Now It’s NASCAR, Jeremy Mayfield and Two Crew Members Suspended for Drugs

What the heck is going on in the minds of some athletes? Earlier in the week, Manny Ramirez was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for a banned substance. Now Jeremy Mayfield, a crew member for the #39 Sprint Cup team and another for the #16 Nationwide team have also failed random drug tests.

Something that defies logic are the kinds of excuses offered. Manny Ramirez rationalized that he was prescribed his substance by a doctor so he thought it was okay. Well, what was his motivation for working with a doctor in Florida instead of one where he resides or the team’s physician? That just doesn’t pass the common sense test. Now Mayfield offers that, “I believe that the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over the counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test. My doctor and I are working with both Dr. Black and NASCAR to resolve this matter."

Suppose we give Ramirez and Mayfield the benefit of the doubt. They were treated by private physicians who prescribed certain medications. If that’s the case, wouldn’t they report this to their sports’ appropriate authorities so that such treatment is on record?

Major league baseball provides for therapeutic exemptions if a medical treatment is necessary for specific conditions. On Mayfield’s contentions, one should never assume that just because something is sold over the counter, it’s okay. This would be especially true for NASCAR given allergy medicines like Benadryl, for instance, can cause drowsiness and impair judgment.

While ball sports athletes are more a danger to themselves than anyone else, the prospect of a race car driver handling equipment cranking out well over 700 horsepower is too terrifying to contemplate.

How these athletes can put their careers at stake and not be aware of everything they’re putting in their bodies defies logic. Are they so star struck or over confident in their own abilities they think they can slip through the testing procedure? Worse would be a figure who is so messed up on drugs, he can’t perceive reality for his craving for the drug has become so all consuming as would an alcoholic or heroin addict.

Although not everything involved in being a NACAR driver is the same as those playing ball sports, most figures in both sports are hyper aware of what they consume. Many athletes follow specially prescribed diets to maximize performance and keep them in the best of health. Surely some supplements are common for good health, regular vitamins and minerals, but then there are all kinds of goods sold at health food stores, nutrition centers, and some sporting goods outlets that are banned substances.

How can these guys gamble their careers over these things?

For Jeremy Mayfield, the consequences are especially severe. He is both the driver and team owner for his operation and is suspended in both capacities. For his ride to continue, someone else will have to assume ownership, but they are a team that must qualify weekly as they are a long way from the cut for being in the top 35, automatically in each race.

Fans, sponsors, and teams demand better. Parents of kids who adore their sports heroes have an especially strong grievance as kids will often do anything to emulate their heroes. While high school aged athletes often lack the judgment to know what they're doing to their bodies. just hearing a substance was something a pro used could be temptation enough to try a dangerous substance.

These are risks we cannot permit. With each passing episode, our capacity to feel sympathy for those testing positive wears thinner and thinner.

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.

Alex Rodriguez: Young and Stupid Doesn't Cut it

Young and Stupid Doesn’t Cut It!

Alex Rodriguez faced the press on reporting to the Yankees’ Spring Training Camp giving further details about his performance-enhancing drug, a material transported from the Dominican Republic, which his cousin informed him about. He attempted to give more specifics on his use while playing for the Texas Rangers and insisted he stopped using such materials after sustaining a neck injury.

Through out the conference, he kept coming back to, “I was 24 years old,” and “I was young and stupid.” He began his baseball career at 18 making his major league debut with the Seattle Mariners at 19 years old. First, the math does not add up. His birthday is July 27, 1975, which would have put his 24th birthday in 1999 while he was still in Seattle. He began his playing career with Texas in 2001. You do the math! as they say.

We’ll simply his rationale, he was stupid. Stupid that he would trust his cousin. Stupid he would inject anything without medical supervision. The whole thing starts to sound a little like Mark McGwire’s excuse line to the queries directed at him from Congress, “I’m here to talk about the future.”

Jose Canseco made further accusations based on his association with Rodriguez as a Texas teammate who said A-Rod questioned him about a substance and Canseco recommended a trainer who could supply him. The extent to which one should trust Canseco is surely subject to doubt. The sad thing is, as outraged we might have been when Canseco first starting spilling the beans, as time goes by, his charges have proven shockingly honest. Who would have thought Raphael Palmeiro used junk until that fateful day his suspension was announced by the Baltimore Orioles in 2004.

Having done something as misguided as performance enhancers, the only proper course of action is complete disclosure and corrective behavior in the future that does not appear self-promoting. Somehow, as much as fans would love to give A-Rod, the benefit of a doubt, it’s hard not to still be mystified.

Players’ irresponsible use of drugs and supplement will cast a cloud over baseball that shall be known forever as the “Steroid Era” from the conclusion of the 1994-95 Player’s Strike until proper policies were put in place by 2005. The great McGwire/Sosa homerun chase, Barry Bonds’ records, and the stellar performance of Roger Clemens all is tarnished into severe disrepute forever more. That power stats across the game were so escalated would also be suspect. Could this even influence how fans in the future might regard accomplishments like Cal Ripken’s remarkable consecutive game streak when all associated with Cal Ripken would affirm no one played the game with more regard for the rules and a healthy approach for playing the game. Most man made disasters have severe collateral damage.

In viewing athlete’s behavior, there’s a big difference between “boys will be boys” and “young and stupid” behavior compared to actions intended to cheat the game and true lawlessness. The NFL understands these issues and addressed player conduct accordingly. Some players like Jaime Moyer and Curt Schilling have been quite outspoken with anger on the issue of drug-enhanced play.

Mark McGwire was ready to go into the Hall of Fame with Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn. Raphael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds would surely be first ballot Hall of Fame inductees were the steroid issue not in play.

We would hope Alex Rodriguez has the opportunity to redeem himself and he seems to be doing the right thing but is so caught up in all the consequences of saving face while trying to come clean, he is failing to clear his name or gain much public sympathy so far. Once again, we come back to, Luke 12:48, “to whom much is given, much is required.”

For Alex Rodriguez, especially playing in New York, much will be required of him on and off the field. The rest is up to him.