Tank's take week of 11/16/03

[NJTank]

Bud Selig: King of Denial

Once again this week Major League Baseball demonstrated its serve lack of leadership as they announced their new policy on steroid testing. Instead of taking a courageous stance against performance enhancing drugs Major League Baseball announced a policy for testing and punishment that only served as a feeble attempt at public relations, while hoping the problem would just go away.

Performance Enhancing Drugs is the most serious dilemma facing both professional and amateur sports today. Where as drugs like Marijuana and Cocaine give sports a black eye, and must be dealt with seriously. Steroids and other Performance Enhancing Drugs like Human Growth Hormone are a much greater problem as they have the potential of tarnishing the sport as much as the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal.

What will the public think if it learns all the recent Home Run records were broken by players using steroids or other performance enhancing drugs?

This question keeps Commissioner Bud Selig, and all the rest that run Major League Baseball up at night. However, with San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds who holds the single season record for Home Runs in a season, subpoenaed before a federal grand jury investigating his personal trainer Greg Anderson, baseball could be facing a public relation disaster that could tarnish the entire record book.

Bonds' trainer Greg Anderson is the is a target of the grand jury investigating BALCO Laboratories, which is at the heart of the ongoing scandal involving athletes and the recently discovered substance tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which the FDA has designated an illegal steroid.

Bonds is not alone in the BALCO investigation, as New York Yankees All-Star Jason Giambi has also been subpoenaed. Weather or not any damaging information comes out about Bonds or Giambi ever comes out the suspicion is there. A suspicion that already surround Mark McGwire when he hit 70 Home Runs in 1998 while confessing to using Andro, a over the counter supplement used to mask steroid use, that the NFL and other sports ban while MLB has allowed.

Suspicion and fact are two different things until it is proven in court or by a drug test released to the public anyone must be given the benefit of the doubt, and that benefit of the doubt has been bliss for Major League Baseball.

As always ignorance is bliss, but public pressure forced both Major League Baseball and the Players Association to agree to steroids testing in 2002. The testing began in 2003 as a trial period. The full plan would not kick in unless 5% of the players tested positive in blind samples.

On Thursday it was announced that more then 5% tested positive trigger phase 2 which will begin next year. The new policy which goes in effect in March will see players now identified, with players being forced to undergo treatment the first time they are caught with a positive test. A 2nd positive test will result in a 10 game suspension. The length of suspensions would increase to 25 days for a 3rd positive test, 50 days for a 4th and one year for a 5th. World Anti-Doping Agency Chairman Dick Pound immediately ridiculed this punishment scale as being too lenient.

At the same time baseball announced its new policy it all but swept the disturbing fact that more then 5% are already using steroids. Breaking down the numbers, calculating the number of players on a roster during the bulk of the regular season at least 50 are using steroids, (some even have the reports being as high as 70). However upon closer examination the numbers are even more troubling in the fact that all 70 are likely position players since steroids are not useful for pitchers.

If next March when the results are no longer kept secret and that many test positive, it could be a potential disaster especially if some of the top stars in the league are among the listed. This is where the new punishment scale fails miserably.

While other sports like the NFL treat the problem of Performance Enhancing Drugs seriously by giving suspensions for a first time positive result. Baseball offers up treatment, hardly a deterrent by any standard.

On an episode of ESPN's drama "Playmakers" it showed just how "random" drug testing could be, as the Cougars fictional owner warned a player about an impending drug test. With baseball's poorly run commissioner's office the chances of similar leaks giving certain players due for testing advanced warning is an almost certainty, meaning the chances of a player getting caught is not likely.

What is sad is that when few are caught with positive results baseball will pretend that the problem does not exist. However the truth will not go away easily, as the Federal Government appears to be cracking down. If Bud Selig chooses to ignore this he is threatening an even greater public relations disaster, as it will expose their testing policy as the fraud that it is.

If baseball were to take this issue seriously then it would release the names of the players who already tested positive and force them into treatment as the first step of the program states it will do for now on.

However Bud Selig and the rest of Major League Baseball don't want that nor do they want this policy to work. In fact baseball's lack of action on supplements going back to McGwire demonstrates that as long as it means more home runs and more fans, then Major League Baseball dose not care.

Which is the sad part of this whole issue. Baseball does not care about the integrity of the sport or the long-term health of the player as long as they can show explosive long balls on Sportscenter; everything is ok with the world. However, the cost could be steep, as supplements, growth hormones and steroids have already proven to cause serious health problems.

Once again it all demonstrates how terrible Bud Selig's tenure as commissioner has been to the sport of baseball. If the sport had a strong leader issues like this would never come, as they would be dealt with head on. However Selig and company have chosen to close their eyes and cover their ears hoping it will all just go away, but in the end the path of denial is the road to disaster, and this will all one day blow up in everyone's face. The only hope is that sport of baseball can recover in the aftermath.

With baseball's award being handed out controversy erupted this week when Kansas City Royals SS Angel Berrora beat out Hideki Matsui for the American League Rookie of the Year, as Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner ripped the voters for overlooking his high priced import.

