Steroids and the rush to judgment

February 10, 10:46 PMSan Diego Padres ExaminerJudson Green

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What you see is just the latest form of cheating.

Alex Rodriguez confessed his steroid use from 2001-03 in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons on Monday, after his confidential test results were leaked to Sports Illustrated. Upon hearing the news, I was reminded of Ken Caminiti's claim that at least half of all major leaguers were on the juice, when Caminiti admitted to Tom Verducci for the June 3, 2002 issue of Sports Illustrated that he had used steroids during his 1996 MVP season for the San Diego Padres.

We initially thought the percentage too high. Surely baseball couldn't be that corrupt. Something on the order of 5-10% seemed more appropriate. But while Rodriguez's positive test doesn't confirm Caminiti's claim, it increases our suspicions. The Mitchell Report revealed a slew of MVPs to have been users, and Alex Rodriguez is another name to add. Cynicism is now affecting every baseball fan, as they criticize the epidemic of cheating, and long for the old, traditional days of baseball. And that kind of attitude couldn't be more clueless.

Cheating has been rampant since the early days of baseball. The old Baltimore Orioles of the National League in the 1890s under Ned Hanlon used every dirty trick in the book to get ahead. With only one umpire watching, it was easy to take a shortcut in advancing from first to third. Tripping players as they rounded the bases was not uncommon. And while it is unverified as to how often it really took place, third baseman John McGraw had a reputation for holding players by a belt loop to delay their attempt at advancing on a sacrifice fly.

In a Jan. 31, 2001 article written by Joshua Prager of the Wall Street Journal, several Giants confessed that they had stolen signs en route to their erasing a 13 1/2 game deficit to win the 1951 pennant. They were relayed the signs with the help of a spyglass and an electrical buzzer. Sign stealing is legal if done without artificial aid. And while pitcher Al Gettel says it "made a big difference", none of the Giants see anything wrong with what they did, nor do they believe they won the pennant through this form of cheating. "Everything we did was our own," Monte Irvin told the Associated Press. Of course, the same argument can be made for Barry Bonds. He had help from the steroids, but he still had to hit the ball himself, do the weight training himself, be patient himself.

When doctored pitches were banned from baseball, a few were permitted to carry on the practice, as they made their living on those pitches. Burleigh Grimes was the last legal spitballer, finishing his career in 1934. Of course, that didn't stop the practice of doctoring pitches. Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford are among those who threw spitters and other illegal pitches throughout their careers.

But it isn't just strategic cheating that has gone on throughout baseball's history. Performance enhancing drug use has gone on since the days players could get their hands on it. The popular one was amphetamines, known as "greenies", a stimulant that allowed a weary ballplayer to perform better where otherwise the drain on his body might have affected him. Ralph Kiner, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle are but a few of the players who took amphetamines. In their defense, Kiner says he used once at the recommendation of a trainer, and Aaron admitted to trying a greenie once and disliking it in his autobiography, I Had a Hammer. While I am skeptical of these claims of one-time use, I will not make any accusations. The point, though, is that the presence of PEDs in baseball is nothing new, and the chance to eradicate them existed decades ago.

"Baseball players will take anything. If you had a pill that would guarantee a pitcher 20 wins but might take 5 years off his life, he'd take it," Jim Bouton wrote in his classic, Ball Four. Rather than address these problems, baseball took a cover up approach, with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn even attempting to coerce Bouton into a denial of the book's factuality.

The advancement to steroids and human growth hormone from the previous PEDs is not a decline in the ethical code of baseball, but rather a reflection of opportunity and availability. With multimillion dollar salaries predicated on performance and the ability to create a profit for the team, the incentive to use PEDs is greater than ever. But now, those PEDs are more advanced, more powerful, and allow for a greater advancement of performance. I could never prove such a thing, but I believe that Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, and other famous hitters would have used if the opportunity presented itself. These were men prone to vice. Baseball hasn't changed. The money and drugs have. Any argument that suggests otherwise is implying that past ballplayers didn't engage in such an advanced form of cheating not because the opportunity wasn't there, but because they were better people. That is nothing short of ludicrous.

I would love to see cheating eradicated from the game. It's a fantasy, but one worth holding on to. I can't defend cheating of any kind. It is a more comfortable feeling to know that a great accomplishment was achieved through talent and hard work. But nor can I defend the attitude that cheating, that using performance enhancers, is something new to the game. Those longing for the good ol' days apparently didn't pay attention when they happened.