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After the various Paul Lo Duca scandal stories (teenagers, bookies, whatever) in the papers recently, the Met catcher has been cleared of wrongdoing by Major League Baseball and the Mets. But what does that mean? Not much, according to Selena Roberts.  She points out that when teams and leagues investigate questionable behavior on the part of the athletes who drive their revenues, they seldom find much. And it's not just baseball:

The N.B.A. once dismissed the unsavory associations Michael Jordan had with the gambling underworld as if they were traveling violations (also never called on his Airness). And in the N.F.L., the Oakland Raiders understood that center Barret Robbins had mental health problems but failed to address them until he went on a tequila binge the day before the Super Bowl in 2003.



Willful denial abounds every time a Terrell Owens resurfaces on a team that swears it is satisfied with whatever homework/background check has been applied to a player’s past patterns of disobedience. Dangerous oblivion emerged in the N.H.L. when the union allowed the agent David Frost — with a history of mentally manipulating young players — to continue as the mentor of Mike Danton until Danton was arrested in a murder-for-hire plot.



The pressure to know nothing is intense. Only Kevin Towers, as the Padres’ general manager, has been compelled to purge his conscience by speaking up last year about his knowledge of Ken Caminiti’s steroid use.



“I feel somewhat guilty, because I felt like I knew,’’ Towers told espn.com. “I still don’t know for sure, but Cammy came out and said that he used steroids, and I suspected. Selfishly, the guy was putting up numbers, and I didn’t do anything about it. That’s just the truth.’’

The article concludes like this:

Major League Baseball has cleared Lo Duca; the Mets have done their self-check as well. Everyone is at ease with the situation, and so is Lo Duca.



“The Mets said it for me,’’ Lo Duca said last week. “I don’t need to say nothing else.’’



All is well, right? So why fret over Lo Duca? Why probe for details?



Because teams and leagues have no credibility as sleuths. Because teams and leagues are culprits of learned ignorance. The incurious make lousy detectives.