Steroids in Baseball

When Congress called several current and former baseball players to speak about steroids in baseball, I thought for sure the one guy that did no belong there was Rafael Palmeiro. On the one hand sat Jose Canseco owning up to his actions and offering his testimony to the actions of others. On the other hand sat Frank Thomas and Curt Schilling who were there as outspoken advocates for ridding the game of steroids. In between sat Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, suspected of enhancing their bodies over the years and bound to one another for all-time for a 1998 home run race that eradicated the records of the prior 60 years. Somewhere in the mix Rafael Palmeiro sat. When called to speak he was adamant about his innocence and indignant that he even had to speak to his innocence.

So now we have this revelation. Rafael Palmeiro suspended for steroids. Of those six players called to testify that day, one adamantly admitted using steroids, one pleaded the fifth amendment to avoid discussing his steroids use, and one has now been found guilty of using steroids. The suspicion lingers over Sammy Sosa now, as the last player called for suspected steroids usage.

It does give one pause to wonder about other players, other feats. Bret Boone certainly looks much different from his slender brother Aaron Boone and has deteriorated in the past few years of steroids testing from a potential MVP candidate (10th in AL voting in 2003) to being cut from two teams in the same season with almost two months remaining. A rapid decline in talent from old age has happened enough times for such a fall-off to be easily explained away. But the events of steroids headlines are going to taint opinions of Bret Boone and many, many others. Jose Canseco played on many teams and with many all-stars and hall of fame calibre players. Did he help them? Did others?

I heard Jose Canseco on ESPN stating that the timing of the positive test result for Palmeiro (in the third year of testing and in Palmeiro's final season playing - after he already accomplished all a player could in the game) indicated to him Palmeiro assuredly had not been using steroids this season. Canseco stated that either the test found the tracers of usage from up to a few years prior in the system of Palmeiro or the sample used in convicting Palmeiro was actually switched in order to set up Palmeiro. What series of events leaves us in a position with Jose Canseco speaking as the authority figure on anything? Collosal failures on this magnitude fall on the shoulders of the top officials, squarely on the honus of the office of the commissioner of baseball. A post not filled since 1992, just about the time that Jose Canseco claims to have injected other players with steroids and spread them throughout lockerrooms. Since that time the teams have managed themselves with an owner named Bud Selig serving as the commissioner. This is not working. Selig is not unbiased and not able to resolve many things about this issue - irregardless of his shortcomings in other areas of the game (cancelled World Series, tied All-Star game, the calamity that was the Montreal Expos, the spectacle of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Pete Rose coming clean without any redemption to the game, and so on).

So blame starts there, with the owners for not having a commissioner to monitor them, the players, and the state of the game. Blame falls on the players for being stupid enough to make a union cause out of opposing testing as an invasion of privacy (in a country where I have been forced to take several drug test by employers without any recourse for me to avoid doing so, in a country where refusal to take a policeman adminstered sobriety test equates with automatic conviction). Blame falls again on the players for not reporting their brethren and allowing the sins of the guilty to continue, enabling them to succeed and not serving as a disincentive to players thinking of using steroids. Blame falls on the trainers, coaches, and managers for not speaking out the the things that they saw within the lockerrooms (certain hall of fame manager Tony LaRussa admitted knowing things happened but passed blame to the rules of the game and the vacant commissioner's office). Blame falls on the reporters for knowing full well what Lenny Dykstra was doing in Philadelphia, for knowing full well what Mark McGwire was doing in St. Louis, and knowing what countless others did as well without the integrity of a full-scale undercover report to unravel the scandal decades ago.

I cannot blame fans and I cannot blame myself. We have the least insight into the situation and a surface view. Only the outcomes of workouts are witnessed, not the gyms and lockerrooms these players inhabit. I cannot blame fans and I cannot blame myself for continuing to like watching the game and taking enjoyment out of it. It is a great game. It will get beyond this, just as it got beyond gambling scandals. It should have never gotten to this point.