On Monday, baseball players attempted to get their act together, offering to accept a stiffer penalty for first-time steroid offenses. Their proposal would increase the initial punishment a 10-game slap on the wrist to a 20-game suspension. It would also include testing for amphetamines, or “greenies”, which are rumored to be a very common “pick-me-up” in Major League clubhouses. But what does this gesture really do for the sport of baseball, its players and its fans? The answer is- nothing.
In an April letter to the union and its head Donald Fehr, Commissioner Bud Selig called for the players to accept a 50-game suspension for the first positive test, a 100-game punishment for the second and a lifetime ban for the third. This letter was largely viewed throughout the baseball world as a weak attempt to cover up the numerous criticisms of the sport’s current policy of not actually deterring. However, the onus is completely on the players, and not the commissioner’s office, to make the league’s policy credible.
When stories broke about Barry Bonds’ and Jason Giambi’s grand jury testimony, baseball was publicly shamed on Capitol Hill in front of the United States Congress. Everyone thought that the media attention the subject was finally afforded would simply scare players into keeping clean. But this has not been the case.
If this were true, there would have been zero positive tests during baseball’s first year of testing, not nine. Players would be more outspoken against their cheating peers, rather than working to find new and improved ways to still be on the juice but pass a urine test.
Kenny Rogers received 20 games for confronting a cameraman, and a Florida Marlins batboy was suspended six games for taking a bet from Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny. But cheaters, for which our society normally reserves the greatest disdain, receive the equivalent of a small prick.
The public embarrassment is doing nothing to deter steroid use in baseball because every cheating player just pulls the, “I didn’t knowingly take steroids,” line out of their pocket: a huge cop-out for men who are supposed to be role models but instead feel compelled to act like infants. The hollowness of this statement should enrage baseball’s fan base, but to date it has not, and people are just as happy to cheer for their cheating heroes now as they were before.
It’s like baseball is saying, “Go ahead, shoot up, but not too much.” The U.S. Senate’s proposal, a two-year suspension and then lifetime banishment from the game, would easily solve the problem. While this is a nice gesture on the part of the players, the agreement still falls far short of what is necessary to repair the tarnished image of the game and clean the sport up for good.
