The U.S. went a bit far in the steroid/Balco case

The U.S. Court of Appeals made an interesting and potentially far-reaching decision Wednesady when it ruled that the government acted irresponsibly by seizing all drug-testing records of baseball rather than merely the records of the players they were investigating in the Balco case.

The ruling also makes clear that baseball never had a “list” of players who tested positive, but coded results from positive drug tests. The list had to come from somewhere, and speculation now states it was created – and perhaps leaked – by the U.S. investigators.

Yahoo writes: “The decision means that leaking the names of steroid-tainted players to Sports Illustrated and The New York Times likely constituted crimes, and that an investigation could be launched to identify the leakers. It also means that the blockbuster revelations about steroid cheating by Alex Rodrigues, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were based on evidence gathered in an illegal search by lead BALCO investigating agent Jeff Novitzky.”

Wrote The Associated Press: “Barring a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the test results and samples will be destroyed, and prosecutors cannot use the information. Union lawyers said the government returned the evidence shortly after earlier trial court rulings.”

This is all well and good in a court of law. And the strength of the ruling – and simple logic — indicates the government probably did over-reach.

Players have been damaged. But let's not kid oursevles. Ultimately they’ve been damaged by their own actions, not by government over-reaching. Put it another way … a crime investigation pleaded down to a lower crime because of a legal technicality does not mean a crime was not committed. The government over-reached, but the players took the drugs and tested positive. No government over-reaching changes that fact.

One hundred and four players tested positive in MLB’s drug-testing program. A large number of baseball’s “stars” were cheating, meaning said era deserves the most gargantuan asterisk known to baseball record keeping.

That is the plain and simple truth.