26 Miles

Baseball’s Dirty Little Secret

// March 8th, 2006 // Life

The latest revelation – if it can be so called at this point – regarding Barry Bonds’ use of steroids for the past 8 years, should be another bellwether event heralding the end of steroid abuse in professional sports, and further marginalize the fakers and phonies. But it won’t. I know better.

It’s been said that fans fall into two camps regarding steroid use in professional sports – those who are disgusted by it and yearn for it to be expunged altogether; and those who see it somehow as a natural outgrowth of modern competitive sports and the only way athletes can keep a competitive advantage with other cheaters is to cheat themselves.

I can’t see how anyone but the most jaded can argue the latter position. Banned substances need to be eliminated from professional sports, period. Having glimpsed firsthand the rigor of the USADA testing of Olympic hopefuls, there’s no good reason those same standards can’t be applied to professional sports, none.

Olympic hopefuls are tested randomly, and often. The list of banned substances is very broad and often includes the most effective medicines for treating common injuries and diseases (i.e. high blood pressure, muscle strains, heart conditions), which are regularly prescribed for non-athletes. The punishment for cheating is typically severe — being banned from the sport for extended periods of time, hefty fines, and stripping of past awards.

Pete Rose has been vilified for betting on baseball and banned from entry into the hall of fame. It’s arguable that although the culture of major league baseball didn’t exactly discourage steroid use until recently, juicers of any era enjoy no moral advantage over Pete Rose, and every statistic they hold should have an asterisk beside it.

If we’re going to give a de-facto nod-and-wink to the juicers, then let the pre-steroid era stand apart from the current one. If we praise their achievement, let’s also recognize the artificiality of it.

My family lives for baseball. My kids love going to the games, even though it’s a 94-mile drive roundtrip to our teams’ stadium. My wife and I have a certain winter-melancholy that comes not only from the grey skies, but from the absence of baseball in our lives between November and April. If there’s a game on, the TV is tuned to it for seven solid months. We love this game.

Some will argue that sports figures aren’t role models. This is disingenuous at best. They only have to look at their own role models to know that peppered among perhaps their parents, relatives, friends, and civic or church leaders were, I bet, more than a few professional athletes.

My hope, however naive, is that the people whose actions chart the course of professional sports see with the clarity of a child the need to set high standards for both athletic and personal achievement, and in the process create an environment that produces role models worth emulating.