Doug Glanville on A-Fraud
(He thinks it's a pretty lame nickname, too.)

Alex Rodriguez and his 2003 drug test results have been the topic of much debate for the past few days. On February 9th, former player and current NY Times guest columnist Doug Glanville decided to get in on the action. Glanville was a teammate of Rodriguez's during part of the 2003 season, and he paints a slightly different picture of the man who many thought would someday be the "clean" homerun king. Glanville describes A-Rod as friendly, hardworking, a little bit chatty, and cocky in a charming and impressive way (rather than the God-that-guy-grates-on-me way that I always imagined).

However, Glanville's main concern really isn't A-Rod's image. He's more frustrated with the fact that any player's name has been linked to results from the 2003 tests. Here's the issue as simply as I can put it: The purpose of the 2003 test was to estimate how many major league players were taking banned performance enhancing drugs--or at least the PEDs for which MLB was willing to test. The purpose was not to punish players who were tested positive nor was it even to identify those individuals. MLB was hoping to show that very few players took steroids; therefore, no new action would be required. Unfortunately for MLB, the percentages turned out to be somewhere from 5-8.5%, depending which reports you believe. Regardless, the tests where never about who--they were about how many.

So, Glanville asks, why were the names ever connected to the testing results or even the samples? And, furthermore, why would a source--or in this case, four sources--leak the information? And why was A-Rod's the only name to be leaked from the list that included 103 other major league baseball players?

My guess is because it sells papers and books. I don't see how going back and punishing these guys, or even revealing them, helps anyone but the press.

Mr. Glanville seems to believe that no one is talking about this. I have to admit that it hasn't gotten near as much attention as the fact of A-Rod's cheating, but if you scan baseball blogs, you'll find conversation about the tests and the leak. For example, click here to see what blogger Rob G. and some of the commenters over at The Cub Reporter had to say. (This link seemed appropriate to me for two reason: one, I'm a Cub fan and it's my favorite Cubs blog; two, Glanville came up to the majors as an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.)

Something of a journeyman during his 9-year MLB career--he appeared last in the majors with the Phillies in 2004--Glanville is one of the better athletes turned intellectuals in recent memory. Though he meanders around his topic a bit, he brings a different perspective to his articles than most writers at the NY Times. Maybe it helps that he's sort of an intellectual-turned-athlete-turned-intellectual; Doug Glanville graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Systems Engineering (whatever that is). You can find his guest columns over at the opinion pages at The New York Times, and you can visit his webpage at www.dougglanville.com.