Friday, May 8, 2009

Manny Being Manny -- Baseball Being Baseball



“I started taking anabolic steroids in 1969 and never stopped. It was addicting, mentally addicting. Now I'm sick, and I'm scared. Ninety percent of the athletes I know are on the stuff. We're not born to be 300 lbs or jump 30 ft. But all the time I was taking steroids, I knew they were making me play better. I became very violent on the field and off it. I did things only crazy people do. Once a guy sideswiped my car and I beat the hell out of him. Now look at me. My hair's gone, I wobble when I walk and have to hold on to someone for support, and I have trouble remembering things. My last wish? That no one else ever dies this way.”

-Former NFL Defensive end Lyle Alzado in Sports Illustrated interview just before his death at age 43.

How could anyone see Lyle Alzado in the last years of his life and even contemplate using steroids?

When playing for the Los Angeles Raiders from 1982-1985, Alzado seemed to have it all. He was a ferocious defender with that rough guy attitude that fit the reputation of his team. He also became popular in Hollywood for his outgoing personality appearing in cameo rolls in television and movies.

To think of his appearance as his football career ended contrasted with the feeble, freakish wreck he became in his final days, could not the ravages of performance enhancing drugs have been any clearer?

It appears the NFL has cleaned up its act. For most of the last two decades, players using banned substances are dealt with promptly and firmly. Meanwhile despite all the uproar in recent years, apparently baseball players are still slow to get the message.

Consider this, seven of the top ten home run hitters of the last two decades are implicated in performance enhancing substance abuse. Only Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, and Albert Pujous remain clear.

Yesterday, the shocker but perhaps not really that big surprise, Manny Ramirez, received a fifty day suspension for using a female fertility drug which can also be used to stimulate testosterone production. While some might write this off as another chapter of “Manny being Manny,” this is another horrible black eye to major league baseball as if the attention on steroids isn’t high enough as Alex Rodriquez, once seen as the clean figure who could eventually remove the tarnish of Barry Bonds’ legacy on the record book now a disgraced user himself, prepares to return to the field tonight in Baltimore.

This hurts the Los Angeles Dodgers tremendously. While they should remain in first place regardless given how week the National League west is, the team was off to a historical start. The new Dodgers with former Yankees’ championship skipper, Joe Torre at the helm, Manny Ramirez was the anchor of the team’s attack getting off to a historical start to begin this season. Much of the team’s marketing effort focused on Manny’s presence even designating outfield bleacher seats as “Manny-wood.”

Given the long list of some of the sports top stars being caught up in this horrible cheating scandal which also puts its perpetrators at severe medical risk, it took a public uproar and hearings on Capitol hill to stimulate action. Who can forget home run slugger Mark McGwire’s mealy-mouthed pussyfooting around the questions asked him, “I’m here to talk about the future.” Even more embarrassing, Raphael Palmeiro angrily waving his finger asserting,"I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period."

Despite Palmeiro’s stern denials, the following July he tested positive for Stanzolol, ann anabolic steroid, playing for the Baltimore Orioles. Look at the steroids hall of shame: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Sammy Sosa, Raphael Palmeiro, Jason Giambi, David Segui, Gary Sheffield, Miguel Tejada, Ivan Rodriguez, and many more are among the sluggers implicated. Meanwhile, the most dominant pitcher of the era, Roger Clemens, appears to be one of the most defiant users.

The cloud cast over baseball since the end of the 1994-95 strike into the beginning of the new millennium is staggering. Steroid use had become an integral part of the game and Major League Baseball’s lack of discipline is perhaps just as disturbing. While homerun records were falling with balls flying out of new, fan friendly stadiums, and plenty of fannies were packing the seats, the owners were too busy counting their money to realize a tragic scandal was erupting that would threaten the integrity of the sport itself.

While the sport has taken on a strict posture which has lead to suspension of significant stars like Palmeiro and Manny Rodriguez, they still don’t test for human growth hormone which requires a drug test. Who knows what roll hormone abuse could still be playing in the sport?

While fans can look to stars like Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey Jr. are major stars who played during this era who still appear to be candidates for Mr. Clean and rising sluggers like Ryan Howard appear squeaky clean, it will take a long time for the sport t overcome the perception the drug scandal has thrust upon it.

Baseball is now at the point where many of the stars of the “Steroid ERA” are becoming eligible for the Hall of Fame. Having retired after the 2001 season, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, and Mark McGwire became eligible together. Ripken and Gwynn were overwhelming nominees for enshrinement but the Hall of Fame voters declined to select McGwire despite being the first to break Roger Maris’s single season home run record and his career homerun mark because of his drug use. The subsequent year, his vote total declined significantly. Hall of Fame voters are sending the message that players who knowingly cheated have no place in baseball’s special place of honor.

Sports fans who devote so much time and money following their favorite teams need assurance that the competition before them is legitimate, the players are clean, and no one has an unfair advantage. Society demands that figures in the public eye are not poster children for the kind of moral corruption performance enhancing drugs represent.

Fans, the sports media, owners, coaches, and fellow players must all demand players cannot compete unless they are clean. There can be no exceptions. If the present policies don’t work, perhaps the Olympic model should be employed; banishment on first offense and all records stricken. Patience is running thin.

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