Baseball's steroid investigation hits too close to home
May 10, 2006
Most people have finally accepted the fact that no matter what Sen. George Mitchell's investigation into baseball's sordid steroid past uncovers, history can't be revised. There will be no records eliminated, no asterisks, no parallel universe created. In particular, Barry Bonds' single-season home-run record of 73 will remain ... as large as his new head.
But make no mistake: Mitchell's investigation is important. No, the truth can't set baseball free from what tarnished the National Pastime, but it is necessary to know the truth in all its ugliness so that the game can then move forward, scrubbed clean.
There is, simply, much to be said for shining sunlight into the dark shadows, but Mitchell requires the complete independence he's been promised by commissioner Bud Selig if his final report is to be accepted without doubt and cynicism.
When Mitchell was first named, there was some criticism because he is marginally involved in baseball as a director of the Boston Red Sox. All right, to my mind, the Senator's reputation for probity and his record for achieving success in difficult situations more than outweighed this minute conflict.
But, on reflection, two elements of the investigation do appear to call for correction. First, when Selig charged Mitchell, he said the investigation should be limited to events since September 2002, when testing for performance-enhancing drugs was finally permitted.
The commissioner allowed that the investigation could expand beyond that. Well, it must, and Mitchell should make that clear right now. Even if baseball was so inexcusably negligent in not facing up to steroids for so long, they have been banned by the federal government since 1990. To concentrate only on post-September '02 in the steroid war is to try and analyze all of World War II only from the Battle of the Bulge on.
Secondly, two of Mitchell's top three deputies should be replaced. They are Thomas Carlucci and Jeffrey Collins. Neither man has so much as a smudge on his reputation, but I'm sorry, they have the wrong address -- the law firm of Foley & Lardner. This may not quite be the official house firm for baseball, but it is simply too close to the commissioner's office. Bob DuPuy, the COO of baseball, second only to the commissioner, was a partner in Foley & Lardner when he first came to work for the commissioner as its outside legal counsel. Foley & Lardner has been employed in the past by Major League Baseball.
Lawyers familiar with these sorts of probes tell me that it is just insane to endanger this whole massive project by allowing critics even a whiff of suspicion that the investigation is not being conducted totally independent of the commissioner's office.
It is crucial to keep this in mind. This is not just an inquiry into baseball hitters. It is not just about Bonds and McGwire, Palmiero, Sosa, Giambi and friends. It is about how all of baseball acted. The teams and the union and the commissioner's office all have close contacts with law enforcement.
Surely, some baseball officials must have been tipped off about the use of illegal drugs in the sport. A large part of the Mitchell report will not be about home runs. It will be about who knew what and when and why something wasn't done about it -- long before September 2002.
