While preparing for my fantasy football drafts, like all my
readers and millions of fans are out there doing right now, and enjoying
another Rangers stretch we were hit with back to back positive tests for
performance enhancing drugs in baseball.
Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon tested positive for elevated
testosterone, received 50 game bans and luckily for the MLB and its fans both
players had the grace to accept their punishments without a farce of an appeal
or explanation such as “I took a tainted vitamin B pill unknowingly” or the
successful Hebrew Hammer defense keeping my piss in a refrigerator over the
weekend tainted my test and created a false positive.” Sigh. We were treated to a fun after-the-fact
story of Melky’s camp creating a series of fake supplement websites to try to
create a successful we didn’t know it was tainted defense. At least he admitted guilt before that story
came out and he seems to have dodged blame for it.
That’s the good news, players actually admitting it. As we have seen before with players like Andy
Pettitte and Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz admitting to their use, fans seem
eager to forgive. When you are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens or Mark ‘Fifth Amendment’
McGwire and refuse to simply own up to what is plainly obvious, fans hate you
for it. We as fans aren’t so naïve to believe that professional sports will
ever be clean. There is simply too much reward for minimal risk at this point.
When you come clean and don’t insult the fans’ intelligence we laugh at you,
call you a cheater and move on quickly.
The bad news is, especially for such a statistically driven
game like baseball, doping will be here forever. Say it Squints-style from The
Sandlot “fffooooooorrrevvvvver”. It’s
the risk-reward I mentioned above. For
baseball especially its clear why a lot of athletes would take performance
enhancing drugs at the risk of the stigma and suspensions that come with
it.
Let’s put ourselves in either Melky or Bartolo’s shoes. Melky is 28 years old and finally eligible
for free agency. In baseball this is
your first humongous contract. Why not take performance enhancers for a couple
years around your prime age (to deflect some suspicion from improving stats) settle
in to a 5 year 85 million dollar guaranteed contract and be set for life? Baseball doesn’t test but a fraction of
players at any time and you can roll the dice that the testosterone is out of
your system at the time of tests.
The
same goes for Bartolo, only hes on a 1 year deal this year and 35 years old.
Hes looking for one last multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to send him
into retirement. He has even less to
lose by doing this (being paid so much over his career) compared to what he
could gain otherwise. Sure his career may largely be over now, but so what?
Without the drugs it may have anyway. For Melky, prior to last season he was a
bench player looking to earn a bump over veterans minimums throughout his
career. Why not take the two year risk and set yourself up for life?
The other thing is these drugs are used as much for recovery
as they are for increased strength. I
play baseball currently at the spry young age of 30. 9 innings no matter what,
no time limit, in 95 degree heat, once a week.
I got injured for 3-4 weeks. I can not imagine playing 10 straight games
in the hot ass Texas summer in August after already playing 100 games in the
season and not wearing down or being slow to recover from tweaks and
strains. Wearing down lowers your stats,
prevents you from getting performance bonuses and gets you less at arbitrations
and the open market. Why the hell wouldn’t you take drugs to lessen the impact
of wearing down, or get you back on the field in 2-3 weeks instead of 4-6?
There is simply way too much money involved and not a lot of
risk. Sure the first time costs you 1/3 of a season, but you aren’t banned.
Someone will take a chance with you. It wont be a 5 year 85 million dollar
contract for Melky, but rather a 2 year 20 million dollar contract since some
GM out there wont believe that testosterone helped that much in Melky throwing
up 53 hits in month of May. After all, most of that had to be because he is in
his prime right? All the positive drug test did was make him cheaper for
you. Hell, even Manny at age 40 with two
positive tests caught at least one flier.
Based on the foregoing, it is easy to understand why the
players do it. Pious fans get up and rattle on about how can the players
destroy the integrity of the game and asterisks and the like. If any fan was presented with the choice of
rolling the dice for tens of millions of dollars or being out of the league
with no other life skills and fan would do it. Shit, we all start with nothing,
but very, very few of us end up with even just a half million dollar a year
salary.
With Major League Baseball still woefully behind the NFL in
terms of number of tests, especially off-season tests where players build the
muscle for the season, it is clear the players are still going to be encouraged
to roll the dice. It’s a sad fact for baseball, but one I think will be around
until MLB gets aggressive with either its punishment or testing protocol. If baseball was ever to be believed for its
tough stance on doping they would begin to adopt the doping protocols of the
World Anti-Doping Agency and the punishments of the IAAF. If you get caught as a track and field
athlete you are banned for two years. Obviously Major League Baseball knows that its
star players dope. With the sport
sitting as the 3rd most popular in the country on most polls,
baseball can’t afford to ban players for two years. So instead they keep the tests limited and
the bans short knowing they’ll catch some people but letting others slip
through every year to try to mollify the disgust at doping in baseball while
preserving much of its star power.
For me, I think I watch the game, and all professional
sports, under the assumption many players aren’t on the level. There is too
much money at stake to be “honorable” and maintain a level of integrity most
other fans seem to need. After all this starts at the high school level for
kids who have no shot at a big time college career, not to mention a pro
career. On my high school football team and wrestling teams I know for a fact
several players hopped in a car, went down to Tijuana and got some “supplements”.
It will always be there, and as long as we are entertained, and the journalists
continue to safeguard the hall of fames from known dopers I think the system
works. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
