Tough week to be a baseball fan.

Given my love of the Yankees, I have been asked repeatedly of what I think of the results of last week's news around performance enhancing drugs in MLB. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth:

Whenever I start a project at work, I ask people whom I work for a simple question. "What defines success?" The answer to that question pretty much dictates how I try and manage the project throughout its life until it is completed. Do things always work out as planned? No, but eventually we get back to where we originally envisioned by the project's completion. Based on the report and various news accounts, it is apparent that if that simple question of "what defines success" was asked, the answer was 'WITCH HUNT'.

Now I want to be clear that this has NOTHING to do with the amount of Yankees (past and present) cited in the report. I am not shocked by the Roger Clemens accusations, nor am I surprised about Andy Pettitte. If anything, Pettitte's explanation was a lame cop-out. He said that only after the report's release that he took HGH to recover from an injury and had he known it was wrong, he wouldn't have done it. Jemele Hill of ESPN wrote a great column on this. But Pettitte clearly has not learned from some other person who tried something similar – namely our former President Bill Clinton who famously said when asked about if he ever smoked pot, "I smoked but I didn't inhale." Pettitte would have been held in much higher regard in my mind if he would have just said he took it, it wasn't illegal then and he was sorry. He also could have helped by coming clean much earlier than when the report was released. So before anyone gets on my case about being annoyed about the amount of Yankees mentioned, save it.

Next topic – the investigation was flawed from Day 1. Why did MLB hire someone (George Mitchell) who is paid by one of the most popular teams in the league lead the investigation? Why create that conflict of interest? As if there aren't enough competent independent investigators out there without ties to MLB! Howard Bryant of ESPN wrote a great article prior to the report being released about the conflicts of interest. Interesting that Mitchell is affiliated with the Red Sox but no prominent players mentioned. The sad thing is that had MLB assigned someone who no ties, we may not have to wonder if the Red Sox clubhouse was truly clean or not. Eric Gagne and Brendan Donnelly don't count as they were not with the Red Sox during the time of the alleged purchases. The timing of the announcement around Paul Byrd taking HGH just before he was to pitch against the Red Sox in the playoffs is now brought into question because of Mitchell's affiliation with the Red Sox. I'm sure Ken Starr was available. Ok, just kidding. John Dowd had experience in this kind of thing. Anyway the perceived conflict could have been avoided had MLB exercised some basic common sense.

With respect to performance enhancing drugs and nothing else, Roger Clemens = Barry Bonds (minus the perjury charges, although this account of Bonds trying to nickel and dime prospective defense attorneys had me laughing pretty hard).

On a roll now – and this goes back to my simple question around defining success. If the success criteria were around getting players to buy-in to a more comprehensive policy, again MLB screwed up. They made $6 BILLION (yes, that is billion) and only allocated $450 THOUSAND (yes, that's thousand) to research on better drug testing for HGH. Now that is commitment from Bug Selig. When they have the word 'moron' in the dictionary, Selig's name should be there as the epitome of the word. He had a chance to act assertively a few years ago and unlike some of predecessors, he decided to ignore all of the signs. But everyone ignored the signs, to be fair.

But of course Bud is looking to punish the users mentioned but much of it is based on circumstantial evidence, which would never hold up in any criminal proceeding and I doubt it would even hold up in a civil proceeding where the burden of proof is much lower. If he wanted to be seen as a true crusader, he should gotten the owners together and leaned much harder on the union (with Congress) to get folks to cooperate. If one of the success criteria was around getting players to acknowledge sources, reasons and cleaning up the game, give everyone a mulligan because punishing folks is not going to hold up and it's not going to bring a frank discussion to the forefront for people to learn from. Way to be a hard-line guy that will elicit no real change in the drug culture, Bud.

Look all I am saying is that if wanted names and to shame people, he should have worked towards getting subpoena authority and all of the other requirements associated with such an investigation. But he had none of that and so naming names at this point is somewhat weak. And the impact is major. Now they have players who were mentioned in the report and may not have had any involvement.

Now the Players' Union also needs to get with the program and get their heads out of their [you know what]. Had they had a better response to the inquiry, and asked for some compromises (i.e., I will instruct players to talk if they can get amnesty since the point is REALLY to clean up the sport for good), maybe they could have come out better in all of this. Negotiating is all about finding the 'win-win'. You would think that people being paid this kind of money would comprehend that.

Finally if I was a player, I would be skeptical of any drug testing system run by the WADA and USADA based on the debacles in US Track & Field and of course, the professional cycling world. How many of you USED to watch the Tour de France and didn't bother watching this year because of all of the scandals? No one has faith in the integrity of the testing system so it is unfair to everyone. As a player, I would not trust the confidentiality of the drug testing process. A good process should be in place not to be a witch hunt but to ensure that people are not taking drugs to enhance their performance. There is a big difference. If MLB had spent money on working really hard to tighten a process to ensure fairness and integrity, maybe the players would have been onboard.

All of the above being said, Jayson Stark also wrote a great article highlighting the double standard that exists between MLB and the NFL. Consistent improvement and accountability across all professional sports leagues would be a welcome change.

OK – I feel much better now.