From Scoop # 31 March 13, 2006

We Better Do Something About This Steroid Thing; Really I’m Serious
by Rick Sense

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has expressed concern about recent reports that Barry Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs for more than 5 years while setting numerous baseball milestones.  And according to South Florida’s SunSentinel.com posting, “Commissioner Bud Selig was worried enough about Barry Bonds’ possible steroid use to arrange a meeting with him near the San Francisco Giants’ training camp in the spring of 2004.”

According to the SunSentinel report, Selig “was seeking to contain any possible damage to the sport as Bonds continued to move up the rankings of career home run hitters.”

The report went on to relay that “according to highly placed Major League Baseball sources, Selig extended a vague offer of leniency to Bonds if he had anything he wished to admit, including possible acts of perjury in his testimony to the BALCO grand jury. He told Bonds the consequences would be “much worse” if he professed innocence and later was revealed as a steroid user.”

Bonds told Selig that he had never knowingly taken steroids, the same thing he told a grand jury and continues to tell reporters.  Bonds continues to deny the allegations of knowingly using steroids. 

Recent excerpts from the upcoming book Game of Shadows appeared in Sports illustrated setting off a firestorm.  The excerpt from the upcoming book documents, in great detail, a pattern of behavior and performance-enhancing drug use that began in 1999 and hit full stride in 2001 when Bonds hit a single-season record 73 home runs.  It also makes mention of income that Bonds’ earned that he failed to disclose to the IRS.

It seems it wasn’t the ball that was juiced.

After baseball nearly destroyed itself in 1994 and 1995 with the lack of labor peace and Selig’s canceling of the 1994 Fall Classic, Major League Baseball was suffering from a major credibility issue with its fan base.  A fix was needed-unfortunately the wrong “fix” was applied.

As players began to grow like the Incredible Hulk in the off seasons of the early 90s, baseball leadership stuck its collective head in the sand.  Stories about tightly wound baseballs, smaller ballparks, diluted major league pitching due to expansion were all reasons thrown out to explain the power surge in baseball.  A decade later the real reason has been revealed.

So what’s next?

Bonds’ needs to be investigated and Commissioner Bud Selig is the wrong person for the job.  Selig should call on former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent to lead the effort.  Vincent is close enough to the game but un-liked enough by owners to do the job without feeling pressure that people like George Steinbrenner may try to exhort.

If the allegations against Bonds are proven, Selig needs to act.  

The one way for baseball to deal with this issue is to punish those that are discovered to have used steroids, either through a player’s own admission (like Jose Canseco, the late Ken Caminiti), through testing (like Rafael Palmerio), or through investigation and review conducted under the auspices of major league baseball.  The punishment needs to be one strike and you’re out of baseball for life-no exceptions and no Hall of Fame.  Welcome to Joe Jackson’s and Pete Rose’s world.

This new policy would only address the issue going forward.  I don’t believe the idea of “investigating” the past or in altering baseball record books with deletions or asterisks accomplishes anything.  You can’t change what happened in the past by ripping it out of a history book, nor can you put the toothpaste back in the tube.

If Bonds’ passes Ruth or even Aaron so be it-fans will still look to Aaron as the Home Run King of baseball no mater where Bonds’ finishes.  Records are made to be broken as I was reminded after I went through an old Appleton Foxes’ baseball program from 1978.  In the program an article appeared about ‘baseball records that never would be broken’- well guess what – most of them have been including Gehrig’s iron man streak broken by Cal Ripken, Jr.