The MLB and MLBPA have come to terms on new drug policies pursuant to the findings in the Mitchell Report. For starters, all fines imposed through this plan will be donated to the Partnership for a Drug Free America, as well as the Taylor Hooton Foundation. The players will also make a $200,000 donation “to an anti-drug charitable or research organization.” Yes, yes, but what about the new regulations?

1. Increased Independence - the Independent Program Administrator (”IPA”) is appointed for a multiyear term and can be removed only in very narrow circumstances.

2. Increased Transparency - the IPA [ed. note: not to be confused with delicious India Pale Ale] will annually and publicly report key statistics related to the program and record retention requirements will be lengthened.

3. Testing - 600 additional tests will be conducted each year and the number of off-season tests will double on average.

4. Flexibility - the agreement institutionalizes an annual review process to allow the parties to respond to new developments.

5. Education - the IPA, in consultation with the parties, will develop an annual mandatory education program for players.

6. Amateur Draft - Baseball’s testing program will be expanded to cover top prospects.

So are these changes going to revolutionize how MLB polices drug activity?

At least Selig was speaking some sense:

“It is time for the game to move forward. There is little to be gained at this point in debating dated misconduct and enduring numerous disciplinary proceedings. Educating children and their parents about the dangers of performance-enhancing substances is a much more productive endeavor.”

I can’t disagree with any part of that.

In an exclusive by RAB favorite George King, former Yankee bullpen catcher and A-Rod confidante vouches for Alex’s good name. “In four years I was with him 24 hours a day, and not one time did I ever hear, see or get wind of anything having to do with performance enhancing drugs, steroids, HGH, anything,” Borzello said. And this, folks, is what we’ve come to. Because a bitter and jealous Jose Canseco writes it in a book that had to struggle to find a publisher, friends now feel the need to clear A-Rod’s name. Canseco won’t offer up any proof of what he writes; whatever happened to innocent before proven guilty?

Apparently, the joke was on me. Earlier today, I accused the media of falling for a Jose Canseco book hoax. Turns out my skepticism this time was not well-founded. Will Leitch got his hands on some of Vindicated and posted the excerpts on Deadspin. While the passages are in the book, Canseco’s words come across as jealous, bitter rantings. Vindicated will be no Juiced.

As The PEDs Turn continued yesterday when Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and his House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked the Justice Department to investigate inconsistencies in Roger Clemens’ testimony. While, by now, I’ve long since given up any expectation of finding out the Truth (with a capital T) in the Clemens/McNamee shouting contest, this latest development will impact the Yankees because Andy Pettitte figures to be a key component of any investigation and potential perjury trial.

While the FBI has since opend a probe into Clemens, Andy Pettitte has reluctantly noted that he will be a part of the investigation. These developments could very well impact Pettittes’ mental preparation this season. He’s a fighter on the mound, and there’s no reason to think he carries his personal baggage onto the field with him. But this is heavy.

So far, the media has given Pettitte a pass, but in a rather scathing piece in the Village Voice, Allan Barra wonders if that should change. Barra also thinks Pettitte should be suspended.

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Earlier today, I offhandedly mentioned Derek Jeter’s weekend comments about blood tests in baseball, and frequent commenter Geno took me to task for dismissing something newsworthy. So let me fix that.

Over the weekend, Derek Jeter opined on Bloomberg Radio that blood tests for HGH would not be intrusive and openly advocated for these tests. “You can test for whatever you want to test for,” he said. “We get pricked by needles anyway in spring training, so we have a lot of blood work to begin with.”

On Monday, he drew flak from the Players’ Union over these comments. Jeter had to explain his position while Union leaders were a bit more outspoken about it:

“(The problem) has gotten so much attention now, I think it would probably silence a lot of people that were critical of guys … so I wouldn’t mind it,” Jeter said. “I can only comment on myself; I don’t know about other people. I don’t like needles very much, but I wouldn’t mind it.”

“I’m not saying I would ever be in favor of it, but if we did do it, that would be the only way the general public would finally believe that baseball is completely clean,” said Mike Mussina, the Yankees’ players union representative. “But I don’t know if it will ever come to that.”

Jason Giambi, who was at the center of the BALCO scandal, said: “I’m up for whatever they want to do. I don’t really care.”

“This has to be a union decision, not an individual one,” he added.

And that’s the problem. That’s the problem with this whole Mitchell Report and the flap over Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee.

The Mitchell Report was intended to produce change in Major League Baseball’s supposed drug culture. It was supposed to draw attention the shortcomings of its drug testing policies and the institutions and institutional attitudes in place that prevented and still prevent the sport from developing top-notch testing procedures. When Union members start speaking out and the Union forces them back into line, it’s clear that the Report utterly failed.

Instead, we get a Congressional circus with no real denouement or any sense of resolution. A hearing supposedly about drug use in baseball turned into a “he said, he said” fight.

While the Union will always defend itself, Jeter should be praised for taking a stand. Maybe his comments were off-the-cuff, and had he thought about it, he wouldn’t have broken ranks with the MLBPA. But he has, and baseball needs more players to step forward if the drug policy and public perception of the game is to change for the better.

Everyone likes to pick on baseball for its drug problem because it’s supposed to be some bastion of American integrity, and few sports leaders have publicly spoken out about this double standard. Well, Hank Steinbrenner is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. The Yanks’ VP said yesterday that the NFL’s drug culture is much worse than that of Major League Baseball. Where’s our Congressional hearing now, Mr. Waxman?

In a word, Andy Pettitte said nothing during his hour-long press conference this afternoon. Or at least, nothing we haven’t heard already.

