Unfortunate Indifference

For however long Barry Bonds plays baseball and perhaps forevermore, steroids and baseball will go together like pizza and cheese. And if that’s how it must be then so be it. But just as any baseball record related to hitting and set during the so-called steroids era will always be suspect in most fans minds, it also beg a rather interesting question as to why those same fans shrug when it comes to steroids and other sports, particularly pro football.

For proof, look no further than the news that Cleveland Browns starting offensive lineman Ryan Tucker tested positive for the euphemistic “banned substance” late last week. It caused a bit of a ripple locally but was a complete non-story nationally. And the local ripple was due not to the fact that Tucker tested positive for steroids but more for the fact that the line will be that much thinner for the first four games of the season, a sort of “it figures” resignation from the local fans.

The reason steroid use by pro football players isn’t as big of a story is likely related to two key factors. First, football got out ahead of the issue and without any acrimony. It has been random drug-testing players since 1987. Baseball, on the other hand, pretty much had to be bludgeoned into a credible testing policy by Congress, a policy that only went into effect at the beginning of the 2005 season. To most fans, starting testing in 2005 was mostly a case of closing the barn door long after the horses, in the persons of Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, among many others, had left the stable.

Second, while football has literally had scores of players who have tested positive since 1987, most have been offensive or defensive linemen and the occasional linebacker, none particularly high profile, save for Shawne Merriman last season. Moreover, because of the types of players involved, like Ryan Tucker, there is at least an understanding, if not an expectation, that these players need to bulk up. It’s part of their job description.

Though baseball hasn’t caught anybody of note in the two years it has been testing, unlike football some of it’s highest profile players have nonetheless been implicated including Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and the aforementioned Bonds, McGwire and Sosa. And these aren’t just mere implications either.

Canseco has been extremely forthcoming about his use, even if it was for profit. Giambi seems to have been tortured by his use and his admissions have come slowly and begrudgingly, but surely nonetheless. Sheffield is an admitted user, though he claims it was unintentional. McGwire got out of the game before he could be tested and then refused to answer any questions about his past while testifying before Congress, thus raising suspicions in the minds of those who were previously uncertain and confirming for those who figured as much anyway. Sosa took a sabbatical from the game as the spotlight got hotter, even claiming a sudden loss of his command of the English language in front of Congress to avoid answering tough questions. In the process, Sosa and his inflated head became a national joke. When he did come back to baseball a few years later he was literally half the man he was before he left. Bonds, like Sheffield, has copped to the unintentional use of the “clear and the cream.”

But it’s not just the implication of high profile players that has fans in knots; it’s the association of those players with some of the most sacred records in all of baseball, home run records that has fostered the deep dissatisfaction. When it comes to these records, fans are incredibly protective. For years, Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in 1961 was a record with an asterisk because he set the record in a season that was eight games longer than when Ruth set the record in 1927. Though no such asterisk has ever accompanied Hank Aaron’s setting of the career home run mark, he was nonetheless subject to racist death threats as he was closing in on Babe Ruth’s career mark of 714 home runs. That’s a pretty volatile environment and these involved players who were never suspected of cheating.

At the time McGwire and Sosa were engaging in their chase of Roger Maris’ single season home run record (which both broke), it was a feel-good story after a contentious strike and performance-enhancing drugs were not really part of the conversation. But the revelations since have clearly tarnished fans’ memories of both players as well as that season, to the extent that they even think about that season at all anymore. By 2001 when Bonds reset the mark with 73, steroids were being openly whispered about but Bonds also had other problems, mostly related to a cranky personality that made him only slightly more fan friendly than Hitler. As the whispers about Bonds grew louder, the fans became even more suspicious and disdainful, except of course for the Pollyannaish fans in the Bay Area. Even as he sits on the precipice of the most cherished record of all, he’ll never escape the cloud.

In this context, it’s no wonder that baseball suffers from such a sordid reputation with steroids while football has mostly been given a pass. This is unfortunate.

It may be true that in football, the players involved in steroids aren’t themselves breaking any records, sacred or otherwise. But it’s also true that a steroid-enhanced player is probably helping contribute to the achievements of a team’s skill players who are breaking records, which in some fashion makes those records suspect. But fans aren’t apt to make such connections and until a high profile skill player, say a Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or LaDanian Tomlinson is linked with steroids, football fans are never going to see the impact steroid use has in football like they do in baseball.

Instead, what you will continue to see is the general indifference on display in the case of Tucker. To his credit, Tucker hasn’t torn a page from the Sheffield/Bonds playbook and claimed any sort of unintentional use. He’s been pretty forthcoming, actually. But the fact that he used and is now suspended was not the kind of distraction that the Browns needed in what is shaping up to be a make or break year for the franchise.

