1) I have some reservations about owner accountability in the Steroid Era...that is owners knew players took PEDs but not all players did. It seems like players choose to do that and that choice has good and bad consequences. Should owners get credit for the players that did not take steroids? I think not because an owner has to fill out a team and will do so with the best players possible. So one chooses to do steroids. If there is evidence that owners encouraged or gave out roids, then that changes things totally. Owners looked the other way on the issue and while we are one it...

2) Does the MLB Players Association get equal accountability as owners? The quote above seems to show they were aware of it. They are made of the players so they certainly were aware of it. They seemed to also look away too. Again, I dont think they get credit for players not on PEDs because individuals choose.

3) Didnt Clemens want to testify to Congress? I think he was warned about how dangerous this would be and wanted to do it anyway. I dont think he was dragged, but put himself out there.

I think owners should've been questioned about steroids (though I think its a waste of government time and money to look into this) just as the MLBPA leaders and players.

Don't make cut and paste from the last thread all the lies that you have written on here. Again you have no ground to stand on in terms calling anyone a liar. I really think you are projecting, you constantly call other people liars while telling more lies on here then anyone, and you rip Zirin for in yours words "race baiting" yet when ever anyone disagrees with you; you call them a racist. Projecting is a huge issue and I think that you should seek proffesional help, we are all very concerned about your well being.

don't make me cut, and of

Your newest post just proved my point.

When you point out the holes in the trolls argument he simply switches the topic to something that has nothing to do with anything from the previous topic.

Ehh...im not sure how this convo broke out. But I dont know if DZ is a liar (i dont think he is) on this issue rather than either 1) mischaracterized the situation or 2) I may be wrong on the facts. Sorry my questions spawned this back and forth though I'd appreciate responses to the other points. :)

more articles like this please instead of the silliness where you defend anything the williams sisters do just because they happen not to be white.

"However, the real question here is: Why Clemens was dragged in front of Congress in the first place?"

Because Clemens himself prompted it. He felt he could clear his name before Congress. By all appearances, though, he lied and it backfired on him. He arrogantly thought he could manipulate the boys (and girls) of Capitol Hill with his charm and popularity, and did to a point. But he was not in the same boat with McGwire, Sosa, or Palmiero. Those guys were subpoenaed, whereas Clemens initiated the meeting with Congress, and now may do time for perjury.

As for the bigger picture, and why the players rather than the owners? Fair or not, unless you can reasonably assert that owners supplied players with illicit steroids or facilitated the trafficking, they're not going to face questions. For a period, the owners ended up benefitting from juiced up ballplayers, but looking at the supply lines in these stories, the owners did not have to actively support steroid use; the boulder was already rolling.

Remember, too, that Selig did put performance-enhancer testing on the table, but the union slapped him down from the get-go. You could question the earnestness of his endeavor, and perhaps fellow owners gave him no support, but the players kept the drug avenue open.

As for Washington's involvement in the first place, this was grandstanding on Congress's part all the way: making a big stink over an issue that really has little effect outside the world of sport when there were serious problems at hand. That said, Congress did have legal standing to question Selig, owners, or players as they see fit due to MLB's antitrust exemption. I have my own moral issues with that, but those are the rules.

AL - Owners paid guys based on their production, rewarding the juicers, and often adding their suppliers to the team payroll. The issue isn't whether players choose on their own to use - it's whether the owners, with wilfull intent (or at the very least their hands over their eyes and ears) created a system that pressured players to use or give up their careers. Since the owners clearly DID do that . . .

That doesn't mean congressional hearings are needed - but since these guys created a market for steroid users, subsidized the buyers AND sellers, and profited greatly from doing it there ought to be some accountability.

There won't be, but there should be.

DaveM: "The issue isn't whether players choose on their own to use..." I think it should be an issue. If there is a pressure it is from the need/want to make more money - but again i'd say most of the league probably is not on steroids and i'd imagine that the same financial pressures exist for everyone with a ton of players waiting to fill slots from minor league teams. Taking PEDs to be better than one is seems like an individual choice given owners pay for anyone that is good. Same pressure for everyone.

It seems like people choose to take PEDs to be able to get more out of the incentive based sport. Its hard for me to put that systemic flaw on the owners. Putting PED suppliers on the payroll is bad and cannot be ignored. But i'd put some of the PES uses on the MLBPA for living with the issue like everyone else.

... and both should be held responsible, but as Dave points out, it is the players who are getting ALL the flack here.
Will the owners and management who knew what-was-what since the late-1980s, at least, ever be asked by anybody (aside from the very few, like DZ) for "truth" of any sort?
Or do managers and owners always get the benefit of the doubt in this great land of ours, and skate, skate, skate?
They ALL cashed in... shocker! Greed and irresponsibility is shared by all, including most of the fans, of course. But the fans got cashed "on", so to speak. Too many people in love with big muscles I suppose (not to mention the mysteriously shrinking strike zone... but that's another story).

What really bugs me is the proclaimed ignorance of managers such as La Russa, who had a front row seat on the worst perpetrators of this particular larceny.
Unbelievable...
And yet he's allowed to skate, skate, skate... all the way to the HOF, of course... while the list of his former players effectively banned from the HOF seemingly grows by the day...
And I'm an A's fan, still ... only I have something like amnesia for that La Russa era... a blight on A's history.

(And BIG THANKS A.L. and DaveM et al for real responses to this article.)

...that there is something wrong with a fully informed adult taking steroids, HGH, or anything else to supplement their weight training? Why can a pitcher take advantage of new surgery techniques to repair his arm, but if he does anything with a pill or needle he should be burned at the stake in the public square?