For sixty minutes, Pettitte spoke to reporters and basically reiterated his position: He took HGH for only two or three days. He felt really bad about it. He feels bad about everything, and he just wants it all to go away.

But while Pettitte didn’t add much to the steroid talk, he did clarify a few of his own thoughts and shed some — but not much — light on baseball’s drug subculture. At the outset, reporters were quick to ask Pettitte if he thought of retiring. “I’d be lying if I said that didn’t cross my mind,” he said at least twice. He had a difficult off-season, he said, and wanted to hold the press conference as much to clear up his conscience as to clarify the issues.

Interestingly, Pettitte noted that he took HGH without much knowledge of the drug. “I didn’t know much about it,” he admitted. This, to me, is the kicker. Clemens took a similar stance during his Congressional circus hearing the other day. How can Major League Baseball players continue to inject substances into themselves without knowing what it is? How can they pump themselves full of chemicals without bothering to figure out the side effects and long-term problems associated with the drugs? It’s mind-boggling.

Finally, in the part that I found most interesting, Pettitte routinely discussed his relationship to the money he’s making. We take for granted the fact that baseball players play for a lot of money. Salaries, as you’ll see in a later post, are indeed absurd, and fans seem to assume that baseball players simply take the money and run. But along with multi-million-dollar salaries come the pressure the perform.

Pettitte, if you believe him, took HGH on two different occasions because he was trying to recover from injuries. Once with the Yankees and later with the Astros, he felt the need to come back and pitch as well as he could to justify the team’s investment in him and to help his team win. For players not used to the idea of taking home $12 or $16 million annually, the dollars can exert a lot of pressure.

At one point, a reporter asked Pettitte what sort of support the Yanks’ brass gave him and if they had asked him to come back or stay home. He said he wanted to do what the team wanted. “I don’t need the money, and I don’t need to go through this,” he said. If the Yanks thought he was a distraction, they could, he said, ask him to shut it down and go home.

Now, I’m not trying to make excuses for Andy Pettitte, but money does some odd things to people. If Pettitte feels the pressures of a contract when he’s hurt, imagine what players who aren’t making the big bucks must think. If they can bulk up, they get rewarded. So as baseball seems to be avoiding the subject of why and how PEDs are prevalent in the game, I think the answer lies in the economics of the sport as it always does.

For Pettitte, the days ahead will set the tone for his season. Does the media portray him in a sympathetic light? I thought the questions he faced today weren’t that tough, and he was more than willing to answer them more candidly than I thought he would. While the fans will be harsh, the media, at least, probably won’t be.

But baseball is once again left with questions it won’t or doesn’t want to answer. As players are sent out as sacrificial lambs, will anyone in power be willing to take the blame?

In a few short hours, the Yanks’ first of many days of reckoning will arrive. When Andy Pettitte takes the microphone with his lawyer at his side this afternoon, he will, in effect, set the tone for the 2008 Yankee season for better or for worse.

On the field, as we all well know, 2008 is a year of transition. It’s a rebuilding year for a team built to win now and win later. The new guns are coming up, and the old guys are playing out final years of costly contracts. With a farm system rich with talent and coffers nearing replenishment, the 2008 season will continue to lead in a new era of Yankees as the old ones find their way to the door.

The field itself is undergoing a transition. In just 1 month and 13 days — check out the snazzy new countdown at right — the Yankees will take the field in the Bronx for their final Opening Day at the old Yankee Stadium. Each game will bring that ticker closer to zero and closer to the day that the Yanks and their fans cross the street for newer and more expensive pastures.

But while new players and the ongoing construction of a new stadium will set the tone for much of the season, today brings the bellwether event for the Yankees’ 2008 season. When Andy Pettitte faces a skeptical media and a very skeptical public, the Yankees will begin to learn what is in store for them this season.

Make no mistake about it: Andy Pettitte is the pivotal player on the Yankees this year. The team opted against pursuing Johan Santana because Pettitte said he would come back. They view Andy as a bridge to the new. He was very effective last year and brings a wealth of knowledge about the game and his pitching. The team needs Pettitte to make his 35 starts and to impart his knowledge to those who will inherit his position.

Looming over everything are the HGH revelations and the Roger Clemens/Brian McNamee circus, and it’s a shame to think that a report issued by a Red Sox part owner that didn’t manage to paint a complete picture of drug use in baseball could be the deciding the factor in the Yanks’ 2008 season. But here we are. Such is life.

If Pettitte can convey a sincere apology, if he can diffuse a scandal, and if he can come out of today’s press conference confident, the Yanks should have reason to hope. If he gets bogged down — as his Congressional testimony did — in a confusion of details and information, it will be a long season of media skepticism and abuse at the hands of harsh fans in Boston and Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland, Toronto and Tampa Bay.

Here we go. Let’s hope everything gets off on the right foot.

Congressman and Chair of the House Oversight Committee Henry Waxman regrets holding Wednesday’s hearing. “I think Clemens and McNamee both came out quite sullied, and I didn’t think it was a hearing that needed to be held in order to get the facts out about the Mitchell report,” Waxman said.

Had Waxman been serious about holding a hearing on the real issue — the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs in baseball — he would have. But Clemens and McNamee made for better headlines and more attention. This is fake regret from another phony politician. And the specter of an incomplete Mitchell Report looms large as well.

One of the members of the House Oversight Committee just asked Roger Clemens if he is or ever was a vegan. Clemens looked bewildered, glanced around the room, and basically said, “Uhhh, what is a vegan? I don’t know what that is.” Apparently, the House Oversight Committee really has nothing better to do.