Baseball must answer for steroids

Usually in professional sport, the influence of steroids is associated significantly with basketball’s steroid era- whilst baseball is usually cast over with a blind eye. Yet, whilst baseball began to revel in the success of its revitalization, it failed to identify the fact that players were becoming significantly bigger and stronger, as home runs soared and turnstiles whirred.  So who are we talking about when we refer to baseball? Are we talking about owners? General managers?  Team doctors? It’s time to put a face on baseball, just as the public has put a face on its players.  

 Around March 2005, the Padres’ general manager, Kevin Towers, became the first baseball executive to be publicly acknowledge that he suspected steroid use in baseball. Towers admitted to ESPN.com that he had suspicions the former third baseman Ken Caminiti had used steroids. Caminiti played for the Padres from 1995 to 1998 and was the National League’s most valuable player in 1996. He died from an accidental drug overdose in 2004. In an statement of remorse for not speaking up, Towers told ESPN.com: “I feel somewhat guilty, because I felt like I knew. I still don’t know for sure, but Cammy came out and said that he used steroids, and I suspected. Selfishly, the guy was putting up numbers, and I didn’t do anything about it. That’s just the truth.”

Towers said box-office success persuaded executives to turn a blind eye. Towers added: “The truth is, we’re in a competitive business and these guys were putting up big numbers and helping your ball club win games.”  

You tended to turn your head on things. And it really wakes you up when someone you admire as a person is no longer around. I hate to be the one voice for the other 29 G.M.’s, but I’d have to imagine that all of them, at one point or other, had reason to think that a player on their ball club was probably using, based on body changes and things that happened over the winter. I think we all knew it, but we didn’t say anything about it.”The reminder of Towers’s admission should be enough to prompt Congress to hold yet another round of hearings, this time involving team owners, the commissioner, general managers, team doctors and trainers.  

Commissioner Bud Selig took a important step last Friday when he spoke with the Giants’ principal owner, Peter Magowan, (and their general manager, Brian Sabean) about the team’s prominent mention in the Mitchell report. There is speculation that the line of questioning dealt with whether members of the organization suspected that members of the Giants team were using performance-enhancing drugs. If it turns out that the organization knew and looked the other way, as the Mitchell report suggests, the organization, and Magowan, should be punished. And while Selig looks at the Giants, he should look at the 2000 and 2001 Yankees as well. The team was filled with players, thought to have used performance-enhancing drugs before, during or after that season: Clemens, Jason Grimsley, Denny Neagle, Andy Pettitte, David Justice, Mike Stanton and Chuck Knoblauch to name a few. How much did Joe Torre know? On Sunday, Selig refused to comment on his actions toward individual players and teams. But in response to the idea of having Congress hold more hearings, he said baseball had done enough self-examination. “I think we have examined ourselves more than anyone else has ever done,” he said by telephone from Arizona. “Do I think there’s reason to do more of it? I do not. I think that for a lot of reasons it would not only be unfair, but I think counterproductive.”He added: “We have now looked at our history. We’re aggressive in the present; we’re really aggressive in the future.  

How much did the Steinbrenners know? How much did Brian Cashman

Last month, Hank Steinbrenner, speaking to reporters at spring training, made an eye-opening statement about baseball’s steroid scandal. He said: “To whatever extent there was a steroid or H.G.H. problem, it was equal among all the teams. I think Mitchell made that pretty clear. We were just better than everybody else. That’s the bottom line.” Is it really? Or is the bottom line finding out how much you knew about widespread drug use on your team and what you did about it? “You can’t tell me the other teams, including the Red Sox and everybody else, didn’t have the same number of players doing it,” Steinbrenner added. “Of course they did, to whatever extent that was. We were just better.”   In his book “Juiced,” José Canseco wrote that President George W. Bush, a part owner of the Texas Rangers during the steroids era, and Rangers General Manager Tom Grieve saw all these “guys getting bigger before their eyes” but never made it an issue.  This scandal is deep and wide, and we won’t have closure until we know the complete truth: Who knew what, when?

Canseco threw a number of players under the bus, but he steered clear of the owners. He wrote, “I’m not going to name any actual owners; I don’t want anyone picking up a phone and sending a hit man after me.” Baseball owners won’t send assassins after Congress, and Congress should be the owners’ next stop. 

If we really want to get to the bottom of the steroids era, the Congressional inquiries should continue into the front office and the ownership stage. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and all the others being publicly flogged paid the price in a scandal that helped create revenue and excitement when Major League Baseball needed it most. The public has been entertained by baseball players whiffing at curveballs, screwballs and fastballs before Congress. Now let’s let the men and women who run these teams take a few swings. I want to know who knew what and when.