The Steroid Age?
I know a lot of us are trying to figure out how to absorb the vast steroid use in baseball following the release of the Mitchell Report earlier this week. And with Andy Pettitte's acknowledgment yesterday of his use of HGH, it is foolish to discredit the Mitchell Report as simply a pile of hearsay or a pack of agenda-laden lies. There is something of substance to the allegations in this report.I think we can all agree that the game as a whole must share responsibility for this problem. From the owners, general managers, managers, coaches, players and yes, even the fans-- we all ignored this issue to some degree. I think I mentioned it earlier in another article here, but how excited were many of us to see what Jason Giambi would do with that right field wall in Yankee Stadium back in 2001? At the time, I don't think any of us would have been surprised to have been told that he was using steroids. And who was surprised when the same fact was revealed a couple of years later? And when was Giambi forgiven by the fans? Was it when he starting with a hot bat again? And when was he back in the doghouse? When he couldn't sustain his offense as a DH? We fans (not us specifically) are a fickle bunch.
So, do we write off the post-strike era as one where records cannot be taken seriously? How does the game reclaim its legitimacy? I don't think this is baseball's definitive ruination, but I believe strongly that if things don't change in a significant way, historians will look back at this week as a lost opportunity. The reason baseball recovered from the 1919 Sox scandal was that the response by the sport brutal towards the cheaters. If you cheat at the game, you're disqualified- simple as that. Unfortunately, this form of cheating that we're dealing with today is less contained. I'm not sure that there is any single move the game can make to put this issue to rest. I think attitudes need to change. I think fans need to take better care of the game by not looking past steroid use when victory is the tradeoff. I myself have been guilty of this, so I'm not throwing stones here. I think there's too much motivation to cheat, that the amount of money this game brings in is an incentive to do bad things. And I think there is still too much denial in clubhouses and front offices regarding this issue. It will not go away by us simply ignoring it. And if it doesn't go away for real, then we've lost a national treasure.
posted by TheJackSack at 10:59 AM
6 Comments:
A Red Sox friend emailed me the other day (Tim Patota's brother) and made a strong case about how the steroid use taints the Yankees dynasty, or at least their 2000 victory. The Yanks beat the Sox by 2.5 games that year, and had Justice, Pettitte, Clemens, Knobbie, Glenallen Hill (who hit 16 home runs for the Yanks late in the season). Did their 'roid enhanced performances make the difference? It's certainly possible, and that such an argument sticks really sucks. That's the hardest part for me.
The thing about baseball is that it is, at the end of the day, just a game. So there is nothing you can't forgive, because the game--the process--is still something outside of the individual players, and players come and go.
I think the game will be fine, and I think it will become something better because of this. It already has, I think, the past few seasons.
And it's also worth noting that during the last three years--remarkable ones for Roger in terms of his age and accomplishments--he was theoretically clean. I would very much like him to *come* clean, though, at least to some extent.
Did I accidentally predict TIME's Person of the Year? Weird!
Hello Mr. Prime Minister Putin
Putin is a spiting image of Ivan Drago
Mentioning Ivan Drago rattles a memory loose for me. ROCKY IV came out in 1985-86, and even then the issue of steroids was apparent. Remember, Drago is in his high-tech gym, shooting up some sort of substance? Since 1986 we've been talking about this stuff. For a lot of players in the bigs today, that's almost (their entire lives! Steroids or HGH or whatever form they take in the future) are not going away.
VH1 should do a Where are they now? Ivan Drago.
I can see him working in a small town as a dishwasher/busboy. He has a small apartment. He is an alcoholic. He purchases time with the ladies. He weighs 120 rubles. Though it's no longer the Soviet Union, everyone there still hates him.
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