Monday, February 23, 2009

But 94% tested clean!

In typical stonewalling fashion, Donald Fehr denounced the claims that a perception exists about anyone who played in 2003: they are all guilty until the rest of the 103 are outted.

Baseball union head Donald Fehr rejects the suggestion many players are under suspicion because 104 of them tested positive for drug use in 2003, including Alex
Rodriguez.

The testing was confidential until Rodriguez's results were leaked to a reporter. Pitchers Curt Schilling and Brad Lidge are among those who have said all players who tested positive should be identified because otherwise everyone who played in 2003 is suspect.

"
If that's the judgment, it seems to me that is entirely wrong," Fehr said Monday. "We know what happened in 2003. The number of positives we had was slightly over 5 percent. That means that slightly over 94 percent was negative."
Does any fan (at least those who CARE about the use of PEDs in the game; I know some of you don't care and that's fine by me) really care that 94% tested clean? No. We're solely focused on those who tested dirty.

If you disagree with that premise, look no further than the hue-and-cry about those who didn't vote for Rickey on the first HOF ballot. No one cared that he got over 94%; it was about those who were in the 5-6% who didn't.

Memo to Fehr: Those players who are clean (at least tested clean) want their names out to the public. They want their fans to know they are not among the 103 and are among the ranks of the 94%.

We're going to continue to have a bleed-out of those 103 remaining names, as soon as someone has a book to sell. Just wait until next February comes and we're decrying the next player who's apologizing for "unknowingly", while "young and stupid", "never, ever did steriods" but only "wants to look ahead, not at the past".

3 comments:

Ron Rollins said...

They don't have to release the names of those who tested postive.

Just release a list of names of everyone who tested negative. It shouldn't be too hard from there.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I had never thought about those who were negative possibly benefitting from the release, only the negative. The media we live with?

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I meant only the positive in that last "negative" and that they wopuld have negative consequences.