The anatomy of a leak

March 18, 2010 by Jason@IIATMS

Some pretty startling news coming out of Arlington today, the day after Rangers’ manager Ron Washington admitted to using cocaine:

But in July that was going to be the end of that story. Washington kept his job, and nobody would know. The entire episode would be swept under the bat rack. And was, as the season gave way to fall and winter.

Then, however, came the blackmail threats.

Somebody, you see, did know. How or why he knew, that’s unknown.

But this team employee, fired after the season, had all the details. He also had a list of demands for the club, which if not met would mean the Ron-does-dope story would suddenly become national news.

Some of his demands were met, but the club balked at personally giving this person a glowing letter of recommendation and also refused at least one other item. By January, word leaked that the former employee was bad-mouthing Washington around north Arlington.

Blackmailer was real unhappy, but all was still quiet as spring training opened in Arizona nearly four weeks ago. Then this week, Washington received a call from a national baseball writer saying he had the Ron-does-dope details.

It’s uncertain if this is how the blackmailer made good on his threat to disgrace Washington and embarrass the ballclub, but I’d definitely wager that way.

I don’t blame the Rangers for not doing or saying anything. Why? Because the first positive test is supposed to be confidential and the Rangers handled it internally. It’s part of the collective bargaining agreement (as well as HIPAA laws, I believe; correct me if I am wrong). I feel badly for Washington, though I don’t buy his story. Regardless of the circumstances, there’s no excuse and it was good to see him not looking to make one. I don’t think the Rangers would have been right to fire him immediately; one “acknowledged” slip-up should not cost someone their career. He should, however, face some disciplinary action. What that is, I am not sure. Suspension? Fine? He’s already gone through treatment so perhaps that is enough

(click “view full post” to read more)

What I heard this morning on MLB on XM is that the team gave into some of this blackmailers demands, but balked at giving this person a glowing letter of recommendation. That’s wild.

Now, Nolan Ryan admitted that they were prepared for this coming out. Well, DUH!  If you know you have a disgruntled employee, or former employee, who has relevant and explosive news, you have to assume that even if his/her demands are met, the news will get out at some point.  I’m not saying that you have to negotiate with this person but you have to expect the firestorm at some point.

What the team should have done, in my opinion, is gone straight to the police. Perhaps this would have made us all aware of this situation mid-year last season, or earlier in the off-season, but so what? The team should have let it be known that these sorts of things are under the jurisdiction of the authorities, not the team.

Again, this is/was a no-win situation for the team:

  • If they get out in front, without Washington’s permission (I am guessing), they are in violation of the CBA and HIPAA.
  • If they sit on it, as they did, hoping it wouldn’t come out, they look reactionary. Which is true. 
  • If they now decide to fine/suspend/fire Washington, they look hypocritical as they knew about this during last season.

If you speak to any PR executives, they speak about “getting out in front” of a story to “control the message”. If Washington did, in fact, go to the team before the test results were shared and admitted using coke and offer to fall on his sword, the team and Washington could have been proactive and attacked this last year.  Or right after the season ended.  They both could have gotten ahead of the story and gotten their desired message out. And it probably wouldn’t have looked or felt much different than the messages yesterday, other than it looking proactive instead of reactive. 

Pretty big difference.

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Unfortunately, I did not get to comment on the intial Ron Washington reports yesterday (other than a few tweets) due to a very busy day at work.  Just a reminder to you and to me: This website is not a paying gig for me; my job is.  I do my best to be current and up-to-date on the site as much as possible, as quickly as possible.  However, there are times when I can’t get the time to get on here to update.  I trust you understand and I appreciate your understanding.  I’ve got two contributing writers, but their focus is less on current events (Will is the site’s expert and uber-talented stat jockey and Tamar handles all of the game recaps).  I’m giving consideration to adding another voice to the site, someone who has the ability and capability to be quick to update and comment on the current events.  If you have the experience and desire, please let me know.

Otherwise, for as good a summary of the Washington news as you will find, head over to my buddy Craig’s commentary here.

 
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2 Responses to “The anatomy of a leak”

  1. Larry says:
    March 18, 2010 at 6:38 am

    Jason, HIPAA is one complicated set of laws.  An important part of HIPAA deals with issues of medical privacy.   If you are a person (such as a doctor) or entity (such as a hospital) regulated by HIPAA, then you are supposed to keep a patient's medical records private and secure, and you are not supposed to release the records without the patient's permission.  I'm giving you a wildly oversimplified explanation of HIPAA, but it will have to do for the moment.

    HIPAA might apply to the Ron Washington situation, but I would not begin a legal analysis of this matter with HIPAA.  We know that the results of adverse drug tests are routinely released to the public, so the MLB powers have received the necessary consents (or analyzed the law to find the necessary exceptions) to allow the public disclosure of this information under certain circumstances.

    The bigger issues here have to do with the options that were available to the Rangers once they realized that a rogue employee had threatened the public release of these drug test results.  You are right to suggest that the Rangers might have been restricted (by law or by contract) from "controlling the message" by releasing these results before the employee had the opportunity to do so.  But if the Rangers had an obligation to keep these results private, they may also have had the obligation to minimize the damage resulting from their failure to keep these results private.   It's therefore arguable that the Rangers were REQUIRED to "control the message". 

    Ultimately, we don't know enough to draw any legal conclusions here.

    Jason, I'm an attorney with a reasonably decent grasp of HIPAA and medical privacy laws.  I'm happy to answer any questions on this topic.

  2. Ron says:
    March 18, 2010 at 9:21 am

    Do managers and coaches fall under the CBA? 



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