Across the Seams

Nice Credentials

So that expert the lords of baseball trotted out in Congress, their go-to guy, he is ... how shall we put it? ... kind of shady. But hey, a guy can get confused with all that high-level thinking. Guadalajara, Stony Brook, assistant, associate, they all blend together after a while. Read the story to get a better picture of this guy's eye for detail. Now he may very well be the best baseball's got when it comes to steroids knowledge (wouldn't surprise me), but I'd sooner hit the free clinic than let this guy anywhere near me with a tongue depressor.

I thought Selig was a buffoon before, so at least this incident doesn't lower my opinion of him.

Monkeys on Typewriters

What a circus. The level of informed discourse in this Congressional hearing is, frankly, embarassing. My favorite so far was when somebody dragged out the old "Google hits equals significance" argument. Not sure who was saying what, as I'm listening, not watching, but when the conversation turned to the "illicit" labs selling steroids, someone said "when you enter 'buy steroids' in your computer, you get thousands of sites."  Then someone else jumped in, using his best ominous voice: "Millions."

Millions! Aiiee, we're doomed!

(Hey, Congress, that number is the number of pages in Google's database that have both those words. In fact, there are four from the House of Representatives! Steroid-pushing bastards!)

Sit Down and Shut Up

So Congress has nothing better to do than grandstand about baseball, dragging random high-profile players in to testify. Most of these things let the subpoenaed witness read a statement before taking questions from the assembled legislators. On Thursday I'd really like to see someone sit down and say:

"Dear Congress: The United States is faced with several legislative issues that carry great impact on the day-to-day lives of its citizens. The use of performance enhancers in baseball is not one of them. I came here today due to a legal obligation, but you are wasting not only my time, but the time and money of the people you purport to represent. I respectfully refuse to answer any questions. Good day."

Bonds on the Stand

The Chronicle continues its drive to save Western civilization with today's BALCO story. Same end-of-the-world headline treatment as yesterday. You can find a PDF of the front page here. 

More "secret" testimony is revealed, this time from Bonds. It appears that he used what was given to him by Anderson, and he says he thought they weren't steroids. So now we see why this stuff is getting leaked: They haven't got jack on Bonds, at least anything they could charge him with. I think the seriousness of this enterprise was underscored by a certain line of questioning:

When a juror asked why the wealthy ballplayer hadn't bought "a mansion" for his trainer to live in ...

In Other News, Nukes are Incoming

For the most part, I've tried to stay away from the steroids stories. Oh, I have opinions, sure, but the issue right now is dominated by emotion and scandal-mongering. I'd prefer to avoid the snake pit.

Today's Chronicle is a classic example. Basically, the story is a scoop for the Chron. It got a hold of a grand jury transcript in which Jason Giambi said he took steroids. Few would find this shocking. I have no beef with the story itself (although I do wish the Chronicle could give us a hint as to why somebody is leaking these secret proceedings so we can figure out the leaker's agenda).

My beef is with how the Chronicle played it. It dominated Page 1. Of the whole paper.  If you see it in the rack, you get a massive, 5-column, all-cap headline:

GIAMBI ADMITTED
TAKING STEROIDS

Under that you get a huge, suspect-in-the-car profile shot of Giambi that was taken a year ago. Just passing it on the street, you would have thought someone shot the president. Also on the page, but much smaller, was news that more troops are being sent to Iraq, and that natural gas prices (what most people heat their homes with here in California) are going up.

Apparently the Chron thinks that a guy who plays for a baseball team a continent away making an unsurprising and mostly inconsequential admission in a grand jury probe is really freaking important.

Amazing.

UPDATE:

Final Hours

It's in need of an edit (seems to be taken straight from a TV script, which, let me tell ya, is not something humans should be exposed to), but this ESPN story  has the sordid details of Caminiti's last hours, minus any facts about what drugs he was taking and when. Still, this is a story of addiction.

Caminiti woke her up at about 4 a.m., Romero said, and told her he was going to the hotel to start packing for their flight to Houston that afternoon. She said there were no arguments and nothing unusual in Caminiti's demeanor. He left the apartment with $24 in his wallet.

According to billing records for Caminiti's cellphone, there were calls at both 4:14 and 4:16 a.m. to Romero's brother, and another call to him 36 minutes later. Hector Romero is a convicted drug dealer.

At 4:39 a.m., a call was placed to Silva, whose Bushwick apartment is just a few blocks from where Romero's mother lives.

