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Sports: Mitchell Report Misses the Point: Contracts Cause the Steroids Problem
Posted December 13, 2007 1:24 PM
Yeah, Mitchell missed the point. On purpose. Look at his report. Do you see any young players getting busted? I see 12-year veterans and retired or practically retired players. Guys who may not want to quit, but can be drummed out with great fanfare, while the next generation picks up where they left off.
We pay these guys millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars. And we load up their contracts with incentives.
Do the calculation in your head: Best case, a player plays one extra year, hits five extra home runs, gets a few more strikeouts. That kicks in an incentive clause that pays for a six-pack of Ferraris. And getting into the record books makes a nice retirement plan.
Worst case, they get caught, get fired, and have to live on their paltry millions.
We've created a system that provides all the incentive to cheat, and no incentive whatsoever to be honest.
But that's not the real tragedy. The real tragedy is that kids are getting a mixed message: If you cheat, you'll get called before Congress, after you've earned $50 million.
Mitchell knows all of this. He also knows he can't wreck a multi-billion-dollar industry. So he's shuffling off some of the old guys. End of story. Can we go back to our regularly scheduled programming now?
