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Add to FavoritesRetired Chicago Cubbie Ryne Sandberg's acceptance speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction in 2005 was a breath of fresh air. It ranked right up there - in my humble opinion - with Lou Gehrig's "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" farewell speech, and Knute Rockne's "win one for the Gipper" inspirational speech, as among the most important and inspirational speeches of sports history.
Part of what "Ryno" said was, "The reason I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way, that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played. I don't know about that, but I do know this: I had too much respect for the game to play it any other way, and if there was a single reason I am here today, it is because of one word, respect."
On the other hand is Rafael Palmeiro, who was suspended from Major League Baseball after testing positive for steroid use; Palmeiro later testified before Congress: "Let me start by telling you this," Palmeiro said in his opening statement, looking directly at Virginia Republican Tom Davis and pointing at the committee chairman with his index finger, "I have never used steroids, period." That speech ranks right down there with Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook!" and Bill Clinton's pointing his index finger at the camera and saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" as the most ludicrous statements to the press or Congress ever made.
I wish more people - politicians, athletes and average Joes and Jills alike - would have the respect for the "game" of "life" that Sandberg espouses for the game of baseball.
The challenge, of course, is that "America's Pastime" is at once a business, a spectator sport, and the stuff of dreams.
The business owners - the team owners - make their money when their teams fill the stadiums. The teams fill the stadiums when the players perform better than their competitors. And, alas, the players now apparently need steroids to perform better than their competitors.
The stuff of dreams comes into play when the five-, six- and seven-year old kids watch their baseball heroes and try to emulate their moves at the plate and on the field. The stuff of nightmares comes into play ten years later when, as high school ball players, these same fans start emulating their heroes like Palmeiro, Barry Bonds, Jose Conseco, and perhaps even Roger "Rocket" Clemens, by using "performance enhancing" drugs like steroids or HGH.
The only way that Major League Baseball commish Bud Selig could prove he had a backbone would be to institute a new "one strike - you're OUT!" policy about drugs within the sport he is supposed to administrate, and which sport it is his job to protect the legacy of, for future generations.
Face it. Although being a MLB baseball player is a tremendous effort, physically and mentally, these grown men get paid - most of them - outrageous sums of money to travel the country and play a game.
The only way to show that MLB means business when they say they want to clean up their game would be to institute a "pee to play" policy. This policy would equire every player in the line-up to be tested before the first pitch is thrown. Any sign of illegal, controlled or questionable "performance enhancing drugs" in the test sample would immediately disqualify that player from that day's game, and send the player on the next plane train or automobile back home with his pink slip, never to play in a Major League Baseball game again.
If MLB were to do that, I believe the game would indeed be restored to it's former "pre-steroid era" glory.
Learn more about this author, Chris Kling.
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No
A few years ago, when she was a junior in high school, my friends' daughter (call her Ashley) started dating a boy her parents disapproved of. Let's call him Alex. He wasn't a bad kid, but he wasn't very bright-he'd been held back twice-and he came from a broken home and lived in a rough neighborhood. Rather than hang a "verboten" sign around Alex's neck, my friends discretely kept an eye on the boy and their daughter. They took the "bring him on over" approach: we're opening the pool Saturday, Ashley, bring Alex over. We're having a birthday party for your brother next weekend. You're invited, of course, and so is your friend Alex.
Do you see what mom and dad instinctively knew? If you regulate something-any behavior-to the max, you have the paradoxical effect of completely deregulating it. If the Smithmeyers had not allowed their daughter to see her boyfriend my guess is that instead of spending the night at a birthday party with 30 other people, two-thirds of whom were adults, Ashley and Alex might have done the Romeo-and-Juliet thing and run off to a motel. After that, mom and dad might have had real trouble.
Theory: when laws, rules, and regulations prohibit individuals from acting in ways that make sense to them and harm no one else, the laws, rules, and regulations will be discarded. Prohibition failed because most people had no problem with other adults gathering for a few drinks after work. The current drug war is failing because most adults have no problem with other adults' recreational use of relatively benign intoxicants.
Consider this scenario: you're a 23-year-old outfielder for the New York Yankees. You don't start, but you're the fourth outfielder, the first man off the bench when there's an injury. One day, during batting practice, one of the GM's men approaches you. "Rodriguez," he says, "Alomar is on the wrong side of 30 and his numbers are down again this year. Show Mr. Steinbrenner he can count on you for what we used to get from Alomar, 30 and 120, 30 homers, 120 runs batted in, and we're talking guaranteed big numbers in a long-term contract. We know you can run and we know you can throw; but you need to show us you can hit and hit with power."
What would you do? I know I would show Mr. Steinbrenner that I was serious about bulking up. I would ask around, if I already hadn't, and find a reliable, effective training aid, something that would help me add 20 to 30 pounds of lean muscle mass in the off season. If that "something" turned out to be anabolic steroid X, so be it. Why would I not use it? Why would I pass up a chance to secure myself financially for life at the age of 23?
Well, why? What would stop a baseball player who wants to improve his play from using a performance-enhancin g substance? Two things, as best I can tell. One, the fact that steroid use is illegal in baseball; and, two, the fact that there are some safety issues associated with steroid use. First, the illegal thing. This is absurd. Steroids are training aids, no more, no less. In and of themselves they make no one stronger. By decreasing recovery time during and after workouts, they give athletes the opportunity to train harder. I should say, by decreasing recovery time during and after workouts they give the stronger-willed athletes, those who desire success more than others, the opportunity to train harder. That is as it should be.
The safety issues I take more seriously. But they are a direct result of the prohibitionist policy baseball has had toward steroid use. Because no player who used 'roids in the 90s did it openly, or will admit now to doing it back then, no reliable data exists (or is being gathered) telling us and the players what the short- or long-term effects of steroid use are. Had the products been legal (A) they would have been used openly by the players, almost certainly under the supervision of doctors and trainers; (B) frequent testing for side effects would have been done; (C) problems and potential problems would have been discovered early;(D) the bad 'roids-the unsafe ones and ones that didn't work well enough or at all-would have been driven from the game by market forces, meaning (E) today's players would know which chemicals, when used properly, could be counted on to safely and reliably enhance performance. And better performance is the object of the game, is it not?
So here's my idea for a new policy regarding steroid use in baseball. It's theme is transparency. It would work as follows: You (the player) can use whatever you want so long as (A) you report it to your team doctor and (B) you agree to be tested regularly for long- and short-term side effects and you agree to release this data to Major League Baseball so that (C) a data base can assembled and reasonable conclusions can be drawn regarding steroid use.
Learn more about this author, Paul Larusch.
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