Yes, Another Post About Steroids

With the news, broken by Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated, that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids back in 2003, baseball is left in a very difficult position. It was always assumed that Barry Bonds’s tainted homerun record would be whitewashed midway through the next decade by the no-doubt clean A-Rod. Unfortunately it appears that this will not be the case; baseball’s next homerun king (if he even gets that far) will have the same clouds of suspicion and guilt hanging over him as does the current monarch, Barry Bonds.

Of course, as with everything else that involves A-Rod, it is not as simple as that. After mountains of anecdotal evidence emerged that there was rampant performance-enhancing drug abuse in baseball, labor (Donald Fehr) and management (Bud Selig) agreed to use the 2003 season as a test case. If greater than 5% of all player PED tests came back positive, the 2004 season would be subject to mandatory drug testing.

Yesterday we learned that 104 players tested positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, representing roughly 14% of all MLB players tested in 2003. However, all positive test results from the 2003 PED survey would be kept confidential and none of the players who tested positive would have their identities revealed.

The fact that Alex Rodriguez’s name was disclosed – leaked, really – demonstrates the worst kind of ethical breach on the parts of four separate and distinct individual actors: Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association, the federal government which seized the results of this survey during the course of their misguided foray into this topic, and Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated. Although the fact remains that A-Rod tested positive for PED’s and the choice to use drugs was his and his alone, the fallout from his decision should not rest squarely on his own shoulders.

As I’ve argued many times, baseball’s drug culture was condoned by management and team officials and swept under the rug by the entire media apparatus. I can’t accept a reality where various disparate entities are practically pushing the plunger of a juice-filled syringe into a player’s vein, but then standing in judgment of that player when – GASP! – it is revealed that he used steroids.

Only one player – A-Rod – had his name “outed” in yesterday’s report. If the report was supposed to be confidential and the only name revealed happens to be the highest-profile and most well-known player in the game, am I supposed to believe that there isn’t something more sinister, something more akin to persecution going on?

A-Rod’s baseball career is now tainted forevermore. Nothing he accomplishes will ever be viewed in the same way. And because he plays for the Yankees, the scrutiny and analysis will be overbearing, relentless, and never-ending. To say this story has become tedious would be the understatement of the century. I just wish I could understand why our society has such bloodlust when it comes to the rich and famous. We build them up, only to rejoice when we tear them down. It makes me sick.