Baseball is a whole other animal. If the cyclists sitting on the road in the 1998 Tour was an athlete pushback that delayed the implementation of a movement to clean up the sport, then baseball players are far worse.
Worse yet, they see all of this as another chapter in the ongoing saga of labor relations in baseball, which came to a head in the 1970s when baseball management actually was screwing over ballplayers in regards to salary and the union for the first time won a battle by getting free agency. Move on to the 1980s, and baseball owners were more concerned about colluding to tamper with free agency then dealing with baseball's very real recreational drug scandal.
Move on to the 90s, and baseball management was more concerned with rolling back the players' labor gains of the 1970s and 1980s, wiping out the 1994 season and championship series and driving fans away from buying tickets. Then baseball turned a blind eye in the late 1990s because they needed the home runs in order to get the fans to come back.
It took a polarizing figure, Barry Bonds, who is the Lance Armstrong of baseball, to turn things around. His career became the sort of excess that caused many to change their minds on the importance of drug testing in the sport, because Bonds was standoffish and greedy when it came to seeing his name in the all time record books.
The players union had to be dragged into the new world of drug testing kicking and screaming because they saw it as a concession to management. Because of this attitude, baseball is nowhere near where cycling is in confronting this menace.
Case in point: Barry Bonds records still stand. Lance's have been erased. Lance's Tour victories are gone, while teams of the past that benefited from PED use get to keep their World Series trophies. Alex Rodriguez should have been banned for life and his numbers erased from history, but instead he gets a slap on the wrist 1 year ban.
I will give credit where it is due. When MLB investigated A-Rod, they didn't simply rely on testing to catch him. Tests do not catch the real cheaters. Real cheaters find ways to evade the tests, then point at their clean record as evidence that they don't cheat. MLB launched an investigation into A-Rod as USADA launched one into Lance, and it was the testimony of others who got both in the end.
The problem with the tests not catching the real cheaters is solidarity. Friends will not want to testify against friends. I think the Armstrong debacle is proof enough that he didn't have many friends. In order for baseball to truly go after the cheaters, they are going to need players to turn on players. I think this will be a tough mission because union solidarity will be a big factor. Especially when that solidarity is based on a past where the players union had a legitimate beef against ownership and it was solidarity that helped them win the day.
I'm not sure where baseball goes from here. They are doing something, but it isn't enough.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram