NEW YORK -- George Mitchell called a news conference for 2 p.m. ET Thursday to announce the results of his 20-month investigation into drug use in baseball.
From my blog:
As some of you know, the "Mitchell Report" is out that names names as far as steroid use in pro baseball.
I was interviewed by Senator Mitchell’s group about this issue during their research, though I have nothing directly to do with pro baseball or any pro baseball players. They asked my opinion on what could be done, how prevalent did I think steroid use was in pro baseball, did I think it was higher then in pro football, and a bunch of others, but you get the idea. So what did I tell them? The major points I made to them was this:
• If they truly want to make a dent in the use of steroids in pro baseball, they will need to initiate true random testing as the IOC does (though I suspect the union would never go for that)
• I made it clear to them that the people who develop these “designer” steroids and advise the athletes in the use of these compounds, are at least 10 steps ahead of the testers, so drug use will always be a part of pro sports. Some drugs, such as Growth Hormone, can’t be tested for at all! Neither can a whole mess of different drugs.
• Relating to the last comments above, I told them that as long as we pay grown men millions of dollars to hit or catch a ball and view them as heroes and demigods, there would always be drugs in pro sports.
• Finally, I told them the real problem in baseball is not steroids, it’s the use of amphetamines also known as “greenies” in baseball circles. Times Sports Columnist Gary Shelton, recently wrote an article that spilled the beans. His article was called “Steroids hoopla overshadowing deadlier drug” and was Published November 18, 2005. As Mr. Shelton put it:
“… in witch-hunting season, 'roids are all the rage. Congressmen are talking about them. Ballplayers are talking about them. Except for Mark McGwire and the person in charge of Rafael Palmeiro's B-12 shot, everybody is talking about them. In baseball, steroids have become the fashionable outrage.”
Mr. Shelton summed it up well when he stated:
“Amphetamines are a bigger problem than steroids. They are a greater danger. And, yes, the ban against them is going to have more of an affect.” How common is the use of amphetamines in pro baseball? According to Shelton:
“All you can say about amphetamine [in professional baseball] use is that it is as common as a fungo bat and, pretty much, is accepted as easily. Two years ago, Gwynn suggested that as many as 50 percent of position players used amphetamines to get ready for games. Chad Curtis, the former Yankees outfielder, says the number is 85 percent. Caminiti said there were only one or two players per team who didn't take them…"
What about other sports who have faced this problem? He states:
“The NFL tests for amphetamines, as do the NBA and the NHL and the Olympics. Baseball never has. In baseball, it often has been a bigger disgrace for a player not to take amphetamines than to take them, and sometimes, it seems the key statistic might not be a batting average but a dosage. Turns out, this might be real Green Monster in the game.”
So what we have here is a rampant use of a much more dangerous drug than steroids that has apparently been ignored by the powers that be and the public in general. So what do I think of drug use in sports in general? I take a fairly Libertarian view of such things. Unless we as a society are willing and able to change our paradigm, drug use will remain an issue. If we continue to view athletes as defacto heroes and pay them tens of millions of dollar salaries, then they will continue to look for ways to get an edge over their teammates to get the big contracts. The problem is only going to get worse. Once gene manipulation, gene doping, and other tricks that are right around the corner arrive, there wont be any way to catch them, test them, or stop them. I don’t know what the answer is (drug tested and non drug tested leagues?) but I do know the current policies for dealing with drugs in pro sports have not worked and never will.
