Say It Ain’t So

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting. — George Orwell, Collected Essays

It shouldn’t have felt like a surprise. But it does. And it was never a really big secret, but it’s still a letdown to see so many baseball titans of recent years named as users of steroids in the long-awaited (long-dreaded, more like it) report by former Senator George Mitchell.

Barry Bonds, we knew about (and while he still denies “knowingly” using the ‘roids, I doubt even he believes that). But Roger Clemens! The Rocket was on the juice! Aww, man! Could he have really still brought it on his own? (He angrily denies it.) Eric Gagne! This guy was unhittable when he won his Cy Young award with the Dodgers and he was the best thing to come along for Blue fans like me since Hideo Nomo. Jason Giambi (he owned up to ‘roiding a while ago). Andy Pettitte, Gary Sheffield, David Justice, Miguel Tejada. Mark McGwire, we knew he was using a now-banned substance (then within the rules) called Andro, the year he broke the single-season home run record. Jose Canseco. Kevin Brown. David Justice. Chuck Knoblauch. Mo Vaughn. It’s a significant slice of the pantheon of modern baseball heroes.

The players’ union enabled it – and the owners turned a blind eye to it.

And what’s really bothersome to a baseball fan is that it was not necessary. Steroids make you stronger. They make pitchers throw harder, they make batters hit harder. But the art is in hitting the ball — or in throwing it so that it can’t be hit in the first place. And the Anaheim Angels’ World Series run proved that “small ball” is every bit as exciting as hitting home runs.

Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic. — Ron Shelton, Bull Durham

The fans will watch the game on TV, buy the tickets, eat the hot dogs. But the cheating leaves a bad taste in their mouths — and it deceives the consuming public. And if too much of this crap goes on, the fans will take their business elsewhere. Baseball finally recovered from the strike of the 1990’s, but now there’s this to deal with.

Consider three facts. First, Baseball offers a unique form of entertainment, and represents a segment of the industry worth billions of dollars. Second, there have been rumors of players juicing up since the 1980’s and there has never been any effective action taken against it. Third, Bud Selig has been running Major League Baseball since 1992.

Now, the point of having a Commissioner is to earn Congress’ exemption from the antitrust laws by self-policing to protect the consumer of the product. Presenting a deceptively altered product is a form of consumer fraud, which was the reason that the office of the Commissioner was created in the wake of the Black Sox scandal of 1919 in the first place. But there has been a massive failure of self-regulation, and the blame must ultimately rest squarely with the person who was charged with preventing that kind of consumer fraud from taking place.

Some people have said that Barry Bonds should get an asterisk next to his single-season and career home run records in the books, because he cheated to get it. But now, it seems that there will be too many asterisks on too many records and statistics. There’s just no point in the asterisks anymore. It’s either going to be something that baseball puts a stop to, or it’s going to become part of the game. Selig has demonstrated not only that he does not care about players juicing up, but that he thinks it’s good for business if they do.

If Bud Selig remains in charge, nothing meaningful will change. He’s got to go. I nominate George Will to replace him.