SteriodMania

The steroid controversy in baseball just is not going away. The Mitchell Report and the hearings in Congress continue to keep the problem in the public's eye. The use of steroids appears to have been fairly widespread in baseball before the advent of random testing last year. As with any activity, there are winners and losers. The winners, of course, are those who took steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to improve and prolong their careers. Given the millions of dollars involved if one can prolong his career and/or enhance performance, it is not particularly surprising that an athlete would choose to use illegal drugs.
One columnist, Mike Celzic, indicates that the true losers are the minor leaguers who never made it to the majors because of the use of illegal drugs by major league baseball players. Celzic reports of at least one minor leaguer (Rich Harman) who is contemplating a suit against major league baseball claiming that its failure to stem the usage of performance-enhancing drugs led to he and many other minor leaguers having their paths to the big leagues blocked, presumably because many players who might otherwise have retired or would not have been successful in the big leagues without the illegal drugs were able to stay on.
This is probably a long shot of a lawsuit and legal scholars are divided on whether such a suit would have merit in a court of law. The claimant would have a pretty huge burden of proof to show that he was harmed. But the efficiency aspects of it are intriguing. If baseball players who used performance-enhancing drugs could be sued by minor leaguers claiming that their path to the big leagues was blocked by such cheats, this might be a more effective way to lead to the desired result, which, of course, is not to use the drugs. One successful suit for millions of dollars in damages might be enough to give correct incentives to all big league players to stay clean.