Truth and Reconciliation in Baseball
Apologies for the off-topic post, but...
Just read (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2903721) that Commissioner Bud Selig is threatening NY Yankees firstbaseman Jason Giambi with suspension unless he speaks frankly with the Mitchell Commission investigating use of performance enhancing drugs by players during the 1990's and early 2000's.
The problem that Selig faces is that punishing Giambi looks (and is) arbitrary - he's just the only active player forthright (or stupid) enough to admit to having used 'roids. There's a better way and it comes, oddly, from South Africa.
After the collapse of Apartheid in South Africa, the newly-empowered black majority faced a difficult question: how to deal fairly with the many people who had done horrible things during Apartheid without tearing the country apart. The problem is analogous to baseball's: how do you punish people for things which weren't necessarily crimes at the time they occurred, particularly when records are sketchy and memories have faded? How do you discover the truth about what happened?
Under Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress hit upon a novel solution, called "Truth and Reconciliation". Everyone who had done wrong under the Apartheid system got the opportunity to come admit what they had done in exchange for a pardon. Failure to come clean meant increased risk of prosecution, since suddenly the authorities had access to previously unavailable eye-witness testimony.
So, Commissioner Selig: Let the Mitchell Commission offer reconciliation in return for truth. Players who admit their mistakes and their accomplices would suffer no penalty. The historical record would be filled-in and future fans could decide for themselves whether to devalue the cheaters' achievements. Players who fail to come forward risk being implicated by their fellows and suffering the ultimate penalty: having their names and pictures and statistics struck from the official record books.
Commissioner Selig: Forget arbitrary punishments designed to stop players from speaking publicly about steroids. Instead, air out the whole putrid era - and let us all get back to enjoying the game.
Just read (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2903721) that Commissioner Bud Selig is threatening NY Yankees firstbaseman Jason Giambi with suspension unless he speaks frankly with the Mitchell Commission investigating use of performance enhancing drugs by players during the 1990's and early 2000's.
The problem that Selig faces is that punishing Giambi looks (and is) arbitrary - he's just the only active player forthright (or stupid) enough to admit to having used 'roids. There's a better way and it comes, oddly, from South Africa.
After the collapse of Apartheid in South Africa, the newly-empowered black majority faced a difficult question: how to deal fairly with the many people who had done horrible things during Apartheid without tearing the country apart. The problem is analogous to baseball's: how do you punish people for things which weren't necessarily crimes at the time they occurred, particularly when records are sketchy and memories have faded? How do you discover the truth about what happened?
Under Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress hit upon a novel solution, called "Truth and Reconciliation". Everyone who had done wrong under the Apartheid system got the opportunity to come admit what they had done in exchange for a pardon. Failure to come clean meant increased risk of prosecution, since suddenly the authorities had access to previously unavailable eye-witness testimony.
So, Commissioner Selig: Let the Mitchell Commission offer reconciliation in return for truth. Players who admit their mistakes and their accomplices would suffer no penalty. The historical record would be filled-in and future fans could decide for themselves whether to devalue the cheaters' achievements. Players who fail to come forward risk being implicated by their fellows and suffering the ultimate penalty: having their names and pictures and statistics struck from the official record books.
Commissioner Selig: Forget arbitrary punishments designed to stop players from speaking publicly about steroids. Instead, air out the whole putrid era - and let us all get back to enjoying the game.
