Last fall, buoyed by the exciting playoff runs of baseball’s loveable losers, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, the major leagues made its first real resurgence into the sporting conscience of North America since the 1994 players strike. The labour strife that took place a decade ago decimated attendance and interest, and it took last year’s incredible playoffs to push television ratings to a level competitive with more commercially successful leagues like the NFL or the NBA.
However, as the Yankees faced the Devil Rays in the first game of the season yesterday, the public has already moved its focus away from the game itself and onto the next issue of contention; steroid use. Although I will not waste time arguing that steroid use is good for baseball or sport in general, because of course it’s not, I will suggest that steroid testing immediately can only harm Major League Baseball. What we have here is a simple divide between an ideal situation and an economic and competitive reality.
Obviously, if it were to have no impact on the league itself, steroid testing would be great and would help ensure fair competition. It is quite obvious that steroid use is widespread in the league. Some of the players show clear physical signs of usage. The engorged heads of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi are clear signifiers that they’ve been doing something ‘different’ to their bodies. Bonds and Giambi are the most high profile players to come under pressure for steroid use. Giambi is the biggest power threat for baseball’s biggest team, the New York Yankees. Bonds is a living legend, one of the top three players of all time. He also holds the most prestigious single-season record in all of sport with 73 home runs. If testing is implemented immediately, some of the game’s biggest stars could very well test positive, and that would single-handedly destroy the image of the game and would bring into disrepute all of Bonds’ superhuman accomplishments.
Such a public relations disaster could well sink the game below the depths to which it plummeted in 1994. Economically speaking, the league can not handle such a dip in interest, and the landscape of the sport may well be changed forever.
Despite the obvious problems with steroid use, the league is better off to ignore it for now. It has never had a formal drug policy, and it had to expect that professional athletes would go this route in order to gain a competitive advantage. The best way to deal with the problem is to begin testing in 2006 or 2007 in order to give players time to get off steroids so that they can the tests when istered. This will keep the game from the shock of a few failed tests and allow the players enough time to clean up the game.
–Mike Terry
Baseball is already under fire and the first game of the season is still days away. The recent allegations that some of the game’s biggest stars are on steroids makes one wonder if baseball’s reputation is tarnished beyond repair.
To combat the problem, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, has decided to take some babysteps in the right direction. He has decided to enact some semblance of steroid testing to take effect this year. Before I tout the merits of baseball’s steroid policy, I feel obliged to point out some of its holes. Under the policy, players may be caught up to five times without any suspension. The maximum fine for a five-time offender is $100,000 and/or a suspension of up to one year. The key here is the “and/or” part of the mandate.
Do you think the commissioner would dare suspend Barry Bonds if he should happen to test positive? $100,000? Come on—that’s the difference between Dom Perignon and Chateau Neuf Du Pape at Bond’s next off-season party.
The Queen’s Centre wasn’t built in a day, and this policy won’t solve all the problems either. But enacting this policy will give fans the message that baseball is trying to do something about the serious pockmark on the sport. More importantly, it gives players the message that steroids are no longer an acceptable part of the game.
There is little doubt that alleged steroid s like Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield or Jason Giambi would be serious forces-of-nature regardless of steroid use, but what about a lifetime minor leaguer like Howie Clark? With the new policy, all 180 pounds of Clark has a much greater shot of making the big show, without having to worry about Joe Steroid (or should I say Gary Steroid) stealing his spot.
If you had asked me 10 years ago if there is such a thing as too much power, I would have paused, thought about the lessons Tim Allen taught me, and said no way.
Over the last few years my feelings on the matter have changed significantly, and not just because Tool Time is off the air. Few people realize that Mark McGwire, an itted of Androstenedione, a substance similar to steroids in many regards, hit more extra base hits than he did singles for every season in which he played more than 130 games since 1991.
I am getting sick and tired of the game revolving around the longball. Long gone are the days when Rickey Henderson was the most destructive force in the game because of his ability to turn a walk into a triple through his excellence on the basepaths.
Steroid use has ruined the game of baseball. Thankfully, for fans and players alike, someone is doing something about it. Five years from now, with a little luck, we will be able to look at the game of baseball and have no need to wonder if every Tom, Dick and Barry is on juice.
–Sam Broadbent
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