This article reads like any other fluff-piece you’d expect to find on a site like CBS, but I think it inadvertently gets to the heart of the steroid problem and previews the post that follows – concerning a better article.

This piece is called:

Nitkowski — tempted but clean — deserves your respect

For those of you not aware, CJ Nitkowski spent the past year in Japan playing for the Fukuoaka SoftBank Hawks. He has a blog, that, while it isn’t the most engaging read, at least presents a pretty likeable, nice guy. The author of this piece likes Nitkowski too, and he wants to you know that CJ has never done steroids.

His name is C.J. Nitkowski. He is a longtime major league baseball player just finishing a season in Japan. Nitkowski once trained and worked out with New York Yankees pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, two of the players named in the report from George Mitchell. Nitkowski is a former Yankee and Met.

Nitkowski’s trainer for seven years was the now infamous former Yankees strength and conditioning coach, Brian McNamee. Yes, that McNamee, the one who told Mitchell he provided performance-enhancing drugs to Clemens, Pettitte and others. Nitkowski started training with McNamee in 2001.

Didn’t know that did you? I didn’t even know Nitkowski had played with the Yankees…and I’ve followed the guy since he was a prospect with the Reds. In fairness to me, Nitkowski has played with some 10 MLB organizations.

So here we have squeeky clean Nitkowski thrust right in the middle of this steroid question alongside Clemens and Pettitte. But Nitkowski didn’t use steroids. At least that’s what he says. The author says it too, and expects that the reader will take their word for it. Hence the title of the piece, which tells us explicitly that Nitkowski did not use steroids. Right? “Clean.”

But about half way through the piece the author realizes, he really can’t tell us that Nitkowski didn’t use steroids any more than he can convince us that Clemens has. Except for the fact that one has been named on the Mitchell Report and the other has not. So he does a little two-step, and like most any other writer trying to assert their authority on the steroid question, he starts to lose his balance.

This is where the story diverges from players like McGwire and Bonds and, if you believe the Mitchell report, Clemens. Nitkowski didn’t try them, he says, and I believe him. And it’s not just that I believe him; others with knowledge of the situation say Nitkowski didn’t use them either.

He’s questioning the validity of the Mitchell Report, which isn’t a bad idea. But he’s also telling us McGwire and Bonds have used steroids. I basically agree, but as far as I know, they’ve both denied it. As has Clemens. As has Nitkowski.

Thus Nitkowski is one of the good guys, a legion of good guys, who probably considered using steroids but for various reasons did not.

See, this is part of the problem. There’s nothing here. Why else would we still be raising the question about steroids when simply looking at two photos of guys whose heads have doubled in size should tell us everything we need to know? Because there’s no proof. Do I think Nitkowski used steroids? No way. I do not. Do I know this for a fact? No. The Mitchell report changes none of this.

And this “legion of good guys.” Boy, I don’t know…and neither does Gary Garland in the post that follows this one.

It seems the steroid problem is so endemic nothing short of dismantling the MLB would fix it. It reminds me of when I was a kid playing baseball simulation games and I would shuffle all the player cards and randomly assign them to teams in a new league. In the back of my mind, in this alternate universe, there was always a collapse within Major League Baseball that created the need for the new league. That’s about where we’re at, if we’re seeking to rid baseball of steroids.

Basically players and teams are on their honor to stop steroids in baseball, and since there’s so much money involved there’s really no such thing as honor. End of story. Unless you remove money from the equation — which, unless Kim Jong-il buys MLB and moves the grand game to North Korea – isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

I’m not going to offer a solution because I feel I’ve already moved past it. Baseball is a hobby of mine and the welfare and safety of the people playing it is not of my immediate concern. Ultimately they must be responsible for their own bodies and make their own judgements about money and health.

But people have to be honest with themselves. Is there really anything more to the Mitchell Report than a big dog and pony show? Sure, Clemens is an impressive name, one that needed to be named. But what is he going to do? He’s going to keep denying it, as Bonds has, and eventually it’ll become exactly what it is…heresay.  

I know there’s not much here about steroids in Japan thus far, outside of the fact that Nitkowski plays in Japan. But the story that follows (yes, this is meant as a lead in) concerns it specifically. That story is ”Mitchell is the Wizard of Oz and His Report is Little More Than Kabuki Theater Because Because Because….” by Gary Garland of Japanbaseballdaily.com, who as you’ll see, really dislikes the Mitchell Report.