say this was illegal use of drugs.

Mitchell: It was. But let me tell you that in the last several years, more than 250 professional baseball players have been suspended publicly because they tested positive in a drug test – most of them in the minor leagues, but many of them in the major leagues. Not one has been prosecuted, even though their names are in the papers as having violated the law.

That's because prosecuting authorities in this country – and I was one of them as a U.S. attorney years ago – focus their prosecutorial resources not on the individual end-user, but on the manufacturers and the distributors of drugs. That's been a public policy in place in this country for many years. And it's a sensible policy. Why should we say that with respect to baseball players, the law should apply differently than it does to everybody else in the country? (emphasis added)

After I heard this exchange between NPR host Robert Siegel and Former Senator Mitchell, I thought, “Wow, for being a former senator and U.S. attorney, this Mitchell guy lives on another planet. He probably thinks Ty Cobb is still playing."

Mitchell’s perspectives on drug prosecutions (and thus his proposed remedies for steroids in baseball) are skewed in the worst sort of way. To be fair, Mitchell has a legitimate point. Law enforcement and prosecutors need to make efficient use of their resources. It does not take a Ph.D. in economics to see that the opportunity cost of busting every dime-and-nickel user is that you are not able to prosecute the one or two big-willy, Pablo Escobar types supplying the streets.

On the flip side, Mitchell takes this “efficiency” argument to vindicate all steroid users while drug users still get popped. At the end of the day, both marijuana and steroids are illegal. Yes, prosecutors would rather spend all their time going after the Tony Montanas of the world, but it is not like the guy who gets caught with a couple of dimes gets off easy. There are millions people in prison nation-wide for low-level, drug-related offenses (crimes of use and possession, not distribution). Someone tell the guy who is in jail because he had a couple of E tabs that the focus of prosecutorial resources is not on the individual end-user.

Do not get my statements twisted. While Mitchell provided recommendations for baseball and society in general to “look forward,” he is not the person gets to decide the fate of the steroid-using baseball player. It is up to Major League Baseball and lawmakers to decide how to punish, if at all, steroid users.

In my humble opinion, if the guy who gets caught with a few grams of cocaine gets six months in jail, so should the guy who gets caught with six needles of Wistrol. I am not advocating excessive punishment against baseball players. I am advocating that we treat all drug users the same.

Baseball has always been the barometer of American society. Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter ever, had his career interrupted twice when he was called to World War II and Korea. The arrival of Jackie Robinson proved to be the catalyst for a new era of civil rights in then segregated America. More recently, baseball joined America’s mourning in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting by allowing Angels’ pitcher Joe Saunders to wear a VT hat during a game. With this steroid scandal looming over the head of our national pastime, baseball is again a “sign of the times.” The steroid era represents certain individuals who mocked the rules of the game, destroyed the sacred records of legendary players, and, most egregiously, flouted the laws of the land.