"He just called me and said, 'Dude, let's meet somewhere,' " Silva said. "That's about it."

Silva, 35, has served four prison sentences on drug charges: three for selling and one for possession.

Caminiti met Silva in the park across the street from where Romero's mother lives. "He just wanted to hang out, walk around," Silva said.

Caminiti Autopsy

Ken Caminiti died of a drug overdose.

Tissue and toxicology tests confirmed Caminiti's cause of death as "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates," Brugess said. She said those drugs had weakened his heart.

Cocaine and opiates. Cite any "oh sorry, guess I jumped to conclusions" columns you see here. There should be plenty of room.

Save Us

The autopsy isn't official yet, but ESPN is reporting that Ken Caminiti died from a drug overdose. I, and I'm guessing a lot of other people, suspected as much, given that he was an admitted cocaine and alcohol addict. And it's probably still best to wait for the official report before drawing any conclusions.

However, the high probability that this was another drug death didn't stop most of the world's sports columnists from mounting their soapboxes to bemoan the evils of steroids. (Buster Olney and Gwen Knapp, to name just two.) Let Ken Caminiti be a lesson, oh ye who don't believe that testosterone in a bottle is not in fact a manifestation on God's Earth of Satan himself!

The fact of the matter is that steroids had, at best, a tenuous connection to Caminiti's death. Coke and alcohol are killers with proven track records, you see. Something baseball folks like to call "experience." That's pretty easy to brush aside when you've got a conclusion looking for some supporting data. Hey, Ken Caminiti used a lot of steroids years ago. Now he's dead at 41. Good enough for the columnists.

I'm not surprised, or even much bothered by it anymore. The sports pages aren't where you should be going for level-headed analysis of the sacrifice bunt, let alone anything as complicated as substance abuse. But what I really wonder is if all the folks who were so quick to co-opt Caminiti's death into their steroids crusade will read the autopsy report and make adjustments.

I'm not holding my breath.

Steroids Goof Archive

I'm seeing the steroids test error enough that I'm just going to make one last post and keep updating it when I see some more. Here's an e-mail I sent off to the Merc's Mark Emmons today:

From today's column: "Last year, between 5 and 7 percent of major league players tested positive for banned substances. But because the testing program is considered so weak compared with other sports, it's unclear if that percentage accurately captures the amount of steroid use or if, as critics maintain, such drugs are far more prevalent." This is inaccurate. There were several players who were tested more than once; there were 20 percent more tests than players. 5 to 7 percent of those tests were positive. If you want to extrapolate that to players (which I haven't seen any reporter do), here's what you'll get: 1,438 tests on 1,198 players. 240 were tested twice. 5 to 7 percent equals 72 to 101 positive tests. If every positive test was a unique ballplayer, the percentage would be 6 to 8 percent positive. If every positive test was a double hit (a positive player tested twice), the percentage would be 3 to 4 percent. So if you want to talk about player positives, the number would be from 3 to 8 percent.

Thanks,
Marty Cortinas

UPDATE: Mark Emmons was kind enough to write back on this issue:

You know, this is really interesting.
I'm going to have to probe deeper about the origin/explanation of the
numbers. I've been parroting the "5-to-7 percent" figure like it's gospel.

And in a follow-up e-mail he wrote, "I think it's a reminder that we always have to question statistics and accepted facts." Exactly. Great example of how something turns into a "fact" if it's repeated often enough. Thanks, Mark. (The Chronicle's Mark Fainaru-Wada had a similar response a while back.)

How ... Many ... Times

Let's go over this again. Those lovely steroids test results ... there were 20 percent more tests than players, some players got tested multiple times, and 5 to 7 percent of the tests came up positive. Tests, not players. How hard is that to figure out? One starts with a T, the other with a P. So the New York Times today comes out with a tsk-tsk piece by Richard Sandomir on how the TV folks are dealing with the issue.

Buck and Tim McCarver's discussion of the steroids scandal — from the stain on baseball's image caused by the more than 5 percent of players tested whose urine came back positive for steroids, to the impact on records set by steroid users — was necessary and largely perfunctory.

Jiminy ... then this advice, which the Times might be wise to follow itself:

The best announcers can do for now is to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the steroid-testing program and the list of penalties, stay current with possible negotiations to stiffen the program, and remember that no ballplayer has been indicted or singled out by federal investigators.

Pot, meet Kettle.