Dryvetyme Onlyne

In view of the current imbroglio regarding Roger Clemens, his dispute with his appearance in the Mitchell Report, and the former trainer who told the Mitchell Report that he personally injected Clemens with HGH/steroids/etc., I present you with the following discourse on my views on sports and steroids.

I’ve grown up watching sports, though my affection for them comes primarily from cultivating my own interest as a young child, as my father was never one for organized athletics. I taught myself, and subsequently my younger brothers, how to play a variety of sports through classic means – lots of catch in the backyard with my siblings and lots of pick-up games with friends at the park across the street from my house. I also grew to idealize sports by reading all of the Matt Christopher novels in my elementary school library. Moreover, not growing up with sports allegiances that were passed down from father to son, I held strange affections for a kid growing up in Southeast Texas. My earliest sports memories were watching the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl Shuffle in 1985 and observing the underdog Minnesota Twins defiantly defeat the heavily favored St. Louis Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.

However, regardless of my above-average eye at the plate for tracking balls and strikes, as well as my general aptitude for the nuances and strategies that dominate how one plays team sports, I never joined any youth league teams. The only team I ever joined was my high school basketball team, and that was mostly because I attended a small private high school and every of-age male was allowed at least the opportunity to play at some point. Granted, being the tallest guy (at 6’1”) in your high school meant that I played often and started my junior and senior year, even though my knowledge of sports and my own abilities led me to realize that I was a shooting guard/small forward being forced to play center just because he was tall.

All of that to say this – I was never an athlete in the true sense of the word, as in, I never spent a great time in a workout room to building up my body, I didn’t spend extra time on the practice field building camaraderie with teammates, I rarely traveled long distances to play games, and never developed that intense competitive moxie possessed by most all successful athletes. I greatly appreciate sports as both athletics in action as well as entertainment, but I knew that I didn’t possess that necessary drive. I might be driven to do other things, but subjugating my body to the extreme physical and mental rigors of a long season (and often equally grueling off-seasons) was not anything that was of interest to me.

Yet, to this day, I love sports and watch it passionately with my brothers, friends, and roommates, mostly because getting into an intelligent, yet heated, debate about almost anything is something that does get my motor running. Thus, more than any contemporary issue in sports, an issue that’s seen the United States Congress interject themselves (when Congress should probably be dealing with some real domestic or international crisis), steroids now claim a large percentage of our national discourse on sports. And though it should be front-and-center at this current place and time, it should never have approached the status it currently possesses in our national sports consciousness.

No matter what you call it or how the terminology is broken down – steroids, HGH, the cream, the clear, whatever – steroids have been a part of sports for the better part of the past 15 years. Football and baseball are typically connected to the use of “performance enhancing drugs” with greater frequency than any other major sports, and well they should be, what with the death of Lyle Alzado in football and the Mitchell Report in baseball serving as the darkest and deepest black eyes. The National Football League (NFL) has the longest-standing and most strict policy (beginning in 1987 with its banning of steroids. Counter this with Major League Baseball (MLB), who has possessed weak variety of steroid policies that have only been recently strengthened as of 2005-2006, due to the wide-ranging and oft-substantiated allegations surrounding many of the players who were responsible for baseball’s resurgence as “America’s Pastime” in 1997-1998.

This by no means gives the NFL a pass in comparison to the MLB’s rules, yet it is the MLB that constantly comes under critical fire for its policies as they have been enacted and strengthened only under the harshest of media reprisals. The NFL consistently creates policies in attempt to be pro-active, to anticipate what could occur in regards to its players; the MLB’s perpetual fault under the reign of Bud Selig as MLB Commissioner is that all policies are reactive in nature, and are often written up in the most severe of possible circumstances. Operating under the guise that action is needed only when experiencing the worst-case scenario is hardly a recipe for public relations success.

