Asterisks, windbags & fools in high places

[bedir than average]

Originally Posted by dlb

Well, if he thought he was using a legal supplement, he wasn't cheating, was he?

Ignorance of the law is not a defense. You know this. If I convince myself that I'm not speeding and get pulled over going 32 mph over, can I just say I didn't know?

In the case of any PED assissted player, why in the world would you put anything in/on your body when the ONLY reason you make millions is your body?

[dlb]

Ignorance of the law is not a defense.

Yes, but intent is important. If Bonds had no intention of using a banned substance and did not know that the substance he was using was prohibited, his guilt is largely mitigated. If that is the case, I'd say he's suffered enough and in the interest of justice, we should let the matter drop.

[Nimajneb]

Originally Posted by dlb

Yes, but intent is important. If Bonds had no intention of using a banned substance and did not know that the substance he was using was prohibited, his guilt is largely mitigated. If that is the case, I'd say he's suffered enough and in the interest of justice, we should let the matter drop.

If you believe that to be the case, but then that's not the premise those of us attacking Bonds are working under. Most of us do not buy the suggestion that Greg Anderson walked up with a syringe of clear liquid, squirted it under Bonds' tongue with the athlete all the while thinking "this is flaxseed oil." You're welcome to believe otherwise and ignore anything that came out in "Game of Shadows" with the exception of the limited snippets of Bonds' grand jury testimony, but please don't try to pretend that said position is any more knowledgable or reasonable than those of us who believe that there is ample evidence to suggest that Bonds took steroids knowingly, repeatedly, and unapologetically.

If all he did was injest illegal substances out of ignorance, dlb, then what I personally demand of an athlete and celebrity who has been built up on the shoulders of millions of spectators is honesty, and an apology, and an openness to inquiry. Indifference sends quite a different message.

Steroids are bad because they subject athletes to terrible side effects, not because they enhance performance. If the performance edge were the problem, then we'd have to regulate nutrition, workouts, surgeries to repair injuries (I may not remember this correctly, but doesn't the "Tommy John surgery" to repair a torn rotator cuff result in the ability to throw a better sinkerball?), and possibly even set maximum heights and weights for players. In short, the performance enhancement argument is both trivial and fraudulent.

...and then certainly we would have to regulate genetics and upbringing, ensuring that every baseball player be grown in a controlled laboratory environment from identical, cloned embryos. Your comment above does NOT logically follow from legal performance enhancement. Good nutrition and exercise are freely available for those athletes who wish to take advantage, and such means of a competitive edge are perfectly legal. Taking steroids yields a competitive advantage which is NOT legally available to other athletes, and therefore breaches a specific ethical boundary. Steroids are illegal not because of performance enhancement, but rather due to health concerns. Steroid use in competitive athletics is unethical due to both the performance enhancement and the legality.

[dlb]

...please don't try to pretend that said position is any more knowledgable or reasonable than those of us who believe that there is ample evidence to suggest that Bonds took steroids knowingly, repeatedly, and unapologetically.

I don't know that it is any more knowledgeable or reasonable. My point is simply that without proof and in light of the fact that Bonds was a great homerun hitter, we ought to let this pass.

Taking steroids yields a competitive advantage which is NOT legally available to other athletes, and therefore breaches a specific ethical boundary. Steroids are illegal not because of performance enhancement, but rather due to health concerns. Steroid use in competitive athletics is unethical due to both the performance enhancement and the legality.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Let's assume that there is a substance that enhances performance and causes no health problems. Should athletes be prohibited from ingesting that substance?

[Nimajneb]

My point is simply that without proof and in light of the fact that Bonds was a great homerun hitter, we ought to let this pass.

Why? The only way to have acquired "proof" of the type you apparantly demand is if Bonds had walked up to you and said "here, will you take pictures while Greg here injects me in the back? Oh, and here's a sample of what he's using on me, we wouldn't want to be able to claim it was a flu shot later, ya'know."

You seem to be contradicting yourself.

Then you seem to be misunderstanding...

Let's assume that there is a substance that enhances performance and causes no health problems. Should athletes be prohibited from ingesting that substance?

If legal and equally available to all players, and allowable under the rules of the game, then no: it shouldn't be prohibited. If the legality is more of a technical oversight than genuine legitimacy (i.e. andro) then that's a dicier question.

[dlb]

I read the SI article posted in the other thread. I saw many allegations but no proof. I write advocacy pieces for a living, and know that when a claim is not documented, it's because there is not adequate documentation to support the claim.

[nanwynnfan]

The following offered for purposes of information sharing:

The Sports Law Professor: Book Notes: Game of Shadows

The Book:

A review of the book, Game of Shadows, vis-à-vis questions of legality and protection of witness rights under the U.S. Constitution, is provided at the link above; and I’ve taken the liberty of citing segments of the review from THAT perspective.

