I have been speaking out against performance enhancing drugs for years. With the release of the Mitchell Report, I find it necessary to say a few more things. First, I am not pleased that my profession is being dragged through the mud by guys like Brian McNamee and Greg Anderson. These two, and some others like them, cast a shadow over the rest of us who are training ball players the right way.

   McNamee appears to have some educational credentials to be a personal trainer, although he is not a CSCS or ATC. Anderson, on the other hand, is nothing more than your garden variety muscle head. His main credential was "friend of Barry."

   According to the Mitchell Report, when Anderson met with Giants officials, he identified himself as a "strength weightlifting guru'' and later provided a one-page document showing he had graduated from high school, with additional information "pending.''

   The report further stated that Anderson's resume did not reveal, and Giants officials were unaware of, any education or expertise that Anderson might have that would qualify him to train a professional athlete.

   Both the National Athletic Trainers' Association and National Strength & Conditioning Association released statements this past week to clarify their roles both in the training of athletes and opposition to the use of illegal, performance enhancing drugs. Individuals holding either of these credentials are expected to uphold these standards.

   If you were to visit either of these organization's web sites, http://www.bocatc.org/ (athletic trainers) or http://www.nsca-cc.org/ (strength coaches) you will learn much about the stringent requirements for obtaining, and retaining, certification. Included are professional standards of conduct. You will not find authority for either of these legitimate health care professionals to dispense medications. More on this later.

   It is well-established that ball players can enhance their on-field performance with appropriate conditioning and nutrition. Drugs are not required for one to make excellent progress. Yet even while taking banned substances, hard training is required. What these drugs do (steroids, HGH, and the like) is essentially speed up the physical development process, often taking the human body beyond the bounds nature intended. Injuries, including some referred to as "steroid injuries" often result. Drugs are a short-cut that also introduce negative health consequences, to say nothing of the legal and moral issues involved.

   Click here to read Dan Naulty's sad story of how steroid use affected not only his health and life, but that of others. 

   I listened to a radio interview of C.J. Nitkowsky, a former Nationals pitcher who had hired McNamee for training. He defended McNamee, saying he’s not the kind of guy to suggest performance-enhancing drug use to players. But, if a player were determined to use them, McNamee would advise them on their use so “they could do it right.” The interviewer asked Nitkowsky why McNamee didn’t refuse to work with clients who wanted such drugs. Nitkowsky’s reply was something about how working with a guy like Clemens is a big deal career-wise for a strength coach, and he couldn’t turn down an opportunity like that.

   Well, he could have. He could have insisted that his clients sign something like the following:

“I hereby state that I will not take any substance that is illegal or banned by my sport’s governing body (such as Major League Baseball). Doing so will be grounds for immediate termination of my working, professional relationship with ___________.”

   Too bad he didn’t – he might still find employment in the profession. The New York Daily News reported last May that Clemens had fired McNamee. I wonder what McNamee thinks about his career options now.

   ESPN columnist Buster Olney wrote a scathing denunciation of the Mitchell Report (click here). He states, “The report is almost wholly absent of a direct examination and assessment of how the decisions of Don Fehr and Bud Selig led us to where we are today.”

   Among the questions Olney asks:

• Why did baseball not act decisively after the sport's first steroid scandal, around Jose Canseco, during the 1988 World Series? Why did the owners and union leaders do nothing?· In a 1995 article in the Los Angeles Times, Selig made reference to a meeting in which owners discussed steroids. What was said, specifically, in those meetings? What were owners saying about the change in size in bodies?
  
• Why was it that when Kevin Towers spoke out loud in the spring of 2005 about how executives in the game had known for years about steroid use, he was admonished by baseball executives? Why did Selig issue a public gag order on executives on the issue of steroids? In fact, there is no mention of Towers' statement in the report.
  
• There is virtually no information within the report about the players' union deliberations and conversations about steroids during the mid-'90s. Where was Fehr? Where was Orza? What were they saying and doing?
  
