The 'Mitchell Report': corporate & media steroids witch-hunt

On Dec.14, George Mitchell—the former Senate Majority Leader who has served as chairman of the board of the Walt Disney Company and a director of Staples, Inc., as well as a board member of the Boston Red Sox—reported on his “Investigative findings” in the use of steroids in Major League Baseball.

At a Dec. 15 White House news conference, President George W. Bush, former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, praised the Mitchell Report. The corporate media attacked the players smeared by Mitchell as “steroid abusers.”

What’s wrong with this picture? Where have we heard all this before?

Remember the other “War on Drugs”? Capitalist politicians crying crocodile tears over drug use led to hundreds of thousands of men and women from the oppressed communities languishing in jails, while drugs continue to flood those communities.

Remember former Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations with all the “proof” that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” resulting in the destruction of a country purely because it sat on a lot of oil?

Why believe the bosses now? Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig represents the owners. It was Bud Selig who unilaterally selected fellow owner George Mitchell to make this “impartial investigation.”

Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, issued a press release response. Here is some of what he said: “Commissioner Selig named former Sen. George Mitchell to investigate steroid use in baseball. This decision was made unilaterally, without prior consultation with the MLBPA. ...We did request a meaningful opportunity to review this lengthy report prior to today, but the request was denied. ...We must remember that a strong collective bargaining relationship requires mutual respect for the agreements that have been reached.”

The “Mitchell Report” is an owners’ attack on the MLBPA, the baseball players’ union.

Have you seen the enormous size of today’s players in the National Football League, college players and even the many high-school football players who weigh 300 pounds and more?

Steroid use is clearly a bigger problem in a sport like the NFL where only 10 drugs are tested for, unlike the 30 tested for in MLB. Yet all attention is focused on the pro baseball players and almost none on the pro football players.

The difference is that the team owners have never been able to defeat the MLBPA over the course of many strikes and lockouts, while the pro football players’ union was defeated in its one attempt at a strike.

Sports are big business. The owners could not defeat the players at the bargaining table, so the owners, in collaboration with the government and the media, are using the steroids weapon to place the MLBPA on the defensive.

It is laughable that these capitalist pirates claim that they care about “sportsmanship” and a “level playing field.” Sports, “amateur” or “professional,” is just like other industries. It is based upon making profits. The players are the commodities used to increase the bottom line.

The New York Yankees have a player payroll that is triple the payroll of many of their competitors. Where is the “level playing field”? College football and basketball are big businesses, while paying nothing to the players. Is that a symbol of “good sportsmanship” or simple greed?

When teams extort millions of dollars from communities by threatening to move to another city, isn’t that an actual crime? When did extortion become legal and a symbol of “good sportsmanship”?

Football injuries are a much greater health risk than steroid use. Alcohol consumption at a game is a much greater health risk than steroid use. Race car drivers and jockeys face huge risks of injury in every race, whereas steroid use is far down the ladder in comparison. Where’s the severe crisis that requires such an “impartial investigation”?

“Performance-enhancing” drugs, secret training methods, specialized sports equipment, etc., have been used and accepted in sports as a way to gain “an edge” for millennia. Why the out-of-proportion media-driven “crisis” over steroids? Every player and every team tries to “get an edge.” It’s an accepted part of sports.

Every time I watch a baseball game or a football game, for instance, I see players trap balls and try to act like they actually caught the ball so as to fool the umpires and referees. In football, the announcers actually criticize a team for failing to quickly snap the ball, thereby preventing the referees or the other team from challenging the play, when they knew that the catch wasn’t made! Isn’t “cheating” being praised in that instance?

The players involved are the victims, no matter how high their salary. I have written several articles in defense of Barry Bonds. Now I’ll have to add Roger Clemens to that defense, although I can’t put an equal sign between them. The years of racist attacks on Barry Bonds cannot be equated with what has just occurred to Roger Clemens. The two players are similar in age and had similar outstanding careers at an advanced age. There were constant rumors of steroid use by Roger Clemens, yet until now it was only on Barry Bonds at whom the corporate media aimed their fire. That’s racism, pure and simple.

Where is the “impartial investigation” into the lies that brought us the Iraq invasion? Where is the “impartial investigation” into torture of prisoners? Where is the “impartial investigation” of the government response to Hurricane Katrina? How does the health risk of steroid use in baseball rank against those items? Far down the list, yet the corporate media play it non-stop on the news.

This is a witch hunt. With the steroids issue the owners and the corporate media are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

The writer is a former consultant on player evaluation for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos and current delegate of Local 375, AFSCME, to the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO.