TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -If it were up to Ken Kendrick, all of the 104 players who tested positive during baseball’s 2003 anonymous drug survey would be identified.
Kendrick, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ top executive, said he thinks full disclosure would help baseball as it deals with the fallout of the steroid era.
“When you cheat, you have a risk of being exposed,” Kendrick said. “Frankly, as much as I’m sad that it’s all happened, I think that our game would be better off” if drug users were identified.
“I understand the other side of the argument – where privacy rights that are granted, there’s a right to protection,” Kendrick said. “But they were doing something that was against the law. So where does the line get crossed?
“In a courtroom, things are different than in the court of public opinion,” he said. “We deal in the court of public opinion, and our game is tarnished, and it’s tarnished by guys that have cheated.”
aining address to the team on Wednesday morning.
He said he urged players to think about the example they set, as well as the harm they may do to themselves, if they’re considering taking performance enhancers.
“It’s a subject that is very close to me,” Kendrick said. “I have a young son (Cal, 13). He sees baseball players as heroes, just like I did when I was his age.
“I certainly do and our fans do look to these guys as our heroes,” Kendrick said. “Heroes have responsibilities. And what a hero does is he always does the right thing, and he does it all the time. And so I talked to them about thinking about the right thing to do in every setting is, and particularly when the temptations to take performance-enhancing drugs are there. That may help you get an edge. Is that an edge you want?”
Kendrick has long been a vocal critic of steroid users. Part of his anger stems from 2006, when federal agents searched the Phoenix-area home of former Diamondbacks reliever Jason Grimsley in an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs. The club released Grimsley after learning of the search.
Kendrick said he and his son watched on Tuesday as Alex Rodriguez answered questions about his use of performance-enhancing drugs at a news conference in Tampa, Fla.
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“I told this to the players: we’re sitting there watching Rodriguez yesterday … and my son finally turned to me and he says, ‘Daddy, this guy is stupid,’ “ Kendrick said. “That probably says it all.”
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