Steroids in baseball
Buy me some peanuts and HGH
Jeremy Duvall
Issue date: 3/10/05 Section: Sports
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Just when baseball junkies are ready to succumb to withdrawals after an endless winter void of the crack of the bat and, in the case of SBC park, the gentle bouquet of garlic fries wafting through the crisp bay air, spring training starts and there is meaning again in the universe.
But as players report to cactus league, the specter of steroid use is out of the closet and predominant in the media. From the "Chemist" Jose Canseco's tell-all book, to leaking grand jury testimony, steroids is no longer a taboo subject in baseball. Itbecome a mainstream topic. The integrity of the last decade and a half of major league baseball has been put into question.
The steroid crisis has forced us to ask adult questions about a sport that lives in the child inside us. Do we now turn our back on the athletes we have cheered because they probably juiced up? Do we forget all the times we went to the yard and enjoyed ourselves? Has the ballpark become paradise lost?
There is no easy answer.
We live in a society where you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Athletes should be given this same respect, but due to the lack of an effective testing policy in baseball, it's hard to have faith in a system with no real consequences. In the new testing policy, a first-time offense nets a player a meager 10-day suspension with loss of pay and it isn't until an athlete's fourth offense that he receives a one-year band. Everywhere you hear talk about baseball cracking down, but the new policy sounds like nothing more then a public relations move.
Then there is Bud Selig, MLB commissioner and captain of a ship that's sinking faster then the Titanic and there is no Leo Decaprio around to shove him onto a life saving sliver of wood. To believe that management had no knowledge of the rampant steroid abuse during the 1990's and early 21st century is unbelievable. The juice was getting guys yoked and as long as they were cranking balls into the seats, the butts would follow and all the owners had to do was count the piles of cash they were making.
But as players report to cactus league, the specter of steroid use is out of the closet and predominant in the media. From the "Chemist" Jose Canseco's tell-all book, to leaking grand jury testimony, steroids is no longer a taboo subject in baseball. Itbecome a mainstream topic. The integrity of the last decade and a half of major league baseball has been put into question.
The steroid crisis has forced us to ask adult questions about a sport that lives in the child inside us. Do we now turn our back on the athletes we have cheered because they probably juiced up? Do we forget all the times we went to the yard and enjoyed ourselves? Has the ballpark become paradise lost?
There is no easy answer.
We live in a society where you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Athletes should be given this same respect, but due to the lack of an effective testing policy in baseball, it's hard to have faith in a system with no real consequences. In the new testing policy, a first-time offense nets a player a meager 10-day suspension with loss of pay and it isn't until an athlete's fourth offense that he receives a one-year band. Everywhere you hear talk about baseball cracking down, but the new policy sounds like nothing more then a public relations move.
Then there is Bud Selig, MLB commissioner and captain of a ship that's sinking faster then the Titanic and there is no Leo Decaprio around to shove him onto a life saving sliver of wood. To believe that management had no knowledge of the rampant steroid abuse during the 1990's and early 21st century is unbelievable. The juice was getting guys yoked and as long as they were cranking balls into the seats, the butts would follow and all the owners had to do was count the piles of cash they were making.