Steroids and baseball - Its not just about the players

Everyone is missing the point!

From here on out it’s not about the long list of major league baseball players whose names have come up in connection with the illegal substance scandal. No, they are all grown men. They each made their own tortured, justified decision to put illegal substances into their bodies. They played Russian roulette with their careers and their health – all for the massive paydays and fleeting bits of fame on a baseball field. To hell with them! History will judge them in the very books they tried so hard to influence. They will be tainted with the Scarlet “S” for Steroids or “H” for Human Growth Hormone. Maybe newly improved drug tests will catch them and their ilk in the future – but maybe not.

I’m telling you right now the legal system will do nothing to punish these men who have already cheated and lied their way into the upper echelons of America’s pastime. Many are already out of the game, basking in their ill gotten achievements. The others, even those who protest their innocence in the face of a 20 month long investigation, are tainted now to the point where no matter how well they do in the future (sans illegal substances?) they’ll wind up like Pete Rose or Mark McGwire – on the scrap heap of baseball history instead of the heroes of the game they desperately wanted to be.

And so it should be if they are, indeed, guilty of what the Mitchell Report says. In total seven MVP’s showed up on the Senator’s list – and enough All-Stars to put one at every position. Mitchell’s investigators concluded that not one of the 30 major league teams was unaffected. Let’s face it - they are cheats and liars and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Now, to the point. The only point we should be concentrating upon now. What these athletes, past and present, have done influences not only the rookies coming up to the game but America’s children as well.

“Hundreds of thousands of our children are using these illegal substances,” declared former Senator George Mitchell. They see what their idols are doing and they think it is okay, he said.

This is a man of integrity who is a former U.S. Attorney, a former United States Senator, a man who waded through the muck and mire of the Irish Republican Army’s war against its perceived oppressor to come up with a lasting peace agreement. Mitchell clearly sees the core of the problem – why can’t the rest of us?

Now, it should be all about the next generation!

Look, I’m not just a Mom writing about the poor little children of the world. I’m a baseball fan and I understand what got us to this point. Baseball players were looking for “the edge” – that little boost that would help them heal from injuries and be more effective at their job. It might even have seemed innocent in the beginning. Yankee Pitcher Andy Pettitte, for example, talked about needing something extra for his sore arm “to help the team.” Players took notice when a colleague bounced back quickly or suddenly looked like a rocket launcher on the mound. The word spread through the locker room and once one teammate achieved good results on the juice or with human growth hormone what was the next guy to do if he wanted to keep up? To some players the answer was obvious. They had families to provide for and records to try to break.

And there really was nothing to stop this awful spiral. Players didn’t tattle on each other when one abruptly developed an extraordinary advantage over all the others. Team owners and managers weren’t about to approach a player and bawl him out for suddenly performing well. The Players Association wasn’t about to admit there might be a problem or take a step to sanction one of their multi-million dollar members. The Commissioner of Baseball was warned back in the mid-90’s that there were players taking substances that should be or actually were banned but there was no real concerted effort to get to the bottom of all those rumors.

To keep their positions in the starting line-ups more and more players compromised their integrity. They could have stood their ground and refused – but they didn’t. And then most of them lied about it when confronted. Shame on them.

In 1998 major leaguer Wally Joyner found himself in the trap. To keep up with the Caminiti’s on his team he asked his colleague Ken Caminiti to cut him in on the illegal steroids. As Joyner later recounted to ESPN’s Buster Olney he took 3 pills over the course of 10 days. The guilt overwhelmed him, he said. He tossed the rest of the pills and swears he never took another one.

Following the release of the Mitchell Report today most of the media did what Senator Mitchell predicted they would do. Most of the AP wire reports, sports magazines and network and cable TV reports focused on the names of those highly paid, overly publicized athletes who have literally thumbed their noses at authority for all these years. I read list after list of names. I had to look high and low to even find a mention of what this menace is doing to our children – although Senator Mitchell firmly and clearly stated that during his news conference too.

Late in the day Mitchell appeared on CNN’s “Situation Room” in an interview with Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer’s very last question (with no follow up) asked simply, “So, what do we tell the kids?”

“Teens are at an even greater risk,” Mitchell explained in a passionate tone.

Over the years I’ve interviewed this man many times and I could tell from the odd tone in his voice that this was the topic that touched him most deeply. Teen-aged bodies are, he explained to the CNN audience, already engulfed in hormonal changes. They are going through serious physical and emotional phases and introduction of their idol’s poison into their systems has an increased risk of major damage. Mitchell has young children, he is a student of the game of baseball and his voice nearly quavered when he spoke of what havoc this scandal has already wreaked upon America’s youth.

But there was no time for a follow up question from Wolf Blitzer or anyone else that I heard. And that’s a shame. Because to me, a mother, this is the point!

And, I will say what Mitchell never had the opportunity to explain. It’s not just our young male athletes that have gone over to the dark side of performance enhancement – its countless young female athletes as well. As the boys are influenced by what they see so are the girls– think Marion Jones.

Baseball’s Commissioner Bud Selig says he’s going to do something about this “Steroid Era” … but just what he might do is unclear. Realize, last year at the zenith of the scandal, there was record attendance at the nation’s baseball parks and major league baseball raked in a record 6 billion dollars! I’m not hopeful that the baseball business is going to adequately police itself. I have minus-zero faith in Players Association President Donald Fehr. He inspires no confidence when he employs his limp-wrist defense of his membership. One would think his primary concern would be to want his members to be healthy – not artificially pumped up on illegal substances. And, I believe that what ever drug test improvements arrive there will always be someone out there cooking up a newly minted designer steroid that avoids identification.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Rafael Palmeiro, Lenny Dykstra, Chuck Knoblauch, David Justice, Mo Vaughn and about 80 other major league players …. As much as it pains this Yankee fan to say it – TO HELL WITH ALL OF THEM. They make me sick to my stomach for what they’ve influenced our kids into doing.

“Hundreds of thousands of our kids,” according to Senator George Mitchell.

That’s the real shame.