PEDs

Sit back. This could take a while.

The first major league baseball game was played on 5-4-1871, between the Cleveland Forest Cities and the Fort Wayne Kekiongas. Ft. Wayne won, 2-0, behind the four-hit pitching of someone names B. Williams. No, Jamie Moyer did not take the loss.

Cheating probably began the next day.

We’re not going to spend any time here discussing gambling or the fixing of games. Neither enhances the performance of a ballplayer.

I guess we could say that alcohol and nicotine fall into this category, though neither was ever banned. It was only when amphetamines (greenies), and cocaine began to dominate clubhouses, that baseball dealt with it.

In September 1985, a number of prominent (Lee Lacy, John Milner, Keith Hernandez, Dale Berra, Lonnie Smth, Tim Raines, Lee Mazilli, Rod Scurry, Dave Parker Willie Mays Aiken, Vida Blue, Enos Cabell, Jeff Leonard) baseball players were called to testify in front of a Pittsburgh grand jury. The subject was cocaine and greenies and all of the players were granted immunity.

Then, the shit hit the fan.

Players testified about rampart drug use. Hernandez, who admitted he had used cocaine for three years, said that he estimated that 40% of the active ballplayers at that time used cocaine. Raines said that he carried a vial of coke in his uniform and redirected the angle of his slides so he wouldn’t break the vial. And, Milner dragged in the likes of Willie Mays and Willie Stargell, saying they were two of the players he got his greenies from.

Baseball had no idea how to handle the cocaine-era. The Yankees Steve Howe was suspended seven times before he was thrown out for life, and even that was overturned.  There was considerable time spent trying to find players guilty of using it, but very litte attempt to ban it as a performance enhancing drug.

And then, baseball turned to steroids. New words, like Winstrol, Anadrol-50, and HGH, were added to baseball’s glossary. Eventually, 129 ballplayers would be linked to steroids and HGH[i] and it was getting hard to find a superstar that was clean. Baseball decided to fight back.

In 2005, Commissioner Bud Selig was successful in getting the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) to ban the use of greenies (amphetamines). The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988[ii] was implemented on November 18,1988 and  steroids became a banned substance in baseball. This was followed by the 1990 Anabolic Steroid Control Act. Finally, the Baseball Hall of Fame has begun to address this problem, through an education program entitled “Be a Superior Example, or BASE . The intention of the program to educate teenagers and young adults about the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs. Museum President Jeff Idelson said on 2-8-11: “We’re launching it now because it’s taken that long to build the curriculum, the program elements, and find the funding to launch BASE,” Idelson said. “We still need to find more funding to sustain it, but we now have enough to launch it and keep it up and running.”

But let’s go back to 1990 when steroids were first added to the list of banned substances.

What if a player, in 1989, went over to his doctor and complained about something and he was prescribed a steroid. Then, 20-years later, a reporter asks him if he had ever taken a banned substance. Naturally, the player would say no, because in 1989, he didn’t. Next thing you know, there’s some Balco scandal and someone finds records that this player did take a steroid. Did anyone bother to mention it was legal when it took it? Did anyone care?

Here’s a perfect example.

Mark McGwire was using androstendione in 1998. It was not on the banned list so, in 1988, it was legal. Trainers considered it more of a dietary supplement though the effect of using it was similar to steroids.  It became known  as andro.

It is general knowledge that andro was widely used in baseball in the 1990s. Again, it was legal and considered a dietary aid, though many trainers were recommending it their star players to use to enhance their game.

The International Olympic Committee decided to ban it in 1997 and baseball followed in 2005; however, let’s go back to 1998. Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs that year. He also used andro which was legal for baseball players to use.

What exactly was done wrong here? Yes, the drug was banned by baseball seven years later, but are we supposed to go back and change the records for anyone that took a legal “dietary supplement”, sold over the counter, and approved by the FDA?

Let’s use an analogy.

In 1984, I was arrested for a DUI, in South Carolina. I blew a 1.0, which was the minimal illegal level in the state at the time. Years later, the legal limit of BAC was lowered to 0.8. Does that mean that the state can now go back and charge me all the times I would have a blood alcohol count of 0.9?

Frankly, I wonder sometimes what the fuss is. I mean, if you’re going to charge me $12 a beer, you better well be on something out there.

Folks, some athletes will always do whatever it takes to excel at their game and, if baseball teams are willing to pay someone $20 million dollars a year, worrying about the long-term effect of some cream, chewing gum, or ass spray isn’t going to get in the way of that paycheck.

The solution is simple. I wrote about this a few years ago and called it ‘The Michael Vick Rule’.

Let’s lop all these infractions into one simple, three step program. If you are a professional athlete and you violate any form of drug or alcohol abuse, as deemed by baseball, or participate in other aspects of negative activities like human or animal abuse, the penalties are simple:

          1^st offense – a one-year suspension from all sports activity plus loss of pay from the team and sports endorsements.

          2^nd offense – two-years

          3^rd offense – lifetime suspension with no appeal process.

Done, kaput, over.

You can name this after the next asshole that breaks a rule. Originally, I suggested Michael Vick. It could have been Plaxico Burress. This month’s poster boy would be Ryan Braun.

Just imagine you’re a junior linebacker at Clemson and your friends talk you into going to a titty bar in Anderson. You’re shit faced and the dancer with the big headlights is sending the signs that she would gladly take you home for the right amount of money and drugs. You’re just about to put your projected second round pick in the upcoming draft up for grabs, when one of your roommates remind you of the “Joe Blow” rule that was implements a few years back.

You close your eyes, envision the loss of a seven figure bonus because of one blow job, and you go back to your dorm where you can live for another professional day.

This doesn’t work if the rules infractions are similar to the Steve Howe fiasco of the past. No, this is like murder. You do the crime, and you do the time, and you know this is going to happen because of the guys banished before you.

I have no problem with a three-step penalty program. Baseball shouldn’t either. They could even call it “three strikes and you’re out.”

---

[i] http://www.baseballssteroidera.com/bse-list-steroid-hgh-users-baseball.html

[ii] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h100-5210