The Keeping of Records

There is no surer sign that Spring is around the corner than spring training opening up in Florida and Arizona. This spring opens with one of the more revered records in Baseball on the verge of falling, career home runs. For those of you who are baseball fans, I’m sure you are well aware of this story, and for those who are not you have probably heard Barry Bonds referred to on occasion. Some feel that the chase for the record is tainted by the implications that are out there in regards to Mr. Bonds alleged usage of performance enhancing steroids. In fact some circles are wagering on what comes first, Mr. Bonds breaking the record or Mr. Bonds being indicted by the government for perjury in the trial of a sports lab/nutrition centre. So what does this have to do with the law? Well a few seasons ago when congress was riled up about steroid use and threatening to use its powers to investigate baseball, Major League Baseball and its players concluded an agreement where anonymous testing of the players would occur in order to determine how much of a problem steroids where in baseball. The results of this testing would then lead them to take the appropriate steps to determine a testing policy. Over 100 players tested positive but were protected as per the terms of the testing. As the years have passed prosecutors have pursued individual players regarding their involvement with the lab mentioned above; and further, whether or not certain individuals perjured themselves while testifying. As such the government pursued the records of ten players who took part in the anonymous testing, and seized the data from that testing. In the process of obtaining the records of those 10 individual players, the government also secured all of the data from the testing and is now attempting to use that information. As you might imagine this is a disturbing development for the MLB players who have recently taken action to try and prevent these results from becoming public and here. So even if you are more interested in court room records than home run records; if you are interested in electronic records, how it is acquired, stored and utilzied, you might want to follow baseball a little bit more closely this spring.