Look at the example of Gary Sheffield, who was forthcoming from the start about what he did. There is no longer any talk of his involvement AND his 500th home run was celebrated.

The intent of publishing the list is not to levy punishment, it is to end the steroids era. It is an action, an event, that baseball can make into a big deal, weather a short storm, and sail into calm waters.

I don’t think fans are very fond of technical legalities. Plus, attendance is down across baseball. The time is right for Selig to push for a change to the 2003 agreement. If he fails, it’s true that the list cannot be officially published. But if he succeeds? He ends the steroids era with a decisive action.

If MLB is going to expect the Players Association to respect any of their wishes, they need to return the favor and respect the wishes of the MLBPA.

The MLB needs to maintain the confidentiality of this agreement, and when a person leaks information about it, the MLB needs to take measures against that leak.

The fact that “people are going to do it anyway” does not give MLB license to just disregard their contractually agreed upon terms.

To the point I make in my argument, there is nothing to gain from publishing the list except for an end to speculation.

No punishments can be levied, no revisions made to any record books, you’ll just have a list of players who will be black-balled.

1) For the most part, hasn’t confidentiality largely been maintained with regard to names on the list? Let’s keep in mind that, since the list was created in 2003, only a handful or two of the 100 or so names on the list have been named. At that pace, all the names won’t all be leaked until the 2060′s, if at all (it’s not inevitable that all names will eventually be leaked and be independently verifiable). Isn’t the possibility of protecting all of this confidential information, however remote, preferable to breaking the original promise and protecting none at all?

2) I can see how fixing the countless mistakes in judgment (by owners, players, the commissioner’s office, the players’ union, and fans) and in the testing process will be “[f]or the betterment of the game,” but I fail to see how releasing the names on the list do so. In other words, how does knowing whether or not Angel Berroa (name chosen at random) tested positive for steroids make the game BETTER?

Next thing you know, everyone’s passing around Peach Schnapps, just waiting to unlock the vault for that next juicy bit of so-called “confidential” information.

Why would I, or why should we, expect these ballplayers to feel any differently? It it because they’re millionaires? Is it because they’re in the public eye? Is it because they rewrote the record books?

None of that matters. Public demand is not a sufficient reason to break a pledge of secrecy (I imagine there are plenty of people that would like to have my PIN), but absent some great public necessity (like a man having his sleeve caught in an ATM machine in a burning building), confidential information should remain private.