So, there’s been a little debating and waxing poetic about the steroids issue over at the "Bleeding Pinstripes" site. To be honest, I think it’s a tiresome subject that has been blown way out of proportion. And to that effect, please read my prior post: http://turntwo.mlblogs.com/daddy_raised_a_cardinals_/2006/05/are_we_still_ta.html

But, as much as I’d like to ignore the topic as a centerpiece of baseball happenings, I can’t bear to stand on the sidelines and let people work themselves into a self-induced frenzy incurring a movement that had/has become nothing short of a witch hunt and a source of self-righteous hate. Someone has to act the balance. I (vainly, I think) have been giving it my best shot.

To catch you up to speed, you first need to read the "Bleeding Pinstripes" post that got this latest rift of friendly banter all started: http://bleedingpinstripes.mlblogs.com/bleeding_pinstripes/2006/05/calling_it_like.html

There are some interesting observations in there that I think are very poignant. His thoughts on "What Is Proof?" deserve some real consideration. However, I think the over all message is, "Barry Bonds, without a doubt, is using/has used steroids and therefore his accomplishments as a player, particularly his hitting milestones, should be considered null and void." Please read it.

This is how I responded:

I happen to be one of those folks who is oddly ambivilent (spell check, anyone?) on the steroids issue. Strictly speaking about the issue prior to 2002 when MLB finally took an official stance on steroids and other human growth hormones, I think the more poignant question is: Why is steroids cheating and when did it become that way?

–Mollie

To which I got the following response from another blogger:

Now, there were other comments on the subject, some addressed to me, but you can check those out yourself. The remainder of this entry focuses on the steroids issue in general and Cyn’s comments/info. BTW: Please take a moment to check out the links provided by Red Sox Chick. They take you to what appear to be official MLB documentation that regard the league’s drug policies from 1991 and 1997.

NOW, I was going to write this whole thing as a comment to the latest "Bleeding Pinstripes" post– because Cyn and I are addressed in it– but I decided to keep it short and simple there and wrote the full deposition here, instead.

Now, let me continue on…

Here’s what I garnered from those pages provided by Red Sox Chick: It seems to me that steroids were clearly viewed in the same sense as addictive "recreational" drugs such as cocaine and heroine: A sad and dirty habit borne of human weakness that the MLB wanted to help its brethren break away from with supportive therapy and medical rehabilitation, etc. There were definite consequences (though the institution of which are somewhat vague), however sobriety and rehabilitation seem to be a bigger concern. Not really the same way we view steroids today, yeah?

And just as a side note: Don’t these documents read a little bit like the "participation oaths" we used to have sign to play collegiate sports? "Yeah, yeah, yeah, no drinking, no drugs, no sex after twelve… Where do I sign? Hey guys, kick off party at my cousin’s house!" You knew that if you got caught drinking out in the boonies with your buds you could MAYBE get suspended from a game or two, or (heaven forbid!) kicked off the team, but what were the chances you were gonna get caught anyway? It’s not like the coach was gonna pay you a visit out in the hills, or at your boyfriend’s house, or at that kegger the next town over. It would take an actual "incident" for anyone to even pretend to care if you smoked Swisher Sweets while playing pool in your Grandpa’s basement. Yes, yes there is a tobacco rule, but come on. Plus, if you were important enough to the team, most everybody was going to look the other way, anyhow… teachers, parents, coaches AND the authorities. Signing was a mere formality to make the school district feel better. And we all knew it. Even the teachers, parents, coaches AND the authorities.

If these documents are the true representation of the MLB illegal drug stance… well, it comes off pretty juvenile, don’t you think? What a mockery.

OK. Sorry. Back to the subject at hand.

Furthermore, I go back to the "cheating" aspect of steroid use. To say that steroids, without prescription, is an illegal substance so therefore it is cheating to use them doesn’t really add up for me. It just makes using them unlawful. I mean, are we to say that driving while intoxicated is illegal and therefore cheating the other drivers? I don’t think so. Or, more close to home: Kenny Rogers assaulted a cameraman last season, which is illegal. Does that constitute cheating? Not in my book. And, in fact, according to an independent arbiter, it was ruled that Bud Selig and Major League Baseball had no jurisdiction concerning the matter and therefore couldn’t suspend him from play as they had tried to do.

Because, you see, ‘Against the Law’ and ‘Cheating’ aren’t the same thing. Nor is one necessarily conducive or a product of the other. After all cheating is for games. Illegal belongs to laws. Though you may have learned everything you need to know in Kindergarten, if you peeked during Heads Up Seven-Up, they weren’t going to arrest you for it.

I know this seems like a futile exercise in semantics, but I think it’s crucial to everyone’s frame of mind on issue. Until the MLB addressed steroids and other human growth hormones as ILLEGAL PERFORMANCE ENHANCERS and then banned them for being so (which is, apparently, the legislation we’ve heard so much about in 2002) I have trouble, in terms of baseball, calling users anything more than that: users… guys in need of a good Betty Ford vacation, as the documents suggest. (Now, you and I know steroids don’t belong in the same category as, say, heroin or crack, but that’s how the 1991 and 1997 documentation reads to me.)

But lets jump ahead. Now that we’ve come to terms with PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS as a way to cheat in baseball, what makes using them any worse (in a strictly baseball context, of course… after all, only the police can deal with the matter in its legal sense and doctors in their medical sense) than Joe Niekro’s emery ball or Sammy Sosa’s corked bat? Cheating’s cheating, right?

Or do we give steroids more weight because of the hitting records being broken? If so, is that fair? Would there have been a congressional hearing regarding "foreign substances" if Julian Tavarez, Jose Lima, Gaylord Perry, John Wyatt, Orlando Pena (and all the other notorious hurlers accused of throwing doctored balls during their careers) had been in a race to break some strike out record? I have my doubts, but why not? Or even more to the point, Hey! Why isn’t congress in a tizzy and threatening to impose jurisdiction on greaseballers and the like? There have been many more proven cases of that infraction than there have been of the steroids rules.

Of course, after all that, don’t get me wrong. I don’t condone steroid use. As I wrote in my other piece, I’m a sentimentalist. I prefer the natural, God-given talent notion of professional athletes. That, just by the grace of God and sheer determination, men can rise above the masses and be superheroes in their fields. Etc., etc.

But I also think there’s an awful lot of fuss about steroids, that, in my opinion, is WAY out of proportion to what it deserves. I mean seriously, folks have been looking for ways to one-up their peers since the dawn of competition. Heck, one could say that studying is a performance enhancer if it leads to a student’s earning of a scholarship. (Oops. I better shut my trap before someone out there starts claiming that the Valedictorian should be stripped of her sash and speech because all the studying she did gave her an unfair advantage over the other students.)

I hope you’ll agree with me when I say: That would be getting carried away, now wouldn’t it?

But what we think about baseball’s drug-induced past is irrelevant. It’s the present that matters. Finally, the MLB stance on steroids is clear. The ban on steroids is clear. The reasoning behind that ruling is clear(er than it once was, anyway). And the consequences are very clear.

So, on that note… To quote "The Goonies":
"Ye intruders beware!"

(Gosh, can you imagine if I had written this as a comment? The boys from "Bleeding Pinstripes" would have killed me! haha)