Weighing in on baseball scandal

I was getting ready to write yet another Panthers blog, but a large part of blogging is writing when you feel passionate about something.

Since I don't have a baseball blog (it was offered and turned down, which is fine; I'm busy enough with football), I don't have a platform for my outrage, so it's going in here today.

I have read in many places, including today's Charlotte Observer, other writers ripping the Mitchell report.

"Hey, is this all we get?" they say. "It's just a bunch of hearsay," they say.

There's a reason for that; Donald Fehr and his player's association, instead of encouraging the players to testify before Mitchell on the issue, kept insisting, "you don't have to if you don't want to," winking and encouraging them to keep their mouths shut.

Mitchell had no subpoena power, and had to use what he could get, which included conversations with just eight players out of thousands who could have shed some light  on this.

All the people screaming for commissioner Bud Selig's head should make it a requirement that Fehr be axed first. Fehr has resolutely opposed testing ever since management first proposed it. And  years ago if I remember correctly, the White Sox staged a spring training revolt and offered to be tested voluntarily in an attempt to slow the cheating in the game. Fehr or one of his minions (are you listening, Gene Orza?) frantically flew in and talked them out of it.

Solidarity, boys. Solidarity to protect the cheaters.

Selig has been ineffective. Fehr has been a cancer on the game,  protecting the cheaters over the majority of clean players. He's still doing it; no blood testing for HGH, too invasive. Yeah, let Barry and the Boys keep getting away with it. <i>-- STAN OLSON</i>