McGwire was the one sticking the needle in his butt . . . .

Zirinism: when an athlete tortures dogs, totes a gun, or injects steroids, we ought not blame him (errr "put it into context") because of (1) the war in Afghanistan or Iraq; (2) racism; (3) his background; or (4) Bud Selig.

Reminds me of the sports newspaper geek who sucks up to the athlete because it's "cool" . . . .

Yeesh Tornado. You are a loser.

Maybe players, managers and owners are to blame. All of them.

The issue is emphasis: everyone attacks the players for cheating, and they should be condemned for it. Ban McGwire (and the other cheaters) from the game - don't let him back in as a hitting coach.

But (almost) no one blames managers and owners (and the Commissioner). They knew what was going on. Why are they immune from attack?

(p.s.: "putting in context" does not mean absolve. It means telling the whole story. Some of it may indicate other factors beyond personal responsibility. But it does not mean cheaters are not personally responsible. It means that, in addition, others are responsible.)

AF: Everybody does not attack the players for cheating. The press that typically covers baseball, yes. But my guess is you will see a grown man wearing a Clemens, Sosa, or McGwire jersey sooner than you will see a lucid defense of owners in general or Selig.

It's always fun to blame owners or management, or the commish, you really can't fault Selig for the whole steroid era, if you don't like it. For the most part he was ineffectual when it came to steroid policing, but in 1995 he did put testing on the table. Baseball has the strongest union of any sport, and possibly the world. There was no way Donald Fehr or the union would ever have agreed to steroid testing.

While it is true that MLB did spell out a drug policy in 1992, steroids were more a matter of rumor and conjecture in those days. I personally remember whispers as early as 1988 that Canseco might be using PED's, but remember that in those days the league was much more worried about cocaine than roids. MLB was much more worried about the effect drugs had on the image of the game (which they knew to be harmful), than the integrity of the game (unknown at the time, for all intents and purposes). If you take a look back at ballplayers ca. 1992 very few looked like they lifted weights, let alone might use chemical enhancement while doing so. If you had envisioned aloud a scenario in which steroid use was remotely as common in baseball as in football, not many people would have taken you seriously.

As for McGwire and his enablers, I don't blame him or anybody else for juicing way back when, but I do fault him and his enablers past and present who can't own up to their deeds. We can paint the owners and leadership as bloodless villains, but in baseball the players are the stars. You buy a ticket, watch the game on the tube, and stand in line for autographs for the players, and even grown men will make excuses for them. We do none of those things for the owners or even the managers. Most baseball fans would recognize a photograph of Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, or Joe DiMiggio, but the same is not true of Branch Rickey, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, or Colonel Rupert. With that visibility and stardom the player has certain responsibilities. McGwire sorta came clean recently, but falls short, as he admitted he took steroids, but claimed they didn't help him, which is just dishonest. If he or anybody else would say, "Yes I took PED's. I'm an athlete and I have a short window of opportunity to make money, win games, and they helped me play better," then who could slam him?

My own opinion is, either we should suspend and/or retroactively revoke all Hall of fame elections for careers that fell between 1992 and 2005, or act like grownups. We should continue enjoying the game, recognize outstanding achievements in the sport, but include the truth, even if some people don't happen to find it palatable. Unfortunately, baseball more than any other sport apparently, incites fanciful notions that the game has always been some bastion of virtue only occasionally besmirched by nogoodniks, contrary to the reality that this was a game ruled and populated from its inception by racists, drunks, womanizers, cheats, hypocrites, and chiselers. Cheating and chicanery is as integral to the game as fair play and even competition. Annals of the game are littered with tales of frozen balls, sandpaper in gloves, vaseline on the ball, corked bats, bats stuffed with superballs. If the fellas from yore didn't cheat by injecting steroids, it was only because they hadn't thought of it yet, not because they were too honest.