Take a look at Tommy John's career stats:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/johnto01.shtml

Prior to his surgery the most games he has won in a season was 16 in '73. After taking the entire '75 season off to recover from his surgery he went to win 20, 21 and 22 games in '77, '79 and '80 respectively. So a modern medical intervention that wasn't available to pitchers of previous generations not only prolonged his career, but appears to have made him better.

Now if there was a way for John to repair his pitching arm with a pill, then why couldn't he use it? Why do we have to demonize athletes for using pills and needles? When you think about it, the surgery techniques being used to try to resurrect pitcher's arms represent more profound technical innovations than a lab created hormone.

My position on this issue is to get rid of drug testing and 100% guaranteed free agent contracts. Let players do whatever they think is necessary to recover from injury and enhance their bodies. Let them disclose what they do at their leisure and pay them according to what they do on the field today and not past performance.

"General managers know if a star player reported to spring training at 185 lbs. one season and 215 the next, and whether that newly added 30 pounds was fat or muscle, or a combination of both."

Really that's your standard? 30lbs in a year? Actually Dave that wouldn't be proof of anything. And if an enlightened owner tried to fire an athlete based on suspicion of steroid use they would be promptly met with protests from players union.

Good point about that. The MLBPA is the most powerful union in sport, and arguably in any field. During the era in question a team could not legally test any player for performance enhancements, and if any team, owner, GM, or manager had publicly refused to sign or negotiate with a player for alleged or admitted steroid use, the players' union could have successfully filed an injunction against that team.

Some or all of the teams and their management had to have known about steroid use, but they had no legal authority to do anything with that knowledge. They were not powerless, but even banding together, they cannot unilaterally instate a policy.

... but I for one do not want my children pumping up on harmful drugs just to make a buck...
So, just write off all professional sports and the Olympics?
I'd like my children, and those of others, to have a chance at these sports, if they're good enough and if it doesn't physically harm them.
Otherwise what's the point here?
What kind of freak show do you guys want?
Gladiators would do the trick, no?
Or better computer games?
Jeez...

Yall - first of all bruce is dave z's bitch. Why else would he post so much? It's hilarious.
But on the more serious stuff: there is another side to the Clemens volunteered to testify meme. Here is a quote from his lawyer:

"Let me tell you what a hypocrite he is," said Hardin, referring to Davis.
"The week before the public hearings we give a deposition. So when they say
Roger demanded a hearing -- he didn't demand a hearing. Everybody finished
their depositions. Waxman [Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat and committee
chairman] is getting a lot of pressure at that stage from the Democrats.
We're going around to all their offices. Nobody wanted a hearing.

"On Friday afternoon [four days before the hearing], Waxman gets the
affidavit from Andy [Pettitte] that has Andy more definite than he was in
his deposition. And in return for that he tells Andy he doesn't have to
testify.

"Then they announce to us at 3 o'clock that Friday, 'Roger can decline to
testify if he wants to and we won't have the hearing. We'll just issue a
majority [Democratic] report. And the minority, the minority [Republican] is
saying to us staff, 'Here is what [Waxman] is going to do. What they're
going to do is hammer [Clemens]. They're going to refer him to Justice.' So
nobody would have heard Roger [if he didn't appear at the hearing].

"So Tom Davis, who I saw on TV last night, comes down to us, calls us aside
and urges us to have Roger testify. And now that son-of-a-bitch is on TV
saying that Roger insisted upon it."

or at least they should. Thank you for calling attention to the elephant in the room...MLB's owners, executives and managers got stinking rich(er) off steroids. And once the joy ride was over they happily threw the players under the bus. Heck No one mentions that the beloved Joe Torre and Tony La Russa seems to have attracted ped cheats like stink to...well something really smelly. Heck King George of the Bronx passes away with hardly a word that his two greatest contributions to the games were 1) altering the financing of the game so stupidly that he gave cover for small and medium market teams to shake tax payers down for new stadiums and 2) every year fielding a contender that was stocked full of roid uses.

Nice job Zirin...keep fighting the good fight.

The comment above about the union threatening an injunction if owners refuse to pay a player using steroids is just really odd to me. That scenario is like when some snide teenager openly confronts his parents about some hypocrisy of theirs. As if it's going to really change anything.

It reminds me of that moment in "There Will Be Blood" when Daniel Plainview quizzes the rival oil tycoons "Oh, and you don't own the railroads too?"

Obviously, there is so, so much that you (every one of you) have NO IDEA about what's going on behind the scenes in baseball. I would guess fans know about less than 10 percent of what actually happens behind the scenes in any sport and it's pointless to cite any insider book released that would prove that because there are too many to choose from.

It's a little asinine to call out one of the few sports writers in the country who chooses to hold owners accountable. Now, Dave, can you maybe share your submissions of informative Arizona stories with the Deadspin leaks, please? This is a huge, huge story about the Pirates, Marlins, etc. Arizona's extremely important too but these Deadspin leaks are like a really big deal too.

A.L. asks:

"Should owners get credit for the players that did not take steroids?"

......................

Wow. Great logic. Should a murderer get credit for all of the people he DIDN'T murder?

Thank you Dave Zirin for holding owners accountable. They own the teams, they get the profits, they hire the GM, they sign off on GM decisions, they should be accountable when the integrity of the game is blemished and when crimes are committed. Remember that taking steroids is against U.S. law. So, while the government getting involved is sad, it had to be done or owners were going to keep looking the other way. And, last I checked, faking ignorance is not a defense morally or legally.