Let it be known that this is the last time I will discuss steroids in baseball.
The tired subject was raised again last week when Selena Roberts, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, unearthed evidence that Alex Rodriguez used steroids in 2003.
To his credit, Rodriguez responded quickly to the allegations, admitting he did use banned substances between 2001 and 2003 with the Texas Rangers.
Some thoughts:
1. Admitting use has been productive for Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte and others. Rodriguez and his posse handled the confession well.
2. There are reported to be 103 other names on the list (which was turned over to the Federal Government and was supposed to be confidential) that revealed Rodriguez’s use. Why did only the name of arguably the best player in the game today become public?
3. How Rodriguez progresses will be interesting. He is the first high-profile player to be exposed while he is still in the middle of his career.
4. Rodriguez admitted use only between 2001 and 2003 in Texas. If this is the truth – great. If he used in Seattle, after he came to the Yankees, or even back in high school and indisputable evidence of it is found, he will be a villain in the same category as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
5. Between the Mitchell Report and this sealed document there is proof that roughly 200 players in the “Steroid Era” used. These are the ones we know about – so you have to figure others used and did not get caught. At any given time there are 750 players on Major League rosters. From that we can estimate that somewhere between 33%-50% of players were using in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
6. That being said, I am not okay with A-Rod’s use, but I do not judge him as harshly as Mark McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, and Miguel Tejada (who has had his own steroid trouble recently and is facing jail time). Let’s say – for argument’s sake – that 50% of players were using. Let’s set aside the fact that using steroids is morally wrong and look at it objectively. Let’s remember that this is these guys’ job, their livelihood. Yes, they are overcompensated, but baseball is how they support their families. Baseball players have shorter careers in their industry than almost any other. (How many other jobs can you think of where people retire in their late 30s or early 40s?) To stay on top of their games and compete many, including A-Rod, used performance-enhancing substances.
7. Going all the way back to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (who has not yet been proven to have used banned substances) owners knew about steroid use among players and said nothing while records were broken and attendance soared for the first time since the lockout in 1994.
8. Journalists further proved that we are the 4th branch of the government by exposing steroid use in baseball and other sports.
9. Will ESPN and the rest of the sports media please get off A-Rod’s jockstrap already?
10. And can we drop the subject of steroids and move on? There will always be unethical chemists working on the next designer drug (genetic doping might be the next trend). There will always be athletes looking for that extra edge. But for now baseball, and most other sports, seem to be on top of things regarding performance-enhancing substances.
Spring Training is under way…
-- Andrew Sagarin
RSS Feed