Mitchell does a great job of defending his reports contents, methods and recommendations. He's smooth under questioning, although they are generally receiving him well. He does have the advantage of being one of the brethren, indeed a well-respected former member.
Again, I think he reiterated the central theme of his report, that the focus should be on moving forward and continuing to make incremental progress, as other sports have done in the past.
Mitchell made an interesting comment in response to the observation made by a congressman that the statistical analysis of named users cited by the report, have not shown much, if any "performance enhancement" and what did he think about it (The study was posted earlier on this blog). Mitchell related the possibility of placebo effects, or "Possunt quia posse videntur" which is Latin for "They can because they think they can".
He related his own experience as a young player and compared it to delivering a speech when you feel good, as opposed to when you do not, in order to frame it in terms the representatives could relate to. And even that answer ignores the "non-performance enhancement" effect.
He will be a tough act to follow.
Almost as an aside, Rep. Waxman opened with a request for the Justice Department to look into the possibility that Miguel Tejada may have lied to investigators in 2005 when he said he had no knowledge of steroid use. The Mitchell report did name Tejada as a player who received steroids from a teammate.
One of the representatives did bring up the timing of Rafael Palmeiro lying, before or after his 300th hit. That's not a typo, the Congressman had to be corrected to bring Palmeiro's hit total to 3000, but no suggestion of an investigation for lying to Congress or even menacing finger-wagging was requested for Raffy.
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ESPN Analysis:
Roger Cossock of ESPN seems to be rehearsing to be Roger Clemens defense attorney rather than a legal commentator. He says that Senator Mitchell exhibits an important contradiction when he accepts Brian McNamee's testimony regarding the player Mitchell cited who was excluded from the Mitchell Report. However, as Mitchell testified, that player provided Mitchell with evidence that although he did in fact acquire illegal PEDs, Mitchell believed that he did not use them after the player and his attorney provided satisfactory evidence. Cossock implies that this displays evidence that McNamee lied, but he apparently doesn't listen well enough or he is listening through biased ears.
Steve Phillips who should be able to give the management perspective as well as anyone else, falls back on the "Hey, I didn't have much to go on. I have a family to feed. I can't afford to put myself at a competitive disadvantage."
Which illustrates just the type of toxic culture that pervaded from the clubhouse to the owners box. Nobody wanted to put themselves at a disadvantage. Apparently the predominant justification given, silly as it may seem, for dropping the lions share of blame on the players doorstep, is our kids look up to the players and wish to emulate them.
So of course we need the government to fill the role of parents, the nanny state, because the Washington group-think is that we can't raise our kids adequately enough on our own. Typical.
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Bud Selig and Donald Fehr seem to be playing nicey-nice and showing the committee members that they are willing to work together, so they can keep Congressional involvement to a minimum. They appear to be echoing Mitchell's comments as much as possible under the circumstances. Good strategy.
Both Selig and Fehr publicly take responsibility for mistakes that were made. Of course, the next committee member took them to task for being reactionary rather than more proactive. 20-20 hindsight is a great gift.
The question of using statistical anomalies as a form of evidence or the basis for implementing mandatory testing or impose punishments has come up. This is the International model, where a positive test is not the only way to ban a competitor. Circumstantial evidence can be used. Accusations by competitors can be used. Wholly un-American and a dangerously slippery slope to go down.
Fehr says "Gene Doping will make steroids look quaint". Must be reading this blog because that may very well be a direct quote from here.
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I have to wonder why question Mitchell, Selig or Fehr regarding what they thought about the Giants trainer Stan Conte reporting concerns about Greg Anderson distributing steroids to Brian Sabean and whether those concerns were passed on to Giants owner Peter McGowan and what was done about it. The "Institutional Control Issue" I guess you could call it. I understand asking Mitchell since he must have interviewed them, but why not just call those three in for direct questioning as well?
They let the owners and management off rather easily here today. And the Commissioner and Donald Fehr walked away with no more than minor flesh wounds. Which probably does not bode well for the players when they go in for questioning next month.
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