The fact that Matsui was a candidate for Rookie of the Year in the first place is a problem that must be dealt with. Had Matsui won the award he would have been the 4th Japanese player in 10 years to be named Rookie of the Year, joining Hideo Nomo in 1995, Kaz Saski in 2000, and Ichiro in 2001. While the addition of players from Japan can only benefit Major League Baseball to consider them rookies is an error.

Rookies with few exceptions are players under the age of 25 who play against lesser talent. Most players coming over form Japan?s are established all-stars playing against the best professional players in their country. While the Japanese League is not as good as Major League Baseball it is heads and shoulders above the highest level of Minor League Baseball. The fact that almost every player who comes over becomes an instant all-star demonstrates this.

Therefore in the future baseball should make a rule saying that any player with 5 years or more service in the Japanese Central and Pacific Leagues are ineligible for the Rookie of the Year award. If these leagues were not top notch then they would never be able to lure away any Major League to play in them. True it may not be the cream of the crop that goes there, but in their leagues our Major Leaguers are not considered rookies, and rightly so.

Bravo to the season finale of ESPN's "Playmakers" a series which despite some questionable acting ended up being enjoyable resisted a cheesy happy ending with the Cougars making the playoffs. Instead they had the team's heart ripped out as they helplessly watched Arizona make an amazing comeback to knock them out of the playoffs.

Sadly it could be the end for the Cougars as reports have ESPN canceling the show due to pressure from the NFL. The show of course is a dramatization of real events that have happened, why the NFL would be so disturbed when none of the league's teams or logo is used is unfortunate. In fact it makes one wonder does the league have any thing to hide?

No league is more concerned with image or has power then the NFL, so in the end if the league gives ESPN an ultimatum, ESPN will likely give in. Which is a shame as "Playmakers" was a well-written concept that gave a unique look at life inside the locker, even if it was just a dramatization.

Hero of the Week: San Diego Chargers QB Doug Flutie: At the age of 41, Flutie showed once again he still had the magic leading the Chargers to an improbable 42-28 win over the Minnesota Vikings. Coming in the Chargers lacked spark all year holding a terrible 1-7 record. The game served as another reminder of what NFL fans missed while Flutie was staring in the CFL. At the age of 41 it?s too late for Flutie to have a long NFL career now. However, had someone had the insight to give him a chance, he could have been one of the most exciting Quarterbacks in the history if the NFL.

Geek of the Week: ESPN.com, three times this week ESPN.com had LeBron James as its top story. Its understandable to have LeBron front and center when he plays his first game or leads the Cleveland Cavaliers to a win for the first time, but for his first trip into Boston? Come on we understand there is allot of hype surrounding the rookie, and so far he has proved to be worthy of it, but it?s too much. Its only November 15th and I have LeBron fatigue already.

http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/tank/tank...take111603.html

[JQK]

I disagree with your take on the japanese rookies...

The ball they play in Japan is aboutthe level, maybe a smidge higher than Triple-A. Now the Rookie ofthe Year award is named after Jackie Robinson, who played in the Negro Leagues, which has long since been considered an equal league to MLB, just based on talent. Other former Negro Leagues also have won the award. Now these players were considered rookies, when in fact they really weren't, but it was their first year in the Majors, so it made them rookies. Now the Japanese leagues are nowhere near the Negro Leage or MLB in talent... i believe a player coming from Japan should be considered the same as someone coming from Triple-A... it basically is the same. The leaving of Matsui off the ballots by some reporters was a disgrace, and they should not be allowed to vote again.

[habsfannova]

Ever notice that in Playmakers, that flashy Vick-style quarterback told Olyczk that he would beat him, and it was "When, not if."  Then, he brought the comeback in the other game, and defeated them?  hehe, kinda cool

Thanks for improving the spelling a bit on this one Tank, I can actually read it.

[Mac the Knife]

Once again this week Major League Baseball demonstrated its serve lack of leadership as they announced their new policy on steroid testing. Instead of taking a courageous stance against performance enhancing drugs Major League Baseball announced a policy for testing and punishment that only served as a feeble attempt at public relations, while hoping the problem would just go away.

Unfortunately Frank, its not their new policy; its been in place since the new CBA was agreed to last year.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement set this pathetically weak system up - and from what little behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt I heard about it, MLB was lucky to get even this much of an agreement from the players on the subject.

[Saintsfan]

I find the whole issue of drugs in sport right now very complex and not possible to take a simple line on. What actually constitutes a performance enhancing drug? How does it get that label? Given that all sports people take vitamins, watch there diet etc., to improve there performance when exactly do people step over the line to drug taking? Seems tougher and tougher for sports people to spot that line all the time. I have a great deal of sympathy for some sports people,  many of whom lets face it aren't the brightest people on the planet, when a coach or an adviser suggests they take some new 'nutrient' that contains a banned substance, or even worse a substance that isn't banned yet.

I think all sports need to make there policies on drugs much simpler.