TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Friday, March 18, 2005

Yes, Virginia, It's a Witch Hunt

I find myself in the extremely unusual position of being largely in agreement with the baseball establishment over the most unlikely of issues -- steroid use in baseball.

There's no doubt that baseball is a dollar late and a dime short on self-regulation, and that external pressures brought about the strength of response it has formulated. It's also equally inarguable that none of that pressure came from the United States Congress, which seems to have discovered the steroids issue at a time when baseball has actually substantially cleaned up its own act. The pressure came from years of reporting by the press and the judicial process at work.

The whole circus act of bringing in prominent baseball players, and having them testify right after tearful parents who claim their children's suicides were the result of steroids use, is a cheap grandstand play. Yesterday's Congressional hearings were the lowest form of political exploitation of a minor issue for sensationalist publicity.

Steroids are a serious problem -- in high school and college, where their use and abuse may range from a mild problem to a rampant epidemic, depending on whom you ask. I don't believe there's been any cause and effect established between steroids use and teen suicide, but as one source put it, it seems like a really bad idea to throw those kind of substances into the unstable hormonal brew of adolescense.

Are kids being supplied steroids by major leaguers? Nope. They get them the way they normally get drugs, from suppliers who make a direct profit out of them. Do they get the idea to take steroids from major leaguers? I'm not as clear on that issue. The role that a "role model" takes in developing a young person's values and influencing their conduct is an open question. There's no doubt in my mind, though, that the role models that have the most influence aren't sports and entertainment stars, but parents, coaches, and peers, especially slightly older peers.

The real impetus to take steroids and other performance-enhancing substances comes from these sources. From parents and coaches who value winning above all else, from pressures to achieve to get scholarships, from the very idea that sports is, in and of itself, so intrinsically worthwhile that a teen's whole identity can get caught up in performance.

The idea that you can get performance in a pill is another disgusting and dangerous idea in our culture. As such, Rafael "Viagra" Palmeiro -- who endorses the product he says he doesn't use or need -- may have been the most guilty among the panelists yesterday of having fostered the continuing idea that you can become something you're not with a little pharmaceutical help.

I'm at a loss to explain how Major League Baseball and its players can be blamed for this societal problem, other than in a very indirect way. The issue first came up in my memory in 1988, when the first Canseco rumours surfaced. What was the fans' reaction at the time? At Fenway, at least, the fans showered Canseco with cries of 'cheater' during the playoffs. Jose might have "gotten away" with something, albeit something that was perfectly legal at the time, but it didn't get him any respect, and even his honesty now isn't getting him any more. Fans hate the sin and hate the sinner even more.

As such, I can't see that the alleged steroids users in baseball have gotten anything like positive publicity for taking the steroids, and there have been very, very few who've admitted taking them. That simply means the "role model" question is ludicrous. The Governor of California has admitted taking steroids,, their use is still rampant in his former sport (bodybuilding, not acting), and I didn't see him being called before the panel yesterday.

Baseball was slow to act on steroids, but if you listened carefully to what the baseball people -- Selig, Manfred, Alderson, not McGwire, Schilling, and Canseco -- said yesterday, you'd see a pretty careful anti-steroids policy that they're crafting and recrafting as they go. It calls for mandatory suspensions and treatment options -- just like most large corporations have similar policies when their employees have drug problems. It's not up to corporations to bust their employees and send them to jail, and we accept, in every other industry (including law enforcement!) the need to provide voluntary treatment programs to employees to get them off the illegal drugs they're on. If it's an all-or-nothing policy where positive tests and/or self-incrimination lead only to disgrace, then those who have been hooked will have no incentive to come clean.

A lot of the Congressional claims against baseball are just old hat. They're using independent labs and random testing. They implemented a two-phased program that saw positive tests drop to less than 2% last year among all players -- that's about 12-15 players among over 600 tested. The new penalties will be in effect this year. Labor and management are cooperating in an unprecedented way. Some of the Congressmen seem to have been saying that anybody who's clean should just come forward and swear an oath to that effect -- just like Senator McCarthy, in the 1950s, thought that anybody who was a patriotic American should just swear an oath of allegiance and then name the names of all known communists. That's a nation where hearsay and innuendo rule, not sensible legislation and employment practices.

As for the fake shock over the idea that the game itself might be permanently tainted, I found most of the mewling by Congressmen over this issue to be shallow. Some guys got an "unfair" advantage, but at least, in contrast to the gambling scandals of 85 years ago, the players are trying to get an advantage for themselves and their teams, not throwing the games. Sure there's a lot of tainted production -- but (among the accused) where did Mark McGwire's team finish in 1998? Not in first place. How many rings does Barry Bonds have? How many have the Yankees won since Jason Giambi joined the club? The 'roid poppers may have gotten some more performance, but their days are now over and it's not at all clear to what extent their little extras actually changed the course of events.

And let's assume the worst -- the baseball records are tainted. THIS is the big national "crisis" (exactly what multiple congressmen called it yesterday)? Not when half our National Track and Field team got thrown out at the Olympics? And this is the biggest health problem we have -- 12-15 baseball players popping pills? Gentlemen and gentleladies of Congress, IT'S ONLY A GAME. The problem is, in fact, elevating success in a game to some kind of mythic status. If there was a little bit of sense of proportion about the status of sports in our culture, maybe Congress would spend some time, say, finding the missing billions of dollars the Coalition Provisional Authority lost in Iraq or regulating mercury in pollution emissions.

Why is Congress investigating now? Pure political grandstanding. Being against steroids is like being against Hitler or infanticide. No one is going to disagree with you. If you can whip on some scapegoats who don't have entirely clean hands, then you'll end up looking better by comparison. You will distract people from real problems and convince them that something else is a serious problem so they don't pay attention to the real problems.

An even scarier problem might be the rampant use of steroids among police officers. I don't know about you, but the police in my community are much more important role models than some idiotic baseball players. And I personally would not want to be in the middle of a confrontation where a guy who is legally armed and authorized to use a fire arm has been hopped up on testosterone. But Congress isn't paying much attention to that issue, either.

As Bernie Sanders, the independent Congressman from Vermont on the Government Affairs Committee holding the hearings quipped, maybe they could bring ballplayers to the next hearing concerning the rising health care costs in this country and maybe they'd get some attention for a change.

For that matter, steroid use in high schools and colleges is a real problem. But it's not one that needs new laws -- just better enforcement. The things are already illegal! Let's say we took 1% of the cost of the war in Iraq and put it to the Drug Enforcement Agency with the mandate they bust up the distribution rings (you can buy them on-line, for god's sake), how many lives do you think might be saved? We'll never know, because Congress hasn't done jack about funding efforts better. Congress has been in the midst of continuing to cut federal funds for drug treatment programs of all sorts in this past week. The States continue to cut drug treatment programs (and enforcement) as they're faced with the fallout of reduced federal support -- just go to Google News and type in 'budget cuts drug treatment' if you want a sampler.

Isn't that a, shall we say, mixed message from the Congress?

If Congress really wants to address baseball's conduct, it has a simple remedy. Repeal the Anti-Trust exemption, for which there is utterly no logical reason. If they're serious about steroids enforcement, add a billion to the DEA budget for the purpose, or pass uniform legislation concerning testing and competitive athletics that applies equally to all sports.

Yesterday showed disgusting hypocrisy of the worst sort, and for once it's not coming from Major League Baseball.

posted by The Crank 12:42 PM