The whole baseball steroids furor is a wonder to behold. Normally, baseball holds little interest for me. I freely admit that I haven’t been to a ballgame in twenty years or more, not counting my son’s very brief Little League career. So, I resemble the alien that drops in to observe the local customs. Frankly, I was hoping to capitalize on the tremendous interest this story has sparked. I‘ve no interest in rehashing the grisly details, though. I just want to use the steroids-in-baseball frame as a launching pad. There are so many different directions to head in; I sense that this may lead to a series of articles.
Every single one of the thirty Major League Baseball teams were implicated in the Mitchell Report, which identified MVPs, Cy Young winners, and 31 All Stars. Almost a quarter of the 89 names were either active or former Yankees, which should cast aspersions on the legitimacy of their ‘90s dynasty. But if we look a little closer, we see serious flaws in the Report. Almost half of those named are already retired from the game. In addition, according to Sean Deveney of Sporting News,
All it did was throw mud on those who were unfortunate enough to be tied to Radomski [the NY Mets clubhouse attendant who cooperated with the investigators as part of a plea bargain in his federal case of steroid distribution]. Everybody else who used steroids in the past 15 years but got it elsewhere escaped scrutiny, scot-free. No wonder Mitchell wanted Selig to forgo suspensions.
José Conseco has claimed that as much as 85% of the league used steroids. If this figure is even remotely accurate, those fingered in the probe were just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. And Deveney’s “everybody else” are part of an exceedingly large group of scofflaws. So much for the Mitchell team’s methodology. Twenty months and $20 million didn’t yield much more than would a reading of Conseco’s book and Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports by two award-winning investigative reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle.
With all the fan outrage and media hoopla, it is generally recognized that the reputation of the sport has been badly tarnished. Predictions are, however, that baseball will continue to flourish, its bottom line strong.
How is that possible? An AP story at ChicagoTribune.com captures that dichotomy well. Selig’s Support Strong in Baseball reads, in part,
Two things matter most in professional sports: winning and profits. More clubs have a chance to win the World Series because of revenue-sharing rules negotiated during his 15-year tenure. And the league set attendance records in 2007, topping $6 billion in revenue. “He has total support of the ownership, total support,” Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said.
The article ends with a quote from former commissioner Fay Vincent: ”How can you get people to stop cheating when the financial rewards for cheating are so enormous?”
Record-breaking attendance four years in a row and 80 million tickets sold in 2007 were powerful motivation for owners and management to continue to ignore the widespread use of performance-enhancing substances taking place in clubhouses across the nation. The accusations made by José Conseco in Juiced and the threat of further involvement by Congress precipitated the Mitchell Report, not soul-searching on the part of the league.
Legitimate questions remain: How do we evaluate baseball’s recent past in light of these revelations? How far back should we look critically? Which records should be allowed to stand? And what of our impressionable youth? What lessons does this teach them?
According to the Mitchell Report, high school students are no strangers to steroids. In a DallasNews.com series, The Secret Edge – Steroids in High Schools, a university doctor states, "If you don't give your kid a moral foundation from which to make important life decisions and you continue to deliver ambivalent messages, if your message is win at all costs, then I think drug use is rational."
Kids, who think they’ll live forever, are even less likely than adults to focus on the real health risks that steroid use presents: from the annoying: like baldness and severe acne, to the serious: impotency, infertility, permanently stunted height, and violent mood swings, to the life-threatening: tumors of the liver, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. Dreams of success at the professional level, however unrealistic, are just too beguiling.
Baseball’s fall from grace begat a media circus that has sold lots of papers and advertising. The story has all the ingredients of a blockbuster – money, greed, drugs, illegal doings, professional athletes, revelations and cover-ups, the once mighty brought low. The Chicago Tribune ran dozens of stories, not just in the sports section, but on the front page, in the business section, the editorial page and many letters to the editor. The New York Times also carried numerous stories, again, not restricted to the sports page. Television sports and news programs were saturated with the story. Two million fans downloaded the 409-page report within a few days of its release. Remember the Red Sox fans in “Fever Pitch”? In real life as well as on the silver screen, we Americans clearly take our sports seriously.
Steroid stories outside of sports
Around the same time that this story was dominating the airwaves, others were slipping through the cracks. Sean Gonsalves of AlterNet.org identifies two other incidents involving steroid use. “Juicing up baseball players and mercenary soldiers” reveals that the NYPD is now considering introducing steroid testing. This comes after the revelation that twenty-seven of New York’s finest were fingered in a recent sting of “a pro sports steroid ring.”
The second story involves Blackwater, our unofficial representatives overseas. Allegedly, management turns a blind eye to widespread steroid abuse. An official inquiry was launched following an incident in Baghdad in September in which Blackwell soldiers fired, unprovoked, on unarmed civilians.
