For the next week or so, Major League Baseball will be radiating warm and fuzzy feelings.
The baseball world will converge in Queens at the New York Mets’ Citi Field on Tuesday for the 80th All-Star game. The Mid-Summer Classic is the annual celebration of what’s great about America’s pastime.
After that, things might get nasty. Multiple news outlets have reported this week that MLB could soon suspend players for up to 100 games for using banned performance-enhancing drugs. Those suspensions reportedly could start next week.
MLB has spent most of the year investigating about 20 players for their links to a Miami clinic, Biogenesis, which reportedly distributed banned drugs to major leaguers, including the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun.
In every sport, at every level, somebody is cheating. And, starting at the high school level, some of that cheating involves performance-enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.
In Mississippi, public school districts conduct drug tests of students involve in extracurricular activities. These tests are for illegal street drugs and alcohol.
Most colleges also test student-athletes, mainly for street drugs. An athlete who flunks one of these tests might (at the school’s discretion) suspended for what’s usually called “violating team rules.” The NCAA conducts tests for street and performance-enhancing drugs, but there are too many athletes for these tests to be a real deterrent.
Before the start of training camp each year, every player on an NFL roster is tested for both performance-enhancing drugs and street drugs. Unless a player has already gotten caught, this is the only time the entire year that he is tested for street drugs. This is why you never hear about an NFL player being suspended for using street drugs. Although there are suspensions each season for banned substances, curiously, very few high-profile players are ever suspended.
Similar things are going on in other pro sports and, as always, the cheaters are ahead of the testers.
Major League Baseball appears to have the worst problem with performance-enhancing drugs. The cheating has been so obvious (bigger players, more homers) for so long that many people assume that most big-leaguers are cheating.
Cheating is a time-honored part of pro baseball. But there’s a difference between gamesmanship — putting a foreign substance on a baseball or stealing signs — and taking a substance that could potentially cause long-term damage to a person’s health.
Performance-enhancing drugs, especially amphetamines, have been a part of baseball for a long time. But steroid use altered the game starting in the 1990s. Baseball was desperate to bring back fans after the strike of 1994 killed the World Series. And players such as Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds hammering homers brought fans back in droves.
Many observers wondered if the ball was juiced. It turns out the players were juiced, including the pitchers.
I’ve heard otherwise reasonable sportswriters proclaim that performance-enhancing drugs don’t make players better. “Steroids can’t teach you how to hit a baseball,” they said.
No, but players who use them can get stronger faster than those who don’t use PEDs, and the cheating players can hit or throw a ball harder. In a game of inches, that’s a huge advantage.
An increasing number of big-leaguers don’t want to have to choose between a job in the majors and possibly killing themselves.
Many of these substances, including steroids, were against baseball rules, not to mention the law. But baseball didn’t begin tests until 2003. Testing and penalties for failing tests didn’t get serious until 2006.
Rodriguez and Braun are the biggest names on MLB’s Biogenesis list. They also appear to be MLB’s main targets. The rumored 100-game suspensions appear designed to punish players who used PEDs for lying about it.
Rodriguez has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs 10 years ago but has denied being involved with Biogenesis. Fellow Biogenesis customer Braun was suspended last year, but he got his suspension overturned after proving the man who collected his urine sample broke chain-of-evidence procedures.
Since then, Braun has behaved as if being cleared on a technicality proved that he had never broken the rules. The Brewers slugger refused to speak with MLB investigators this week. Rodriguez is expected to do the same when he meets with MLB representatives today.
You can bet that the players union will sue if MLB suspends these players. But regardless of the outcome, MLB is finally sending a long-overdue message that it’s serious about trying to eliminate better baseball through chemistry.
• Contact Charles Corder at 581-7241 or ccorder@gwcommonwealth.com.
