Now how about a Mitchell Report for every other sport?

I'm still catching up on some of my websurfing from the holidays, so it's just now that I've seen this article from Will Carroll, who says that MLB's drug testing program is the best one out there, though you'd never know it from their own actions.

Bud Selig is right. The drug testing program in Major League Baseball is second to none. I'll include not only the other major American professional sports, but all sports. Pro or amateur, US or foreign, MLB has it right.

What MLB doesn't have right is the public relations angle. It came too late to the party--far too late--and has gotten knocked around for the puritanical sin of making us believe. The cardinal sin in modern America is truly Baum's rule: never let us see behind the curtain. While the NFL talks about undersized 300 pounders and men the size of Frank Thomas playing quarterback, no one's questioning the lack of a prominent drug suspension since the rug-swept Winstrol-fed Pro Bowl season of Shawne Merriman.

Instead, it's easier to hit the guy who's easy to hit, and Bud Selig is easy pickings on the pro sports playground. NBA commissioner David Stern and former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue live to challenge the media, and have stared down Congress on several issues. Selig and his minions--aside from Rob Manfred, who was alone in standing up to Henry Waxman at the 2005 hearings--seem to have "hit me again" stamped on them. However, easily hit doesn't mean Selig's the right target, and on this issue Congress has been dead wrong. It's not just the U.S. Congress, to be sure--Florida funded a statewide high school testing program with the laughable sum of $100,000--but they've been good at grandstanding while doing little.

So when Selig, Senator Mitchell, and others sit in front of Congress this time, hearing calls for blood testing, independent testing programs, increasing the number of substances on the banned list, and an abandonment of due process, I hope Selig stands up and says "I'd be glad to improve my program once every other sport catches up to us, including the Olympics." Baseball's testing program has taken a problem not easily quantified and reduced it from nearly 100 in 2003 to 2 in 2007. I'll hold my breath waiting for the Beijing Olympics to have a similar reduction, but no one expects there to be anything other than similar numbers. The NFL has done nothing to its testing program despite having its faces rubbed in the hGH issue by the Super Bowl steroid scandal involving the Carolina Panthers. The NBA, NHL, even NASCAR and PGA have nothing compared to MLB.

If the problem is one of role models, as many say, then why is Myles Brand, the President of the NCAA, not called on the carpet? The NCAA's testing program is an underfunded joke, with the result that they haven't caught a single Division I football player this season. Why? "We weren't tested," I was told by a Division I player recently. "I never saw them come in once." I asked him when the last time he saw an NCAA tester. "I helped out at a swimming meet last spring and I saw them testing there." The NCAA's policy for most sports is to test the winners; silver medals are fine for cheaters, but not gold. Add in that the NCAA's banned list is significantly shorter than any professional list, and you have a twofold problem of efficacy on top of credibility. Call it cost if you will, but I don't see the Bowl Committees chipping in nearly as much for steroid testing as they do for flower arrangements, logos, or corporate skyboxes.

Just something to keep in mind as the process goes forward. Carroll goes on to note that MLB's regimen is still far from perfect, but given where they are compared to everyone else, they don't deserve nearly the amount of criticism they get.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 03, 2008 to Baseball