But does the onus fall squarely upon the shoulders of team owners and MLB officials? Not hardly. These players, these adult men, many of whom did use these substances to gain an edge in their level of play must bear some sort of responsibility for their actions. This debate is and must be perpetually seen as a two-way street. Nevertheless, let’s examine this metaphor:

You work for a company and regularly receive the direct implication (through the lack of prosecution of known rule-abusers/breakers) that the rules aren’t really important and that you can do whatever you’d like as long as you produce high-quality work that is enjoyed and appreciated by your co-workers and the consumers of whatever product you make. How would you respond? It might not be ethical, but it might not be wrong. You’re not supposed to chase ambulances, but everyone does it to obtain business. You shouldn’t exploit workers at home or abroad, but everyone does it to cut costs. The culture of your workplace predicates that certain things are going to happen and certain heads are going to look the other way.

Are these rule-breakers in the right? Are they to be defended because “everyone else was doing it?” Are those (or any permutation of such) valid excuses? No, No, and HELL No! But is it understandable? Absolutely. If the cat’s away, the mice will play. Parents and teachers use healthy boundaries for their children for reasons and they know the consequences if they do not enforce those boundaries fairly and consistently. It’s a matter of base human nature in action. If it was so wrong, why didn’t teammates and coaches confront teammates with questionable practices? If it was so wrong, why didn’t MLB officials step in sooner to investigate allegations? If it was so wrong, why did it take an US Congressional panel to step in and examine just what’s been going on in baseball? If it was against the law and against the rules, why did it take so long for these rules and laws to be enforced, further strengthened, and further enforced?

This is my quibble with the Mitchell Report, MLB’s sudden strong stance against performance-enhancing substances, and the insolent anger being expressed by the national sports/news media regarding steroids in sports. “The integrity of the game is sullied!” they cry. “My children will never respect sports heroes!” they proclaim. “All of those records are ruined!” they exclaim. To that, I respond with a resounding “BULLSHIT!” These are the same people who averted their faces when the first mention of possible steroid usage was made public after McGwire & Sosa’s magical 1998 season. These are the same people who wax whimsically about the magic of the past and forget that it’s a past filled with dirty racists and cheaters (ever heard of spiking, spitballs, shineballs, etc.?).

Do I want steroids out of sports? Sure I do. Do I agree with how the MLB has pursued the removal of steroids from sports? Not at all. The organization has been evasive, slippery, and elusive in regards to taking on any blame for the culture of steroid usage that has plagued the game for 15 or so years now. Are there steroids in the NFL? Sure there are and those players found guilty of any sort of drug use (yes, even marijuana) quickly serve their time (4 games with the first offense, 8 games with the second, 12 months with the third, & all penalties take the playoffs into account). Why do people worry about steroids in baseball more than they worry about steroids in football? Because the NFL has been upfront with its aggressive pursuit of anyone found using any drugs, as has the NBA in many cases. Bud Selig and MLB have consistently denied it has any problems, until they’re faced with insurmountable evidence being thrust right into their faces.

In conclusion, let’s look at the whole issue of steroids in sports from this angle. Bud Selig and the MLB hold a great deal in common with a junkie who’s locked into a perpetual cycle of abuse: first you abuse the drugs, then you deny the abuse when you’re caught, then you try to clean up on your own, and then your own weakness causes you to start abusing all over again. Maybe the best thing about the Mitchell Report, however toothless it might be in some respects, is that it’s the closest approximation to an intervention that we’ve seen with a public institution. Maybe Congress did need to step in and warn baseball that their anti-trust exemption is at stake if they don’t get some outside help for their internal struggles. Maybe baseball can get the help it needs from some tough love (read; harsh penalties for users) and an extended period in rehab (read: temporarily lower revenues and diminished performances as the drugs exit the players’ bodies).

And maybe, just maybe, the sports-viewing public needs to realize that, in their quest for entertainment at all costs (including the gorgeous publicly funded stadiums and garishly salaried athletes), professional sports have ceased to be about pure, raw athletic acumen and more about producing a great product for public consumption. When great gobs of home runs become more important than a well-executed hit-and-run, then the sport has died. Long Live Entertainment!