Shyster, making legal and rational sense:
There's a growing sentiment out there -- joined by everyone from crooked guys like Victor Conte to dumb guys like Ozzie Guillen to smart guys like Maury Brown -- that baseball or the union or the courts or whoever should just release all the names on the list of the 2003 positive tests. Setting aside the fact that such a thing is practically impossible -- actually releasing it all would require a court order itself, and no one else involved in the case has any incentive for it to be lifted -- it's also a horrible idea.I can't even tell you how many times I've heard columnist and radio hosts demand that "they" should release all the names. Who's "they"? Posted by Stephen Silver at August 2, 2009 10:43 PMThe list, as everyone seems to be forgetting, would not have existed if the people whose names appear on it (and about a thousand others) hadn't been promised that it would remain confidential while it existed and would be destroyed soon after it was created. Those promises were broken, first by the players' own union, who violated the players' trust, and then by the federal government, who, in the opinion of many, overstepped previously-established legal grounds to seize the information in the course of their BALCO investigation. An investigation, mind you, that had nothing to do with the vast majority of the players on the list.
Legally, I agree.
However, I think it's terrible PR for baseball to have 3-4 big names "leaked" every year; such events just prompt another round of outrage and feigned shock and keep the steroids stories in the media for another year. I think it's better for baseball to rip this off like a Band-Aid and then let it heal, rather than live under the shadow of "the list" for the next 15 years.
Here's a hypothetical: what if a player is voted into the Hall of Fame and later is found to have been on "the list"? Releasing the names now would keep such a situation from occurring.
Posted by: Jeremy at August 2, 2009 11:04 PMCraig's column is very good. And although I originally opined that the names should be released, I altered my stance in a column over the weekend:
http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3452:maury-brown-dresses-down-maury-brown-on-releasing-qthe-listq&catid=26:editorials&Itemid=39
Posted by: Maury Brown at August 3, 2009 11:52 PM