Tucker, like the many other football players who have come before him, will pay the price of their use through a suspension. But when it’s over, it will mostly be forgotten. Heck, fans and players alike were so forgiving in the case of Merriman, he made the Pro Bowl last year despite his four-game suspension. The NFL may have instituted the “Merriman” rule to keep that from happening again, but the truth is that when it comes to steroids in football, fans aren’t holding players to the same standards being applied to Bonds and his cohorts. In the end, this is why, despite the fact that football has had its program in place for so long, players continue to get caught and steroid use continues to plague the NFL just as much as it does baseball. And, like they do with football, it’s time for football fans to hold the players and the league more accountable. After all, only the credibility and the integrity of the league are at stake, if that means anything anymore.

Storm Clouds

If ever there was a time to love the sport and not the players, now is that time. While it has probably happened any number of times in the past, it is difficult to remember a time when all three major league sports were operating under such serious clouds at the same time.

Baseball’s deliberate ignorance of its mushrooming steroids problem is coming home to roost for good in the next week or so when Barry Bonds finally surpasses Hank Aaron’s career home run record. The dark underbelly of those that are allowed to lace up the spikes every Sunday in the NFL is being revealed in the form of one of its most prominent players, Michael Vick, who now has been ordered not to report to training camp because of a multi-count indictment over dog fighting. Meanwhile, the NBA’s integrity hangs in the balance as the Tim Donaghy referee scandal is spreading like a wild fire. As a sports fan, if you don’t find all this just a bit dispiriting then you’ve either lost your capacity to be surprised or you just don’t care anymore.

Much has been written about each of these topics already and many more words are yet to be spilled. But it is the combined effect of all three that most serves to alienate the average sports fan at a time when none of these leagues are in a position to afford it, even if they don’t know it or don’t care about it.

The issue with Bonds, for example, has polarized the game in a way that Commission Bud Selig still can’t fully appreciate. He may fiddle over the decision as to whether to follow Bonds around in order to witness the historic event, but Selig’s overall strategy is to simply drag this issue out long enough in the hope that the fans simply lose interest. The Mitchell Committee, by all accounts, has made virtually no headway in its investigation of steroids. Selig seemingly strong-armed New York Yankees user Jason Giambi into talking to Mitchell but then reportedly let him off the hook by not even asking him about other players. What did they talk about, the weather?

Selig, as Commissioner now and as an owner when steroid use became rampant, is paralyzed by indecision and the only thing suffering in the process is the foundation of the game. What is all the more disgusting in this entire debate is the utter lack of courage by the players or their union to stand up for what is right—the good of the game. Each continues to play the “we don’t know all the facts” game as a way of avoiding the issue all together, fully failing to recognize that they all stand as unindicted co-conspirators as a result of their inaction.

The fact that Bonds is even being given the opportunity to play this year is perhaps the most reprehensible aspect of this whole matter. The grand jury testimony regarding Bonds may have been illegally leaked, but that fact doesn’t make what that testimony supposedly says about Bonds steroid use any less credible. Bonds can continue to act as if his continued abuse of the drugs was inadvertent, but he can’t hide behind the fact that he did use and baseball can’t hide behind the fact that he hasn’t been penalized for it. In fact, he’s been rewarded for it.

The fans in San Francisco are simply delusional about this issue, choosing to take the short-term feel good approach of one of their own rather than consider the long-term implications. The Giants managing general partner, Peter Magowan, who approved Bonds for the one year contract he’s playing under this season, is far more interested in the additional revenue that the circus that is Bonds will generate than in protecting the game at any level. And Selig, he just wrings his hands.

In many of the same ways that Bonds and his co-horts has already threatened the integrity of baseball, so too does what is taking place in the NBA threaten the integrity of that game.

The reason gambling is, in many ways, worse for a sport than illegal drugs begins and ends with the simple fact that it is the tipping point between sport and theatre. You can always toss out a druggie or two from the game, but trying to rid the sport of a reputation that its outcomes are pre-ordained is a much more vexing and serious problem.

The story that is emerging about Tim Donaghy will not be easily swept under the rug by Commissioner David Stern, despite his attempt to minimize the damage by letting the story break during the death days of July. Stern’s performance, and it was a performance, during his press conference Tuesday morning showed him at his shakiest. Clearly traumatized by the issue, he nonetheless gave fans little comfort by essentially creating more questions than he answered.

