Doug Glanville, who's a former MLB player himself, has some reflections on the news that Alex Rodriguez admitted to steroid use in the earlier part of this decade. He zeros in on something I've wondered about too:
There is a lot of outrage out there about Alex. Not surprising. But what really surprises me is the lack of outrage about how a confidential and anonymous test could be made public. We seem to gloss over the fact that these players voted to re-open a collectively bargained agreement in a preliminary effort to address the drug problem. When privileged information is shared it effectively hurts anyone who has expected privacy in any circumstance, just as when someone made Britney Spears’s medical records public.The 2003 test was only supposed to assess whether the number of players using performance-enhancing drugs exceeded a certain threshold. If it did, as part of the agreement, a full drug policy would be instituted in the following testing year. One that was more comprehensive with penalties. This was at least a step in the right direction.
He's absolutely right. And why were names attached to these surveys in the first place? In any blind trial it's important to maintain privacy to avoid prejudice in favor or against the results, so why were the survey respondents identified at the time?
Whoever leaked this info has, at the least, betrayed a trust entered into between the players and Major League Baseball.
Posted by Linkmeister at February 10, 2009 02:27 PM | TrackBackYes indeed.
But what would Glanville know? Not only is he a run-of-the-mill major leaguer, he's an Ivy League engineering grad run-of-the-mill major leaguer.
Posted by: N in Seattle at February 11, 2009 07:56 AM