Ballplayers must back clean game

Maine has produced a lot of quality people over the years who became national leaders on numerous fronts. George Mitchell is one of those people. As a Senator, a federal judge, a mediator in Northern Ireland and in numerous other vital tasks, he has been a true leader.

He added another credit to his list Thursday with the release of the Mitchell Report on baseball and performance-enhancing drugs. The discussion of the issues will go on, but with a much better understanding of the history of drug use in the game and the laws related thereto.

Based on that report, I direct this to the Major League Baseball Players Association, for which I have much respect.

It is time to turn the Queen Mary around. Protecting cheaters destroys the game.

The Mitchell Report says, “The Players Association was largely uncooperative. (1) It rejected totally my requests for relevant documents. (2) It permitted one interview with its executive director, Donald Fehr; my request for an interview with its chief operating officer, Gene Orza, was refused. … (5) I received allegations of the illegal possession or use of performance-enhancing substances by a number of current players. Through their representative, the Players Association, I asked each of them to meet with me so that I could provide them with information about allegations and give them a chance to respond. Almost without exception they declined to meet or talk with me.”

It is understandable the Association tries to protect its players’ rights. Donald Fehr said late Thursday the Association generally advised those players whose names were making the news to also obtain independent counsel.

That said, the time has come for the Association to address another part of the Mitchell Report: “Widespread use by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of baseball records.”

The Association needs to act in the best interest of the game which, in the end, is in the best interest of its members.

The time for coverup and obfuscation is long past.

No question, the owners, players and media were happy to ride the bats and arms of juiced players, all the while wondering but not really wanting to know.

That does not make the steroid era right.

The Association needs to join with MLB in a concerted effort to rid the game of users and protect through education the youth who have followed their “heroes” down a dangerous path.

The Association can rally around those who play and played the game without cheating to help the cause. It’s called leadership.

If Fehr asks for a group of players to come forward to help in this cause, they will. That group, with Fehr, can coordinate work with MLB to act to rid the game of players still using, work with MLB on the case-by-case issue of punishment for current players and assist in the issue of those records set by using players that need to be expunged or adjusted.

Cooperation, not obstruction, is the need. That is looking to the future, just as the Mitchell Report recommended.

Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.