Off-Kilter -- Baseball and Steroids?

(. . . and now for something completely different.)

This morning I actually wrote a letter to Sen. Patrick Lahey's office as follows:

The emerging doping scandal in baseball is an excellent opportunity for Senator Leahy -- in his capacity as Judiciary Chair -- to champion an issue with national notoriety and potential positives for himself, the Democratic Party, and Congress as an institution.

- The self-evident success of doping for those who indulged, in terms of their careers and statistics, is a direct threat to public health as young aspiring athletes cannot hope to match the performance of their heroes without doping themselves.

- The scandal has brought the national past time into ill repute - - deepening public skepticism towards a sport which holds tremendous romantic/emotional value to many.

- Doping, like any form of corruption, poisons optimism towards institutions and casts a pall of suspicion upon all future excellence in sport.

- National sports, being businesses, have no real incentive to clean up doping as the heightened individual performances sell tickets, create heroes, and generate revenue.

- The inability of professional sports to regulate themselves and the dearth of meaningful political leadership on this issue continue to erode public confidence in institutions.

The only way to effectively combat their use is a public repudiation of steroid use, the results of that use, and a clear commitment to effective testing for the future. It's clear there's no incentive within baseball to do this and I would think steroid use is as high in other sports as well. Firm, practical congressional leadership on this issue can demonstrate Democratic leadership and a positive role for government at very little cost to taxpayers.

The Senator should outline a series of Congressional hearings on doping in baseball in the context of a comprehensive amnesty akin to South Africa's "Truth and Reconciliation" hearings. Congress would grant immunity from federal prosecution to those who testify. Congress would further compel Major League Baseball to offer immunity from league discipline for those who testify. Anyone seeking to receive this amnesty would be required to provide a sealed written proffer within a designated three month window after which any further amnesty requests would be at the discretion of the congressional committee conducting the hearings. While those who proffer and testify would receive immunity, their testimony could be used in the prosecution of others who failed to seek amnesty and federal prosecutors would be encouraged to pursue such cases.

These hearings would achieve three important goals. First, they would place Senator Leahy, the Democrats, and Congress overall at the forefront of the issue; demonstrating clear, decisive, and practical leadership on an issue which is otherwise wholly negative for sport and American culture as a whole. Congress needs some clear, effective, practical successes to change the public mood towards the institution.

Second, the limited-term amnesty offer should flush out players, suppliers, developers, labs, and team officials in a single burst. The slow, sapping trickle of scandal would be stopped and all the dirty laundry would be aired in one set of hearings. The anxiety generated by the amnesty offer and the accountability wrought by the hearings would place bookends around the "steroid era" and allow everyone to walk away in the end feeling that it had been exposed and rooted out.

Third, the depth and breadth of the testimony elicited would allow the hearings to expand into all professional sports and give Congress an opportunity to maintain leadership in a positive way regarding future anti-doping efforts. The testimony should seriously weaken the leagues and players' unions to the point Congress can impose a strict anti-doping regime for the future.

How often does Congress, as an institution, get the chance to be the good guys -- guardian of the national past time and the leadership in a meaningful anti-corruption campaign?

There remains the question of how to handle the record books tainted by doping and how to institute effective anti-doping procedures for the future. The amnesty from discipline would not reach the record books. Instead, once the amnesty and hearings are concluded, each league would convene a records commission made up of fans, journalists, ex-players, and league officials to reach a policy on how to handle doped statistics.

As for future anti-doping, I'd recommend Senator Leahy use the public condemnation of the leagues to threaten a significant television revenue surcharge upon each league to fund an independent national anti-doping agency with adequate resources to independently test for existing and as yet undeveloped doping agents. This independent organization would also need sufficient R&D resources to keep up with the illicit industry. If leagues and their unions can agree to a comprehensive and aggressive testing regime of their own they would be exempt from the tv revenue surcharge.

This is a no-brainer to me. A one-off air-the-dirty-laundry process with a finite end would generate favorable leadership points for Sen. Leahy, the Democratic Party, and Congress as an institution. It would demonstrate positive, practical leadership to a country which seems quite cynical about the national political leadership. It would also become the model for any future anti-doping intervention by Congress - - a significant disincentive to doping for young and future athletes as well.