• The commissioner had full autonomy over the minor leagues and could have implemented drug testing at any time. So why did it take 13 years after the Canseco scandal to do so?

   Olney’s pointed remarks demonstrate the substantive holes in the Mitchell Report. As Thoreau once said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” I submit Olney is closer to the root than is Mitchell.

   But really folks, what did we expect? Mitchell is an attorney, former politician, Red Sox board member, and “friend of Bud.” What we got was fairly predictable.

   HGH For Injuries?

   To those players, such as the Yankees’ Andy Pettitte, who claim their HGH use was about trying anything possible to aid their re-hab from injury, I ask, “Why didn’t you go to your team physician for your HGH?” It is clearly inappropriate professionally, as well as illegal, for a strength coach to dispense medication.

   These guys all know this, of course. Injured MLB players, particularly front-liners like Pettitte, have access to the best medical care available. Yet he chose to obtain HGH from a guy like McNamee. Then, when his name is exposed, and ONLY then, Pettitte fesses up with his weak “injury recovery” defense.

   Frauds Beget Frauds

   Selig and Fehr are both equally culpable in this steroids/HGH mess. Why? Because if they REALLY wanted to stop drug abuse in it’s tracks – I mean RIGHT NOW – among the things they could do is simply require all professional players to submit one or more of the following: a urine, blood, or hair sample. Whatever the experts, like WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), recommend. Click here for WADA’s take on the Mitchell Report.

   These samples could be properly stored for as long as they are viable (2 years? 3 years?) with players submitting new ones as required by current, state-of-the-art drug detection methods and procedures. Later on, when a reliable HGH test is developed, these samples could then be tested by a competent independent agency NOT affiliated with MLB.

   The key, of course, is that any player who subsequently tests positive receives, retroactively, the maximum penalty, along the lines of what Olympic cheats undergo. A two year banishment from their sport with all of their records and awards stripped from them. Players who are clean will have nothing to worry about.

   Of course, MLB might just have some worries using this approach, what with the potential of having a few dozen of its star players out of commission for a couple of years, probably playing in some foreign league to keep their skills intact for their expected return to MLB. Sort of like what the NFL’s Ricky Williams did.

   This is hardly the ideal solution, of course. Are there “right to privacy” issues under such a system? Yes. Olympic style testing has not eliminated cheating, but it has, unquestionably, reduced it. Imagine the Olympics using MLB’s lame testing system. Now imagine MLB using the Olympic testing model. Until MLB institutes something with real bite, it will be business as usual with the cheaters. Word is that Selig and Fehr will be meeting in early ’08 to discuss “improvements” to the current testing system. We shall see.

   What’s strange about all of this is that the MLB player’s union appears to think it is somehow serving their players by being so intransigent on the matter of testing. I wonder what Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire think about how their union is working for them these days.

   While the player’s union would be unlikely to go along with this approach (until forced to, by Congress?), Selig should be savvy enough to use that fact against the union. He could propose something like the above, and the minute the union opposes it, say, “See? We’re trying, but those guys are not cooperating!”

   Such an approach can only increase pressure from the public and Congress on the union to make needed reforms – if that’s what’s really wanted. Selig’s failure to do something like this makes me question his motives. I heard Selig, on the radio, reply to a question about how the Mitchell Report might affect MLB. His reply was what I took as a dismissive comment about how this too, shall pass, and next year they’ll likely break the attendance records set this year.

   If that’s the only point to MLB, making money, then Selig’s probably right. And if this is ownership's primary criteria in judging Selig's performance, we're in for more of the same, at least for the near term. Nothing substantive will change. MLB players will continue to produce inflated numbers, and its credibility will continue to suffer.

   Numbers & Rules

   Many may ask, “What’s the big deal?” with all this attention to drugs and MLB. After all, it appears that no one much cares about the unnatural physical specimens routinely found on NFL playing fields. I say it’s a big deal for two reasons.