That said, I do agree with the top line of this article, in that in the wake of the whole steroid issue, the press that covers the sport hasn't opened an honest discussion of PED's. The particular writers who cover it might be behind the curve on the subject, but could do a little research on matters like the benefits and drawbacks of steroids, differences between steroids and HGH (one in the same, I suspect, in the public consciousness), the technology of PED's over the past 40 years. Instead we get much of the same melange of scary mythology and machinations as education about recreational drugs. Just swap out "chromosome damage," or "drains spinal fluid" for "enlarged/reduced genitalia."

First Dave kudos to you for being one of Utne Reader's top 50 visionaries,and I also enjoyed your interview on C-span with Will Haygood.
With respect to the steroid mess I'm becoming more and more of a mindset: a pox on all of them(owners,players,et.al.) The only problem I see is once you have tarred all of baseball where does that leave us? Right or wrong I believe the average fan just want his team to win. Will he/she care if their team has cheaters? I use to think so,I am not so sure anymore.

It is easy to say we all knew who cheated, but it is very hard to prove in court. Also one must remember there was a collective bargaining agreement in place so no matter who the commisioner was they had to negotiate drug testing procedures. As a retired union member I realize the number one priority of any union is to protect their members perhaps at the expense of the general public.

I don't have answers only half-hearted responses like maybe a drug-wing in the HOF sponsored by Pfizer pharmaceutical.

Posted by Aaron on 1/12/10 at 9:02 PM

blame this, blame that

AF: Everybody does not attack the players for cheating. The press that typically covers baseball, yes. But my guess is you will see a grown man wearing a Clemens, Sosa, or McGwire jersey sooner than you will see a lucid defense of owners in general or Selig.

It's always fun to blame owners or management, or the commish, you really can't fault Selig for the whole steroid era, if you don't like it. For the most part he was ineffectual when it came to steroid policing, but in 1995 he did put testing on the table. Baseball has the strongest union of any sport, and possibly the world. There was no way Donald Fehr or the union would ever have agreed to steroid testing.

.....................

And then, you go and blame the players' union....

Guess it's ok for you to play the blame game.

Good catch on NBC Nightly News' opening monologue. This 'roid rage isn't really bothering me since there are other, more important issues needing addressed. Folks who were clowning Jose Canseco before the ball dropped now got eggs on their faces. Face it , in the genre known as pro sports, PEDs are everywhere whether legal or otherwise, especially when billions of dollars are at stake for kids' games.

Dave good article...I can't see this question will ever be reformed because it's just not as fun for the media to attack the faceless owners/trainers etc. It's far easier going after the household names.


Aaron I came here to read Dave's article not yours. Dam can we have the word count somewhere above a Twitter but below DZ's drop?

So we here, even from those who don't completely condemn McGwire and other athletes who dosed, that by taking steroids or other PEDS that the athletes cheated.
OK. I am a bit of a closet idealist as well and I think everyone should have an equal shot.

And that's why every World Series title belonging to the NY Yankees should be returned. That team habitually enhances it's performance by injecting it's players with money.
And, in this age of sabremetrics, we should adjust everyone's real HR totals based on hitters' era, ballpark, quality of team, etc (Hello our new home run king, Harmon Killebrew!)

Point is, as long as the game is played for $, the motivation exists for everyone (players, owners, managers, trainers) to bend the rules or turn the other cheek while others do it. And to pile blame onto a handful of 'steroids era' players- while ignoring everything else wrong with the game [read business]- is to go witch hunting right along with the most vapid group of assholes in the country- Congress.

from Jeff Gordon at the St Louis Post Dispatch harkening back to 'amphetamine era' of the 1960's. From the article,
“‘A few pills—I take all kinds—and the pain's gone,’ says Dennis McLain of the Detroit Tigers. McLain also takes shots, or at least took a shot of cortisone and Xylocaine (anti-inflammatory and painkiller) in his throwing shoulder prior to the sixth game of the 1968 World Series—the only game he won in three tries. In the same Series, which at times seemed to be a matchup between Detroit and St. Louis druggists, Cardinal Bob Gibson was gobbling muscle-relaxing pills, trying chemically to keep his arm loose. The Tigers' Series hero, Mickey Lolich, was on antibiotics.”

The reason that Selig still has a job is, that as a former owner, he has consistently protected the owners, to the detriment of the game and all other parties. He has no integrity.