[Quoted segments follow}:


”1. Really, the authors should be in jail. As I've argued previously, there are some pretty significant reasons that grand jury testimony must be kept secret. The writers had a source leaking that information to them, and it appears to me that the source didn't just provide a few generalities. The writers appeared to have had significant access to the testimony of several witnesses, including Bonds, Giambi and Santiago. The reporters can argue all they want about journalistic privilege, but they were breaking the law when they elicited this information, and from the sound of things, they knew it. Maybe it's ironic that the reporters go to prison while Bonds goes to the outfield; on the other hand, maybe the reporters' wrong was more serious.”

”2. Got to love the ban on performance-enhancing drugs. By the way, in most sports, when players are tested for performance-enhancers, they're also tested for other drugs (marijuana) which do nothing to enhance athletic performance, and in fact hurt it. (Golf may be an exception here, I'm told; being high on marijuana might help even out that putting stroke. Are PGA tour pros smoking weed before putting on their plaid slacks? Now that would be a Category 3 book I'd read.) Some problems with the ban on performance enhancers: (1) it doesn't make a lot of sense, given that all kinds of non-pharmeceutical [sic] substances can enhance performance: are they any different in principle?; (2) are genetically engineered enhancements (the coming thing) any different? Given that all of us differ genetically anyway, if an athlete's very genetic makeup can be altered, in what sense is this enhancement non-natural? We can be born weak and yet lift weights to make us strong, so why can't we undergo gene therapy to accomplish the same alteration?; and (3) baseball's ban does drive drug use underground. This is the big story of Game of Shadows.”

[Personal comments to above quoted passages]:

1. Point speaks for itself from the legal perspective of “being innocent until proved guilty” and from the added perspective that bits and pieces of an entire mosaic invited the willing to connect dots that aren’t there and to draw conclusions [E] from [A through D]. when the accusing experts are in possession of bits of a, a touch of B, none of C, and a smidgen of D, illegally leaked.

2. [Point 2.] I quoted entirely to show that this reviewer in not immune to sully tangents; but he does get back on topic with the telling DIFFERENCES among supplements collectively herded, for example, as steroids, by lay persons totally UNAWARE of the subtle and even not-so-subtle individual variances among them, their proposed use and benefit and, most importantly, their individual status when interpreted by those who know both the law, their biochemistry, and genetics.

Substances:

… and in that vein: {Wikipedia];

“Nevertheless, anabolic steroids were added to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990.[93] The same act also introduced more stringent controls with higher criminal penalties for offenses involving the illegal distribution of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. By the early 1990s after anabolic steroids were scheduled in the U.S., several pharmaceutical companies stopped manufacturing or marketing the products in the U.S., including Ciba, Searle, Syntex and others.

Controlled Substances Act

"In the Controlled Substances Act, anabolic steroids are defined to be any drug or hormonal substance chemically and pharmacologically related to testosterone (other than estrogens, progestins, and corticosteroids) that promote muscle growth. The act was amended by the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, which added prohormones to the list of controlled substances, with effect from January 20, 2005.[89]

… And the Law:

[Comments to above]: Legal experts as late as 2003 were debating inclusions and exclusions of supplement compounds which were as complex in their categorization as they were in their legality.

[Yet more input from the legal community]:

“Another issue related to quantity arises when non-controlled substances are inadvertently "tossed into the mix." Many bodybuilders utilize a variety of ancillary medications - anastrozole (Arimidex), clomiphene citrate, tamoxifen, clenbuterol, etc. -- to enhance beneficial effects or to control adverse ones. When a wide variety of substances are recovered in a search, all manner of confusion by law enforcement can ensue. Such confusion is not hard to understand when often the lawmakers themselves are thoroughly confused. For example, Delaware law [16 Del. C. Section 4701(18)] defines "human growth hormone" as "synonymous with the term "human chorionic gonadotropin." Other than sharing the word "human," these two hormones have nothing in common. The Delaware statute effectively defines "apples" as "oranges." It's anybody's guess as to what is intended.

”The depth of confusion and misinformation by those in the legal community can present an impediment to the proper resolution of these matters. A prosecutor or judge whose knowledge of anabolic steroids is based on what has been read in the lay press may not offer an appropriate plea and sentence. Counsel can refute aggressive prosecutors who spout the "evils" of steroid use by referencing the medical literature itself, including the landmark 1996 study (printed in the New England Journal of Medicine) that found virtually no adverse effects when anabolic steroids were administered at a dosage of 600 mgs per week for ten weeks. Recent scholarly reviews of the literature have also concluded that the health risks have been overstated.”

