Reaction: No Punishment for Giambi

I'm glad Bud Selig isn't punishing Jason Giambi. I don't like Jason Giambi, but I do respect him for apparently telling the truth about his usage of Performance Enhancing Drugs to the Mitchell investigation. I may be crazy, and I'm certainly an optimist, but I believe Giambi is now clean.

It is far better in the long run for PED users to admit they used and that it was wrong to do so. Selig is right to encourage admissions, as awkward as this first case looks. It doesn't have to be a hard and fast precedent. Selig can deal with future players who admit to using PEDs as he pleases, just like David Stern has been harder on guys who have a more serious background of misbehaving.

After all, it's the elite players I'm interested in. I want to understand how to place them in historical context. I think Giambi's stats were inflated for a few seasons, but I also see that he's a solid player without PEDs. In the end, if the elite players who used admit what they've done, the damage to their legacy is punishment enough. I don't need to see them suspended, much less banned from baseball.

If they're caught, whether from a positive test or by the Tour de France "guilty by association and circumstantial evidence" standard, then they should be suspended. But if they admit their crimes on their own, leniency is the proper response.