'ROID RAGE

By Charles Curtis 

Scan this year's list of sports controversies and you'll come across a common thread: athletes guilty of taking a steroid called THG. The practice is seemingly widespread, from the National Football League to international track and field. Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi have been served with subpoenas to testify in the case against BALCO, a dietary supplement company. And now we can add another item to that growing list: Major League Baseball will require mandatory drug testing for players effective at the beginning of next season. All the rumors whispered about our favorite sluggers bulking up illegally, all the speculation that drugs have caused the massive hike in home runs hit per year... gone. Instead, you'll hear every joke under the sun about urinating in a cup.

But there's more to this story than another punch line for David Letterman and Jay Leno. Our innocence in baseball is effectively over: the heroes who can change the face of any game with one swing of the bat (or fifty swings per season) are now on permanent probation because we are wondering what they're taking while benching over 300 lbs.

However, we know a steroid problem exists. Tell-all books, such as those written by David Wells and Jose Canseco, allege that around half the league is on some kind of steroid, legal or illegal. Those numbers may tend to change before the publishing date depending on the vehemence of the league's denials. Not to mention Canseco and former NL MVP Ken Caminitti have both admitted to steroid use during their time as players.

We also know that approximately seven percent of the players who were examined tested positive, along with various confessions and post-retirement declarations. That means that there should be a harsh penalty in order to stop the bleeding, right? Wrong. First time offenders get a warning. And what happens to those players who get caught a second time? A ten-game suspension. You can imagine sluggers and pitchers aren't exactly shaking in their spikes, since ten games out of one hundred and sixty-two is barely a slap on the wrist.

What the league needs to do is increase positive testing punishments. The first-time offender should receive the ten-game suspension. His next offense must result in a fifty-game suspension. After that, a year-long penalty will deter anyone from touching one of the drugs on baseball's banned list. But there's another problem in MLB's fine print: players know when the tests will occur, meaning that we may not hear about any steroid offenders next year, since, as Dave Kindred of The Sporting News points out, "Any half-bright steroid user beats the tests, which must be why the players union agreed to any testing at all." You can be sure some scientist will come up with a chemical substance that gets 'roids out of a player before a drug test. And if all else fails, there's always the switch-your-sample-with-your-teammates' trick. Simple, yet effective.

But there's an even bigger problem aside from the lack of harsh punishments that might deter players from taking steroids. The very integrity of baseball is at stake. If we find out that a slugger like Barry Bonds is a pill popper (and there is constant speculation that the lithe Bonds of the early 90s didn't just become linebacker-sized as a result of a daily workout regiment), then his record 73 dingers in one season will be given a giant asterisk in the minds of every fan and aficionado. We'll start to get suspicious that muscles are juiced instead of baseballs, and soon, a sport in which numbers define greatness will be tainted by the possibility that drugs helped a few more balls fly over the fence. And those athletes who believe in the sanctity of baseball and decide not to take steroids? They will be left behind, creating yet another competitive balance problem in a league that constantly attempts to level the playing field.

So what can MLB do to solve these two separate but very present problems in their quest to strike out steroids? Harsher punishments will help. A longer, more comprehensive banned list that includes even supplements such as androstenedione (Andro for short), the pills taken by Mark McGwire to give him Schwarzenegger-like biceps and deltoids.

But can we trust the players themselves ever again? And should we celebrate athletes who are willing to put their team, their sport, and especially their careers in jeopardy just to bulk up their numbers? There is no solution to the lack of trust that may develop out of increased steroid use. The fans may be watching the dawn of a new age in baseball, in which we become wary and suspicious of players instead of celebrating their achievements and being wowed by a new generation of athletes. Hopefully, those days won't come, and we can return to a time when the only chemical involved in baseball was the endorphins rushing to our brains as we excitedly watch America's Pastime in its purest form.