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The True Baseball Scandal
Neo-McCarthyism Slugs the Major Leagues
By Dave Zirin

A theater of the absurd. This is how Rep. Tom Lantos (D-12th District, CA) described the Major League Baseball steroid hearings on Capital Hill last month. The description is apt.

Congress did not disappoint any one who wanted to see both sides of the aisle, the Elephants and the Donkeys, mate and become a litter of Jackasses.

Committee chair, Rep. Tom Davis (R-11th District, VA) kicked off the day by declaring, “We’re not interested in embarrassing anyone or ruining careers or grandstanding...” Then he and his fellow members of Congress set about preening like peacocks before the cameras. First Davis—in spite of his aversion to grandstanding—paraphrased and forever ruined the classic baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat” by lecturing: “Today there is no joy in Mudville until the truth comes out.” He continued with the claim that the sunshine being offered by the dour committee was the best disinfectant for baseball’s steroid woes. And this was only the beginning of a day-long, nausea-inducing publicity stunt.

Yet as members of congress vogued for the cameras, an entirely different drama was playing out among the file players seated before the committee, tricep to tricep in their seam-stretching Armanis. On one side were Curt Schilling, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa. On the other, Jose Canseco. It was Canseco’s best selling book Juiced, wherein the former MVP ratted on every player who ever took an aspirin, which launched these hearings.

The players’ seething hostility toward Canseco hung so thickly in the halls of Congress that he had to be placed in a separate, guarded waiting room before the hearing. At the witness table, no player hid their contempt for the player whose name is now synonymous with stool-pigeonry in every clubhouse. As Schilling said, “The allegations made in that book, the attempts to smear the names of players both past and present, having been made by one who for years vehemently denied steroid use, should be seen for what they are: an attempt to make money at the expense of others.”
Yet while Canseco sweated under the hot lights and the dagger-glares of his former colleagues, the player being most lacerated in the hearings’ aftermath is Mark McGwire. McGwire has been out of the public eye since his retirment in 2002, was the only player who did not deny under oath having used steroids. As sports columnist Thomas Boswell wrote, “McGwire left the hearing room with his reputation in tatters.” Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci chimed in, “There was a sadness to McGwire’s very shrinking in front of us—the blubbering, the grandpa glasses perched on his nose, the downsized body, the plaintive voice, the running away...”

But those of us who consider these hearings both a farce and disturbing exercise in government power should be proud of Big Mac’s performance. He was the only player to actually stand up to the committee, saying, “I will use whatever influence and popularity that I have to discourage young athletes from taking any drug that is not recommended by a doctor. What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and teammates.”

McGwire was also the only person to challenge the entire logic of the proceedings. The argument has been that however comical these hearings may be, if they save one life from the harmful effects of steroids then all the grandstanding tomfoolery is worth it. But as McGwire put it, “Asking me, or any other player, to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve this problem. If a player answers, ‘No,’ he simply will not be believed. If he answers, ‘Yes,’ he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.”

This is absolutely right. Athletes, especially young athletes, take steroids in growing numbers because of the insane competition that coldly discards wanna-be pros as they advance from pee-wee, to high school, to college, and finally to the big leagues. People take steroids because of poverty and a vision of seeing athletics as a lottery worth risking your health. No amount of show-hearings does anything to change this dynamic.

The true scandal at play is not the evil specter of steroids but a Congress over-ripe with hypocrisy. The statement justifying the hearings, penned by Davis and liberal cohort Rep. Henry Waxman (D-30th District, CA) reads, “It is important that all Americans, especially children, know about the dangers of drug use. Consistent with our jurisdiction over the nation’s drug policy, we need to better understand the steps MLB is taking to get a handle on the steroid issue and whether news of those steps—and the public health danger posed by steroid use—is reaching America’s youth.”

Just as Joe McCarthy and his thugs had no moral authority to fume about “protecting democracy,” these 21st Century witch-hunters have no credibility to speak to us about drugs, children, or the nation’s health. If they cared so much about “public health dangers” this committee should hold hearings about why the United States has such a miserable health care system, with 45 million uninsured and literally thousands more losing their insurance every day. If they cared so much about children, this committee would be issuing subpoenas to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney about why their 2006 budget eliminates 48 educational programs, or cuts 670,000 kids from food stamps. If they cared so much about drug abuse, this committee would be raising a stir about the treatment programs currently on the budget-chopping block.

Because Congress did not want their hypocrisy highlighted, one slugger was conveniently absent from the witness list: Giants outfielder Barry Bonds. Bonds, poised this year to become baseball’s all-time home run king, is the player whose ascension has stoked the anti-steroid furies. As USA Today’s Mike LoPresti put it, “Holding a hearing on steroids in baseball without Bonds would be like an inquiry into the Titanic sinking without mentioning the iceberg.” Committee spokesperson David Marin, when asked why Bonds wasn’t called, mumbled, “He tends to ramble and get off-point.” But it’s not Barry Bonds “off point” they want to avoid, it’s Barry Bonds “on point.” The future Hall of Famer seems to have been deeply politicized in recent years, by the steroid controversy coupled with the death of his father, former Major League player and staunch unionist. In recent interviews, Bonds’s pose has not merely been his normal surly and rude, but surly, rude, and political. As Bonds said recently to a group of reporters in Arizona, “You want to define cheating in America? When they make a shirt in Korea for a $.50 and sell it here for 500 bucks. And you ask me what cheating means? I’ll tell you how I cheat. I cheat because I’m my daddy’s son. He taught me the game. He taught me things nobody else knows. So that’s how I cheat. I’m my daddy’s son.”

This is why Bonds was not called. But his wasn’t the only name conspicuously off the witness list. It’s very telling that another person Canseco fingers who made millions off of baseball’s 90s boom went unmentioned throughout the entire day; that someone was the former general managing partner of the Texas Rangers. That someone is George W. Bush. Until Bush and his ilk are dragged under the hot lights, this entire Congressional exploration will continue to be nothing more than a theater of the absurd.

Dave Zirin’s new book What’s My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States will be in stores in June 2005. You can receive his weekly column “Edge of Sports” by e-mailing edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. If you are interested in contacting Dave, he can be reached at: whatsmynamefool2005@yahoo.com.