Thoughts on Steroids in the MLB

Like every other big baseball fan out there, I’m avidly following the fallout from the Mitchell Report, the report released last Thursday by former senator George Mitchell, who looked into steroid usage in the MLB.

The report implicated nearly 90 players, with every single team represented. Mitchell conducted 700 interviews with players, coaches, and Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse employee who, until late 2005, was the go-to guy for illegal performance enhancing substances for MLB players.

While it’s great that the MLB decided to really look into steroid usage, there are problems swirling around the report. First, one player, Baltimore Oriole Brian Roberts, was implicated by one witness who said Roberts mentioned that he used steroids “once or twice.” For all the other players named, the evidence is much more substantial, and other players are speaking out about how Roberts’ name has been defamed. There’s also the fact that some players were rumored to be involved, such as Jason Varitek and Nomar Garciaparra, who are on various lists circulating the Internet, but who are not named in the report. What kind of effect will these rumors have on the players? When I heard that these two were named, I was immediately disappointed in both, and also in disbelief, since Garciaparra is not, shall we say, very built.


The second problem is what to do now — can awards like MVP be rescinded, like Ken Caminiti’s 1996 award? Caminiti admitted 8 years later that he used performance-enhancing drugs during that season. What about entire World Series Championships? Only one current Red Sox player, Eric Gagne, was named in the report, but is that enough to strip the Sox of their 2007 title? The Olympic Committee is making Marion Jones’ relay teammates have a hearing to petition to keep their medals, since the track star was stripped of her five 2000 Olympic medals for using performance-enhancing drugs. Granted one player on a baseball team has less effect than one person on a relay team of four people, but the idea is the same.

If the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs is this widespread, how can the MLB keep it in check? And once new technology has become so pervasive, is there anything that anyone can do to stop it?

The drugs that athletes use pose serious risks to their health, and have resulted in deaths, meaning a lot more than records are at stake — why is anything that could potentially shorten one’s life worth doing? And if so many baseball players are using these drugs and the MLB doesn’t throw them out of the league, is there soon going to be no place in major league sports for athletes who don’t illegally enhance their performances? And there’s an overarching question here: have we created a society of unrealistic expectations?