The Layer-Cake of Supplements, Prohormones:

“In the last two decades, prohormones have also been used by bodybuilders, athletes, and nonmedical users of anabolic steroids and other hormones to refer to substances that are expected to convert to active hormones in the body. The intent is to provide the putative benefits of taking an anabolic steroid without the legal or medical risks, and to achieve the hoped-for benefits or advantages without use of anabolic steroids themselves. Since prohormones are not anabolic steroids themselves, they are legally classified as dietary supplements and not subject to the much tighter regulatory requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which apply to prescription hormones.”

Citation:

FindLaw: Legal Subjects: Entertainment and Sports Law: Web Sites

MLB has had no integrated, practicable or enforceable policy or official rulemaking program with enforceable consequences because their was only a perceived “ideal” [ill-defined, at that], free from abuses observed in amateur competitions, especially the Olymics, where sexual “morphs” were revealed; and later. in pro sports where strapping young jocks started collapsing and dying at extraordinary young ages. Even the target of athletic righteousness was ill-defined.

The Physical Aspects; Statistical Regressions; Batting Dynamics & Supplements:

Citation: DeVanyHomeRunMS.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Dr, Arthur de Vray, Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, Economics, University of California, Irvine … an excellent read from various perspectives of the bigger picture.

Did not quote from this: It is in pdf format and at 21 + pages is well worth the read.

[Nimajneb]

Not sure "undocumented" is quite accurate...

This narrative is based on more than a thousand pages of documents and interviews with more than 200 people, many of whom we spoke to repeatedly. In our reporting on the BALCO story for the San Francisco Chronicle, we obtained transcripts of the secret grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and seven other prominent professional athletes. We also reviewed confidential memorandums detailing federal agents' interviews with other athletes and trainers who had direct knowledge of BALCO. Sealed material we reviewed also included unredacted versions of affidavits filed by the BALCO investigators; e-mail between BALCO owner Victor Conte and several athletes and coaches regarding the use and distribution of drugs; a list of evidence seized from the BALCO storage locker; and a document prepared to brief participants in the raid on BALCO.

and it goes on....

SI.com - Magazine - The Truth: The Documentation - Tuesday March 7, 2006 12:57PM

[Nimajneb]

Yes, leaking Grand Jury testimony is a crime, and there's a lawyer in prison for this specific leak.

Not finding this to be either comforting or exonerating...

[nanwynnfan]

RE:

"In our reporting on the BALCO story for the San Francisco Chronicle, we obtained transcripts of the secret grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and seven other prominent professional athletes. We also reviewed confidential memorandums detailing federal agents' interviews with other athletes and trainers who had direct knowledge of BALCO."


... in support of credibility, I'd say you missed the point.

[Nimajneb]

... in support of credibility, I'd say you missed the point.

It appears, in harping on the credibility of the Chronicle reporters, you did as well.

[Grandstander]

Leaking grand jury testimony is a crime, but is receiving leaked grand jury testimony a crime? Do we know who approached who in this deal? If it was the reporters badgering the lawyer for the testimony, I could see that being interpreted as soliciting a felony, a crime by itself. If the lawyer offered it to them without their having to ask, would it be a crime to accept it? Is there covering law for this?

[nanwynnfan]

I'll reiterate what I said at the top of my post: It was submitted in the interest of sharing information.

In any debate, a topic can be viewed from any number of perspectives: in this instance - performance in a competitive sport at its highest levels; records and record keeping; nutrition and training regimins; protocols and prescriptions and risk-reward benefits; morality, the law; legislations; regulations and rule making; enforcement; social standards and expectations, and myriad other considerations, such that there are many more facets than one could imagine.

In this thread I have attempted to provide facts, with links to support them; to explore statistical comparisons in terms of age and rates of offensive production; to draw timelines of legal interpretations of substance abuse; to consider the nuances of substances categorized as "controlled;" to consider the stated legal confusion over the entire topic; and finally to consider the motivations of players to excel, and the willing dilemna of MLB in addressing a problem which really took roots as decided cheating in other sports, and in a milieu in which international, allegedly amateur competitions were involved.

If doctors, trainers, lawyers, chemists and geneticists can debate an issue; and a college professor [two, in fact, to my knowledge] can lay out statistical analyses that debunk the steroid-baseball link as overblown in side effects and performance benefit, I am disiclined to be judgemental, especially in the absence of a punitive code prevailing in the background.

As far as new challenges to suggested slivers of the data I've provided, I have no intention of responding to them, a futile effort in that it's like shoveling **** against the tide, or like a puppy fixated in chasing his own tail. The actuarially-challenged have better ways to allot their remaining time.