   The first is because of the nature of the game of baseball. It is, essentially, a game of failure. It’s 9 players (defense, with the ball) against one (the batter). The team or player who fails the least generally wins. In what other sport will a success rate of only 30% qualify you for its Hall of Fame?

   Because of this, baseball tracks its numbers carefully. With all of this “failure,” you’ve got to find something positive. So, as a baseball hitter, history tells us that failing 7 times out of 10 is actually a pretty good level of performance, and not many attain it. After all, we are told, hitting a 90 mph fastball is the single hardest thing to do in all of sports.

   So baseball tracks its numbers, and these numbers are used to evaluate performance, more so than in any other sport. We fans ascribe a level of honor to the few players who attain certain standards. Standards that are perceived to be obtained naturally, not distorted by drug use. Even casual fans of baseball could probably tell me what some or all of the following numbers mean:

   300

   56      

   3,000      

   500      

   755 (admittedly, a number much in the news of late)

   Still not sure about this? Then tell me - what are the equivalent numbers in football or basketball? What’s the NFL career record for rushing touchdowns? Who holds it? Same for basketball – who is the career NBA points leader? How many points did he score? It’s just not the same as with MLB’s numbers.

   Consider what former pitching great Goose Gossage says about MLB statistics:

   "If Roger cheated, what do his numbers mean?" Gossage told the Bergen (N.J.) Record last week. "They mean nothing."

   Gossage believes four of Clemens' seven Cy Young Awards are suspect. He sees records trashed like toilet paper and becomes angry.

   "There's too much at stake here, too much history, too many great players whose numbers pale in comparison to the steroid numbers," said Gossage.

   The second reason this matters is more obvious – it’s about enforcing rules. What’s the point of having rules if you’re going to look the other way when they’re broken? This only promotes more cheating, and certainly sends the wrong message to any player who aspires to become a big-leaguer some day. For the numbers to matter, and for the rules to matter, MLB has to do all that it can to foster a “level playing field” and those found to have violated the rules must be penalized in some meaningful way.

   Time for An * ?

   The well-intentioned, but essentially toothless Mitchell Report leaves some unresolved issues, not the least of which is, “What do we do about all of it?” My suggestion is this: an asterisk next to any player’s name who participated in what is considered to be “The Steroid Era.”

   For baseball’s numbers to mean anything, some perspective has to be introduced. Without steroids, I highly doubt any player approaches 70 home runs in a season again. Alex Rodriguez, presumed to be un-enhanced by drugs, may break Barry Bond’s tainted career home run record, but he has never threatened the 70 in-a-season-mark, and probably never will.

   So let the “records” stand, but with an asterisk. An asterisk perhaps penalizes innocent players, which is unfortunate, but it also introduces some perspective. This way, future generations can know more about how a bunch of guys distorted the record books with artificially inflated numbers of home runs hit, and how more players were able to perform at older ages than previously seen, enabling them to add to their career statistics and pad their bank accounts in the process.

   Everyone will know why two particular guys had 70+ home run seasons, and it really wasn't because they were so much better than their peers.

   With an asterisk next to their “records,” people can better understand how Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds improved their level of play as they got older, when such a thing had never happened before, in baseball or any other sport.

   It could also make " clean" player's numbers that much more impressive - that they were accomplished during a time of rampant cheating. The problem, of course, is that we'll probably never know for sure who was clean and who wasn't, with a few obvious exceptions.

   While there is evidence that drug use goes back to the 70s, I suggest an asterisk for the years 1988 (when Jose Canseco “came out” of the steroid closet) through at least 2007, or whenever MLB properly deals with the HGH issue. Until it does, pro baseball in this country has devolved into something akin to a goofy video game, with hulking super-heroes possessing amazing powers, performing incredible athletic feats mere mortals never could.

   So ball players, coaches, and parents, don't let the few trainer "bad apples" spoil your view of the honorable professions of athletic training and strength & conditioning. Do your due diligence prior to selecting a professional to work with, and look for one in particular who is up-front about their opposition to the use of performance enhancing drugs.