Jeff Passan wrote one of the year’s most biting and accurate columns yesterday, discussing the World Anti-Doping Agency’s recent criticism of MLB’s reluctance to use the HGH blood test that they have developed. WADA tends to issue one of these edicts every couple of months, and anti-steroid crusaders tend to point to those proclamations as proof that MLB is still way behind most sports in their testing program. What many do not realize, and what Passan highlights, is that WADA has their own interests here that have nothing at all to do with maintaining the purity of sport:
In a press release disguised as a concerned letter, WADA president John Fahey chastised MLB and the players’ association for not using blood testing to detect human growth hormone. Nowhere did Fahey mention that the reliability of these tests remains in question six years after WADA first suggested their use. Nor did Fahey admit the organization’s real motivation: to leverage MLB into fattening WADA’s coffers with its multimillion-dollar-a-year testing program…..
Fahey lives in a fiefdom where an employer’s right to stick needles in its employees is a fait accompli. Such decisions take nuance and discussion, and they certainly shouldn’t be the domain of dogmatists who profit from the testing.
Proper drug detection in professional American sports is not done in a vacuum. Whereas most Olympic athletes lack unions and find themselves easy prey for WADA and its compadres-in-corruption at the IOC, American athletes are shielded from unilateral enforcement. It’s not all about snuffing out the cheaters, nor is it about protecting civil rights at all costs. There is a place in between, one that values a sport’s integrity as well as its athletes’…..
It’s no surprise WADA keeps attacking MLB while letting other professional leagues skate. The NBA and NHL pour tens of millions of dollars into the Olympics by allowing their athletes to participate, and the NFL plays enough pattycake with WADA to stave off public interference.
Essentially, WADA continues to sully MLB in the press because unlike the other major sports, baseball has refused to pour money into the WADA coffers. It is very easy for WADA to insist that players concede some of their basic civil liberties in order to make them richer, but the league needs to be more prudent. As Passan notes, this is a very touchy issue in which a middle ground must be found in order to protect both the athletes and the sport. Simply implementing an unreliable test that would represent a greater infringement on the privacy of players in order to satisfy the curiosity of the public and the whims of WADA would be a terrible decision. Thankfully, MLB and the MLBPA have shown no such inclination.
Major League Baseball has the most stringent testing program in all of American professional sports. Hopefully, they continue to ignore WADA and do what is best for both the sport and its players.
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4 Responses to The Disingenuous World Anti-Doping Agency
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TIQ IQ
I thought we have an unwritten rule about no politics on this site.
Oh wait . . . this IS about sports. Never mind.
Moshe, you remain ever the apologist for these frauds (remember Bonds better than Aaron)? The WADA tests are far more precise than those used by baseball. The cheaters remain generations ahead of baseball’s deliberately feeble testing, which is nothing more than lip service. Remember Ramirez was suspended after a fertility drug was found in his system. He cheated, he was caught cheating and he should be subject to the most exacting tests available, twice a day every day, lest anyone confuse him with a legitimate Hall of Famer. The debate should always be focused on the integrity of the game, players are nothing more than very well paid employees. Pretend they’re pilots or fireman.
Bull. Sorry, but it has nothing to with apologizing for users. It has to do with an unreliable test (read the article, the test has worked once and has been found very faulty by most scholars) and protecting civil liberties. Consider the fact that Passan is a staunch anti-steroid crusader and still ripped WADA. Also consider the fact that MLB testing is the strongest in all of American professional sports. This is all politics, and I think you are being naive if you think WADA is worried about the integrity of the game. What about the integrity of the NFL game?
to161, baseball has never had integrity. Think back as far as you want. The 1919 Black Sox, Gaylord Perry’s Vaseline-lathered pitches, Pete Rose’s gambling, spitballs, ball-scuffing, bat-boning and bat-corking, banning African Americans, etc.
You brought up Hank Aaron. He used amphetamines; so did Willie Mays. You brought up Bonds. There is no evidence that he ever used steroids, though he did test positive for — heh — amphetamines.
There is also absolutely no evidence that HGH is performance-enhancing.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that sports are entertainment, like movies. Are you upset that Sylvester Stallone used steroids? Do you think his nominations for Academy Awards and such be revoked? No, of course you don’t. You go to movies to be entertained, and you do the same for baseball and other sports.
Holding up professional athletes to a higher moral standard than everybody else is a great recipe to alienate yourself from the sports that you love to watch. There is no reason why we should be participating in a witch-hunt for drug users. I whole-heartedly endorse athletes to bend if not break the rules.