Two things in particular stand out. First, Stern gave the fans no idea how long the investigation was going on or how it even came to light. Was the league watching Donaghy or was the league contacted by the FBI? It pushes the limits of his credibility for Stern to say, as he did, that this problem begins and ends with Donaghy. If Donaghy was indeed making phantom calls, how is it that none of his fellow referees noticed, and if they noticed, didn’t say anything? If that’s true, doesn’t make them at least partially complicit, even if they didn’t reap any benefits personally? Any referee in any sport can and will blow a call. But if a referee is doing enough of that in order to deliberately alter the outcome of a game, certainly someone in the league had to notice before it would have otherwise been brought to their attention.

And if they did notice, how could they not do something sooner? This is the second thing that stands out about the Stern press conference. He said that the league certainly would have liked to have terminated Donaghy sooner but was told that the investigation was best aided by not terminating him until he did. That may be true if the ultimate goal is criminal prosecution, but it seems like the ultimate goal for the NBA should have been protecting the game first and foremost and then let the criminal justice process have its hacks at him.

Here’s why. If Stern knew that Donaghy was affecting the outcome of games and did nothing about it in order to let the investigation run its course, how can we be sure that the games Donaghy affected didn’t impact the standings? And if they impacted the standings, it is likely that they impacted who qualified for the playoffs and who didn’t, the seeding of the teams in those playoffs and, ultimately, the pecking order in the NBA draft. By letting the investigation run its course, how can any franchise be certain that it hasn’t been negatively impacted for years to come? But it this way—if the difference is one or two additional ping pong balls in the lottery that ultimate gets you, say LeBron James and not Darko Milicic, wouldn’t that bother you as a fan?

The answer, of course, is that you can never be sure. And while that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to blow up the sport, it does mean that Stern has to do more, much more, than rail against Donaghy as some sort of rogue or that this was some sort of isolated incident. Even if that is possibly true, the effect of his actions is hardly isolated.

It may very well be that some fans don’t mind having their outcomes scripted. That’s why the WWE is so popular. But in any sport where the outcome isn’t supposed to be preordained, such as basketball, no issue threatens to bring it down more quickly than someone on the inside who’s been gaming the system. And whether Stern wants to admit it or not, putting in place a whole new set of procedures to safeguard the integrity and the transparency of his sport is what it will take to even begin scratching the surface of removing the whispers that will inevitably followed the next time LeBron James gets clobbered going to the basket and the whistle isn’t blown.

As for the NFL and its Michael Vick problem, it may not threaten the league in the same way that the Donaghy incident threatens the NBA, but it is a public relations nightmare of the first order that can’t be minimized, either.

Commission Roger Goodell has been rightfully applauded for drawing a line in the sand early on that bad behavior will not be tolerated. He, too, has rightfully held up Adam “Pacman” Jones as the poster child by suspending him a year. It wouldn’t be too much to ask, frankly, for him to consider suspending the entire Bengals team for a year or so given the institutional problems it has. But having taken himself so far out on that limb, Goodell finds himself hamstrung by the Vick incident in a way he never anticipated.

The indictment against Vick couldn’t be more damning and includes charges of interstate illegal gambling, dog fighting and animal cruelty. It is sufficiently well detailed and documented (read a copy of the indictment here) to make it reasonable to draw some conclusions about Vick, at least in the same way Goodell drew some conclusions about Pacman following his indictments.

It did Goodell no good to initially avoid the suspension of Vick by trying to distinguish his situation from the numerous run-ins that Pacman has found himself in the center of. What Goodell didn’t realize is how heinous Vick’s alleged conduct is viewed by the average person. Goodell also didn’t appreciate the ability of the internet as an organizing tool, which was on full display when PETA and others picketed outside of Goodell’s office in New York last week. When PETA showed up in Atlanta next that was enough for Goodell to at least take a mid-term approach and order Vick not to report for camp until the NFL’s investigation is complete.

If the NFL has any hopes of surviving this public relations disaster, one of two things need to happen. Either the indictment against Vick has to get dropped or the NFL has to keep Vick on the sidelines until the legal system runs its course. The first is unlikely and the second will undoubtedly be challenged by the union. But that is one case that Goodell should be more than willing to take on, for it’s far better to have an arbitrator force Goodell to let Vick back at work than it is for Goodell to appear as though he’s making an exception for Vick because of his status in the league.

While no one is predicting the ultimate demise of any of the leagues, what this does do is further cement in the minds of the fans that investing in them and particularly the people who play them doesn’t come without great risk. Unfortunately, it’s a message that isn’t likely to register all that much with any of these leagues. After all, right now, if you’re willing to part with $260, you can get an authentic Michael Vick jersey by ordering it through the NFL’s official web site.