New era for baseball?
Baseball is big in my house, particularly with us boys. We study the strategies, follow the trades and personalities (particularly as they affect the Astros), admire the talent and enjoy the battle of wills and trickery between the batter and the battery. Yesterday was another one of those battles of will and trickery, although not one that we actually enjoyed watching.
Roger Clemens, esteemed as perhaps the best pitcher in the modern baseball era, went before a U.S. Senate investigative committee to explain his involvement in the illegal use of anabolic steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) in professional baseball. (He was implicated in the Mitchell Report released back in December, the culmination of a 20-month investigation led by Sen. George Mitchell.) Up to this point, I had believed that perhaps Trainer McNamee had substituted vitamin injections for steroids/HGH without Clemens’ knowledge. In effect, Clemens would believe that McNamee was “getting him results,” and McNamee would keep the evidence for fraud and extortion. After all, McNamee was “small-time,” as the press has emphasized, with financial pressures, an ailing son and a broken marriage.
I had given Roger the benefit of doubt. I was able to ignore the sordid taped phone call, and possible witness-tampering. But yesterday, when Roger’s best friend Andy Pettitte stated in a sworn affidavit implicating Roger, I was saddened.
In the end, I believe that The Report, initiated by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, is a way to wipe the slate clean and leave the ugly past behind. In November 2005, MLB owners and players agreed to tougher penalties for positive tests. These penalties are considered in-line with most other professional sports: a first positive test would result in a 50-game suspension, a second positive test would result in a 100-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a lifetime suspension from MLB(1).
Great, you say. Well, we are not out of the woods yet. Synthetic HGH abuse is difficult to detect. One of the first wide-spread HGH testing programs, although limited in effectiveness, was implemented in the 2004 Athens Olympic games. Last year, there were more breakthroughs in identifying protein “markers” left behind in the bloodstream following HGH injection(2). The science is catching up, but has a ways to go.
Here is my point. I love the sport, and while I’m thankful that the owners and the player’s union agreed to a hardened drug policy, I remain concerned about the historical preservation of the sport if banned drug use continues to be difficult to detect. How will we continue to relate and recount the historical greats of the modern baseball era (the likes of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron) with today’s record-breakers We won’t, because we can’t. And this chapter will regrettably come to a close.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroids_in_baseball
(2) http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun192007/national200706198280.asp?section=updatenews