There is no comparison, Steroids allow you to break through plateau after plateau. To try to argue that roids do not increase an athletes abiity or make you stronger is just absurd. What are we turning this into a global warming like debate?

What's often not mentioned in the roid debate is the mental edge it gives you. People on the juice have soaring test levels, and with that soaring test it also gives an extreme sense of self confidence, no one ever mentions this mental edge to the juice which greatly has an effect on overall performance.

But ya stick a protein shake in your arm and you get the same thing.

To Sean (DC), A bit on steroids:

Steroids are generally either one of three types, anabolic, glucocorticoid, or sex hormones (some are also sex and anabolic -like testosterone.)

Anabolic steroids can make individuals stronger, increase muscle mass, endurance, etc, but, over time can predispose to serious health risks like hypertension, liver damage, leukemia, brain tumors and potentially dramatic psychiatric effects such as aggression and mania.

Glucocorticoids (cortisol) can improve healing after injuries, but have a great many potential side effects including abnormal blood sugars, sleep disturbances, psychiatric problems and psychiatric effects.

(Sex hormones (gonadal steroids) increase secondary male or female sex characteristics and, except for testosterone, are not usually abused in sports.)

Blood doping can cause kidney failure, heart attacks, pulmonary emboli or strokes.

So, not magically bad, but can be ACTUALLY bad. Like doing coke and flying a plane. No guarantee of disaster, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be along for the ride. And, in general, not the same as training at high altitude or getting a xylocaine injection.

P.S. Usually dig your stuff. -M

Thanks for the informative post and well thought out criticism. You're right about the potential harm-- I still remember as a young kid seeing a very sad documentary about one of the East German Olympic women shot putters who was unknowingly injected with obscene amounts of testosterone.

It's worth mentioning that sports at the highest level seems to be damaging regardless of anything else-- head trauma in contact sports, knee damage in long-distance running, rotator cuff damage to swimmers. . . There is room for a very interesting discussion about how various chemical substances and changes in equipment, nutrition, and training fit in. If people were expressing concern for Mark McGuire's well being, rather than righteous indignation that an athlete did everything in his power to excel at his sport, we could be having it right now.

Unfortunately, the mainstream debate around steroid use in sports doesn't center around harm, but rather on the bizarre premise that steroid use uniquely violates the "purity" of sports. Other things that seem to violate this purity include visors in pro hockey and mandatory rest following concussions in football. Check the posts on these subjects on ESPN and you'll see that "today's athletes are being coddled and it's ruining the game." Ironically, you rarely hear a peep about "technological doping", even as materials such as carbon fiber, titanium, and polyurethane have reshaped bicycling, golf, and swimming respectively.

The bog-standard moralism that feeds the condemnation of Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds as human beings deserves one hell of a kicking. I apologize for stepping over the mark in the process.

You're back in form my friend, and you nailed this one. Athletes at this level are the archetypal 'ancillary tools of production' as far as the institutions are concerned, and as long as they produce the product and the capital keeps flowing, the systems are incapable of even considering the physical and emotional toll on their machines.

Thus, you get NFL players with dementia in their 40s, and what will probably prove to be a generation of baseball players with the sequelae of long-term anabolic seroid use. The leagues and owners only perk up when the publicity gets negative and threatens to adversely affect the bottom line. I'm not sure about the role the players unions play in this process, but if you or anyone have any insights I'd love to hear.

Thanks for all the insightful posts. -M

Yes, what you say is true, though I was referring to the athletes through the eyes of 'the institution(s)' such as the NFL, MLB, etc. Of course the athletes themselves just want money, and the high of sports and good lives, just like anyone, or almost anyone. Its just that the NFL, as an institution, like any corporation, is (legally, in fact) incapable of seeing the players as human beings and so, as an institution, looks the other way as players sometimes injur or destroy themselves.

Its written in law that the corporation must pursue profit no matter what ,and until the players' health starts adversely affecting profit, (bad pub, whatever) they will look the other way, and sometimes actively encourage the self destructive behavior.