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Admissions
of Guilt
by Jonathan
Leshanski
December 6, 2004
For more other/recent articles on steroids or drugs
in baseball please follow this link
It’s no shock to anyone that several players
have finally come to the fore and admitted that they used steroids.
The list includes most of the big name players that we expected
it to - the Giambi brothers, Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield. Only
the Giambi’s have truly come clean and despite all the media
claims that the Yankees might cut Jason Giambi loose, it’s
unlikely. What he did was not actionable according to the rules
of the game - no drug policy governed any drug; especially steroids
in baseball during the time he used the drugs.
That means that he broke no rules and he broke no laws. Using steroids
may be stupid, but their use is not illegal. Selling them is - and
Giambi was a buyer not a seller. The Yankees could attempt to drop
him if his contract has a morals clause on the ground that he cheated,
but the MLBPA (the Players Union) would be sure to file a grievance
in which the team almost surely would lose. They could try to argue
that he deceived them - but it would be a shallow claim. The Yankees
suspected, as did everyone else even if they weren’t 100% sure
that Giambi used steroids, as they did with Gary Sheffield. The
claim is hollow and it’s ringing through the corridors of every
major league locker room and GM’s office in the game right
now.
Baseball has had a steroid problem for years and teams have turned
a blind eye to it. Ken Caminiti the 1996 NL MVP who died of a drug
overdose in October shocked the baseball world last May by admitting
that he used steroids during his MVP season and that he believed
that almost 50% of all major leaguers were taking illegal supplements.
His was not the first accusation or admission but he was the biggest
name player to step forward and admit that illegal steroids were
being used widely - confirming much of what Jose Canseco had earlier
claimed – the same claims that the powers that be had denied.
There was a firestorm of debate. We wrote about it here while baseball
and the players union worked on damage control rather than a real
solution. They believed that like the many other crises that baseball
has faced that it could be swept under the rug until the public
and media forgot about it. Even while the investigation of BALCO
(Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) it’s founder Victor Conte
and Greg Anderson (Barry Bonds’ trainer and supplement man)
went on, the two groups that run baseball (the union and owners)
thought they could escape the taint.
They can’t. Their head in the sand routine won’t cut it
anymore. Now that the truth is coming out baseball is going to feel
the true public backlash. None of us go to the game to see which
team is the best at manipulating pharmaceuticals, but to see an
honest competition between some of the best athletes in the world.
Selig and the players union were lying to themselves and to us about
the product that they were putting on the field - and that itself
opens baseball to bigger problems.
How angry are we as fans? That’s something that remains to
be seen and it’s a force that can and should transform the
game. Baseball needs a drug testing schedule that puts all doubt
to bed - not a biannual one, not even a monthly one but one that
keeps the players clean, not just of steroids but of other substances
that could damage the integrity of the game. Not even a doubt should
be allowed to remain.
Personally, I don’t believe Barry and I don’t believe
Gary. I don’t believe that they didn’t know what they
were using or that they only tried what trainer Greg Anderson and
Victor Conte gave them or that they only did it once. No human being,
no matter how stupid can be so blind to not have strongly suspected
that a supplement known as “the Clear” was an innocent
substance. The truth is BALCO and many other companies like them
have reputations of dealing in performance enhancing drugs that
are invisible to drug tests. The athletes know who they are - some
of them seek them out, while others are seduced by the agents of
such companies. It doesn’t matter which. The bottom line is
that they cheated.
Now it’s Selig’s turn at the plate - and because no commissioner
has absolute power anymore it’s also up to the MLBPA, who has
the power to put their stamp on everything via the Collective Bargaining
Agreement. It is time for a real drug policy as well as to determine
what power a commissioner truly has. If Bud Selig and Donald Fehr(head
of the union) are not ready to give baseball a drug policy there
is little doubt that Congress will at the behest of every fan of
the game.
It’s about the integrity of our national game and that should
matter to everyone.
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