Soccer Dad

Disappointed

As unlikely as his story sounded, I wanted to believe Rafael Palmeiro. In "A Big Star Plays a Bad Hand" Thomas Boswell writes:

For those of us who have known Palmeiro for years and like him -- which is not the same as believing him -- this is a bitter day. Palmeiro may have the most logical line of self-defense ever uttered by someone who will be believed by very few.

"Why would I do that in a year when I went in front of Congress and I testified and I told the truth?" Palmeiro said. "Why would I do this in a season when I was going to get to 3,000 hits? It makes no sense. I would not put my career on the line. I would not put my reputation on the line and everything I have accomplished throughout my career. I would not do that. . . . It was an accident. I'm paying the price. . . .

"This is the toughest time that I've gone through in my life with anything."

All this makes sense -- of a sort.

But Boswell points out that Palmeiro, if innocent, had an out to explain what really happened:

Palmeiro and his agent, as well as the Orioles, repeated many times that they could not go into details about Palmeiro's steroid blunder because of some "confidentiality" issues. "I would love to tell what happened to me so that everyone would understand," said Palmeiro, "but under this confidentiality agreement, I cannot get specific."

Unfortunately, what we may have here is a Stupidity Test. As in: How stupid are we? Whose "confidentiality" is being protected? Palmeiro's, of course. If he wanted to explain more, who could stop him from defending his good name? The union and baseball have a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from releasing information. But that doesn't put masking tape over the player's mouth. If Palmeiro had a compelling story, who could force him to stay silent?

(Steve Davis on WBAL made a similar point on his show Monday night.) The confidentiality agreement is to protect the player. If the player feels that telling his story is better protection, he certainly could have told it.
Unfortunately for Raffy, someone else wasn't playing by the rules here, and someone in the commissioner's office told the New York Times.

The positive drug test that has left Rafael Palmeiro's legacy in doubt involved the potent anabolic steroid stanozolol, a person in baseball with direct knowledge of the sport's drug-testing program said yesterday.

Stanozolol, known by its brand name, Winstrol, was most notably linked to the Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson of Canada, who was stripped of a gold medal in 1988 after testing positive for that steroid.
...

The person who said that Palmeiro tested positive for stanozolol did not want to be identified because the testing policy prohibits anyone in baseball from disclosing information about test results without authorization.

(The Times of course will protect the identity of this anonymous rule breaker.)

It seems less and less likely that Raffy ingested his steroids unintentionally. I'm disappointed less with the steroids than with the boldness of (apparent) lies.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 3, 2005 7:34 AM