The First Amended Complaint filed two weeks ago alleges: "Blackwater routinely deploys heavily-armed 'shooters' in the streets of Baghdad with the knowledge that up to 25 percent of them are chemically influenced by steroids or other judgment-altering substances, and fails to take effective steps to stop and test for drug use."
It is an extremely bad idea to combine weapons with the same drugs that can induce paranoia, violent mood swings, impaired judgment, irrational behavior, and suicidal tendencies. Millionaire ballplayers trading their integrity for a shot at the gold ring seems like child’s play by comparison. I’m hardly condoning MLB behavior, only offering a larger perspective. I fear that it will take even more ‘incidents’ with predictably tragic results to catapult these stories to the headlines where they belong.
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.
CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions, networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem. Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.
As my favorite sport, and the one I was best at ( full scholarship to college because I could throw the ball about 90 MPH) I hate this furor and how it has cast aspersion on the game and everyone connected to it .
When even marginal players are making millions does anyone wonder why players endanger their health to gain an edge? When 450 foot home runs put behinds in the seats one understands why ownership turned a blind eye to the practice. I believe that instituting drug testing is necesary immediately. I further believe that we should just call the whole era the "steroid era" put it behind us and get on with the game.
During the era of Ruth we had "red juice", during the Willie Mays and Hank Aaron years it was amphetamines, now its steroids. I wonder what will be next, bionics?
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 3:05:30 PM
it looks like at least partly it will be a more wholesale move into HGH (human growth hormones). they are, as yet undetectable, which is part of the allure. players will always be one step ahead of the testers.
but strict testing is an imperative. i was totally removed from this whole issue since baseball really means nothing to me. but i've gotten caught up in the undertow. this must be torture for you to view the sport you love/d and played be so tarnished.
regarding money and power, money is a form of power.
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Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 3:13:20 PM
Like you Ardee I love the game. I can bore you to death with how I believe it mirrors life, but won't. I too was on the hill. No 90's for me though. When it came time to choose music or college baseball, it was tough. I consider myself lucky I had two choices and passions. Music won.
The edge. Any way you can. The money seduces most. Only 750 job slots. Millions waiting in the wings. Choices. Ruin their late life for a day in the sun or lose your spot at third. The money does corrupt.
Will they test? If enough pressure is brought. But as long as those butts are in the seats......
I wish it was played fair (sans whatever hoped for advantages). Baseball is such a beautiful game. To me it'll always be beautiful. With the different eras, it still amazes me after 100+ years that on a ground ball to short, the guy is still out by that much.
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mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 365 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 10:12:28 PM
you are a terrific writer. your ability to take an idea, ie. steroids in sports and apply it to so many areas of life, eventually ending with your main interest, election reform,
is extremely well done, provocative and instructive. I have forwarded much of your articles to people who matter to me.
JV
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Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 5:39:50 PM
well done, Ms. Brunwasser.... i'm also not of the baseball persuasion... only luv basketball if it's our Dookies playing... and sometimes, Tarheels ... our home (now after 41 yrs - the other half NC) is in the heart of the Atlanta Braves... but, we watch at home ... just never could figure the reason for enhancing one's body with drugs ... even tho the performance may be better to their liking ... as we've always told our 3 kiddos (now, 58, 52, and 50 in Jan.), YOU are the keeper of your body - and you've only got one.... don't mess around with it ... there's no replacement ... i'm of the opinion if the players can't use the bodies they're in, then get out
of sports ... their salaries should be cut in half... ya gotta hit back where it hurts ... M-O-N-E-Y..
PEACE, jean b.
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Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 9:30:48 PM
As a former semi-pro ballplayer and an author/historian, I claim a portion of turf here. So I'll vent my spleen for a few minutes.
The media are all over the steroid issue in baseball, but for the wrong reasons. They don't care about basic fundamentals like INTEGRITY or LEGITIMACY. What they're all about is: "Will this mean Roger Clemens won't make the Hall of Fame?" Or, "Should Barry Bonds give up his home-run championship?" Yada, yada, yada.
There is a direct link here to election integrity. And, mirabile dictu...the same villain is lurking in the shadows! It's the mainstream media, of course. They love controversy, but not where it intrudes on their corporate welfare...in which case, they dismiss any issue out of hand. Stolen elections are not, repeat not, worthy of coverage. But whether Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should make the Hall of Fame? Yeah...that's newsworthy, because the question can be framed in the form of a debate, not one of decency or ethics.
Did Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens cheat? Of course they did, and the whole world knows it. Will their ethics become the final issue to be decided? Of course not. The word "ethics" now belongs to some 19th-century dictionary, no longer available in libraries.
