The needle and the damage done

The needle and the damage done

Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home

When faced with harsh truths and stunning admissions, we often make the situation even worse by drawing our own equally unpleasant conclusions, assuming that, if A=C, then B must also equal C. Sounds reasonable, I suppose. The only problem is that the preceding equation is not always true; in fact, more often than not these assumptions are completely unfounded. 

Of course, that means nothing when we're dealing with broken trust and withered integrity.

About a year and a half ago, the New York Times, after speaking with more than 25 major league strength coaches, general managers, league officials and players, claimed that steroid abuse had "become a problem in baseball, perhaps even widespread." Florida outfielder Cliff Floyd estimated that 40% of the players in the league had used steroids, while one general manager said, "You look at some of these massive bodies you see these days. It's like middle linebackers are playing baseball." Fresh off the Mark McGwire andro debate and smack dab in the middle of a league-wide power surge never before witnessed in the history of the game, this story nonetheless received very little public attention.

After all, what's one report? How much validity can we give to comments made by Cliff Floyd and a couple of "unnamed" sources? This is baseball we're talking about, not the WWF or even the NFL.

So the rumors swirled for a while, but eventually the Times article died a quiet death in October of 2000. Naïveté, at least temporarily, had beaten logic. Innocence over impurity.

Then former AL MVP Jose Canseco retired after being "blackballed" by the game that treated him so well for so many years. But he wouldn't go quietly -- Canseco said he'd soon release a "tell-all" book on the recent escalation of steroid use in baseball, claiming that 85% of all major league players are taking performance-enhancing drugs.

"Hmm, maybe there is something to this story," we suddenly wondered. Obviously, Canseco isn't exactly the most reliable source out there, but still his accusations stirred our curiosity.

And then another MVP, Ken Caminiti, told Sports Illustrated a couple weeks later that, not only was steroid use rampant throughout all of baseball, but he used the drug during his MVP season in 1996, admitting that at first he felt like he'd cheated. "But," he continued, "I looked around and everybody was doing it," adding that he thinks "at least half the players are using steroids."

Now we're listening because former MVPs are talking. Now we believe the reports. Now we think this really is a problem. Now we feel like something has to be done.

The only problem is, now we also look at every player who's got muscular arms and gaudy power numbers with a suspicious eye. It's nearly impossible not to -- whether you believe Canseco's 85% estimation, Caminiti's 50% or Floyd's 40%, one titanic moon shot, one homer off the end of the bat, and the conspiracy theorist in all of us suddenly awakens.

And it really is a shame, because not every burly slugger is on the juice, not every veteran who added 15 pounds of muscle last winter did so with the needle, and not every young hitter who suddenly discovered his power stroke used steroids to find it.

But unfortunately, after being confronted with these allegations, that's our knee-jerk reaction.

Take recent comments made by Barry Bonds during an interview with Ed Randall from SportsTicker: "If you're going to point fingers, point the fingers at the right people and not the rest of us. Two other players came out about an issue and now it's trickling down to everybody else and that part I feel is just not right. And I always seem to be the guy right at the top of the list."

Think fans playing steroid sleuth doesn't bother players?

Bonds is a perfect example of this nationwide suspicion that's seeped into America's pastime. Once a 185-pound leadoff hitter who slugged a total of 16 homers during his rookie season, Bonds has since morphed into a gargantuan 230-pound monster who just mashed his 589th career homer.

The transformation really has been incredible, but the future Hall of Famer insists that it's been a completely natural and legal evolution, generated in the weight room and with the help of some legal supplements. "I'm not going to say that I don't take vitamins," he told Randall. "I'm not going to say that I don't take protein drinks and shakes and things like that because I do... . You have to do what you need to do to keep up with a lot of kids. You just want to do it fairly."

Bonds isn't the only player on the fan hit list. Sammy Sosa, a guy with a total of 37 round-trippers from 1989-92, is slugging his way to his fifth-straight 50-plus homer campaign.

People are talking.

Bret Boone, a second baseman who'd never totaled more than 24 homers and 95 RBI in a single season, swatted 37 bombs last year and drove in 141 runs.

People are talking.

Before 1998, Luis Gonzalez had never registered more than 15 homers in a season and he'd hit .300 just once, in 1993. Last year, Gonzo hit .325 with 57 homers and 142 RBI, his third-straight .300/25/110 campaign with Arizona.

People are talking.

After hitting 14 home runs and driving in 81 runs in his first 737 at-bats, Torii Hunter slammed 27 bombs last year while driving in 92 runs. This season, he's already hit 15 homers and driven in 47 runs in just 253 at-bats.

People are talking.

Tiny shortstop Omar Vizquel owned 43 career home runs before this year and he'd never driven in more than 66 runs in his 13 big league seasons. Through 63 games in 2002, Vizquel's already racked up eight homers and 40 RBI, and his .508 slugging percentage stands more than 150 points above his career mark. He says he put on 20 extra pounds of muscle this offseason with the help of a personal trainer, something he'd never done before.

People are talking. 

Needless to say, there's no proof that any of these guys have taken anything more than a protein shake to help add some pop to their respective games, but that doesn't stop people from wondering and speculating. And while it may seem highly unlikely that notorious nice guys like Gonzalez and Vizquel would ever disrespect the game and its fans by sticking a needle in their bodies, we've been fooled before. And now, with all this steroid talk, we have a convenient explanation for baseball's power explosion, something much juicier than weight rooms, batting stances and diluted pitching.

Unfortunately, until some form of drug testing is instituted, we'll never know who's attacked baseball's integrity by relying on the needle more than natural ability, whose numbers are genuine and whose are counterfeit. There undoubtedly are players who've damaged the game, players who doped their way to the top of the leader boards. They deserve all of our newfound scrutiny.

It's just too bad that we also no longer trust those players who've used nothing more than talent, hard work and determination to advance their careers. They deserve better, but unless dramatic changes are adopted in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, they too will be subjected to accusations and suspicion. 

Sounds kind of severe, but apparently "innocent until proven guilty" just doesn't apply here.


In the Bullz-Eye

The NBA's Eastern Conference. The Lakers just rolled to their third-straight NBA championship, only this time they swept their inferior Eastern Conference opponent right out of the Finals. The New Jersey Nets are without question a very good team, but in all honesty Jason Kidd's crew probably couldn't have kept up with the Spurs, Mavs or Kings in a seven-game series, much less Shaq's Lakers. If that's the best the East has to offer, this Western domination could soon become an annual occurrence, making the Finals nothing more than an unbalanced exhibition.

 
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