December 07, 2004

Baseball, Steroids, and Human Nature

“He may not throw a spitball, but he sure spits on the ball.”
---Casey Stengel on a pitcher suspected of throwing the illegal pitch.

        Shortly before the Jason Giambi steroid scandal broke, Horsefeathers was chatting among a group of physicians, including a leading authority in the field of sports medicine, about Curt Schilling’s recent great win against the Yankees. The morning of his heroic victory, Schilling was barely able to walk. Later that day, following surgery and the injection of pain-killers, he risked serious long term damage to his foot to pitch the game of his life. Each time he strode towards the plate to hurl a 90+mph. fastball he put enormous pressure on his injured ankle. No physician, I was assured, would have argued on medical grounds for the Schilling procedure, and certainly none would have argued that he go ahead and risk permanent damage by pitching that day. Performing the surgery verged on medical malpractice, and would have been such for anyone but a professional athlete like Schilling. Yet every one in our group, including the aforementioned expert, agreed---if offered the choice between the possibilities for permanent damage and pitching that historic game, it wasn’t even close- we’d each have chosen to pitch.
        Now, however, the cantmeisters are out in force, demanding the heads of Giambi, Bonds, Sosa, and all the other steroid sculpted sluggers, like Mark Mc’Gwire, who’ve entertained us mightily over recent years. U.S. Senators, seeking face time for future Presidential runs are weighing in with threats of government intervention. What next, a Secretary of Sport meting out punishment to base stealers? A bureaucracy to assess whether pitchers are coming inside with fastballs too often? The lynch mob insists the steroid users have “damaged the game”. What nonsense! The greatness of baseball is damaged as much by its stars’ misbehavior as the greatness of chess is damaged by Bobby Fischer’s craziness. The half life of this manufactured scandal will be less than the time from now until Spring training. But while it's still lighting up the sports pages why stop with the latest generation of miscreants? Let’s empty the Hall of Fame of all those great ballplayers who used such “performance enhancers” as amphetamines, or cocaine, in the ‘60’s-‘90s? And what about those other timeless performance enhancers, known to be used not just by ballplayers, but even by sportswriters-alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and sex? Let’s evict Jimmy Cannon and Red Smith from the pantheon of baseball writers. And why stop there, when our moralists can cite high minded and authoritative medical knowledge? Shouldn't Babe Ruth’s misbehavior invalidate his accomplishments? What a bad example for America's youth. Surely, his ‘life style’---constant partying, bootleg (illegal) whisky, nicotine, and late nights with countless women had something to do with his death at age 53. Off with his head. Mickey Mantle is said to have hit some of his most titanic home runs while severely hung over: (“I saw 3 balls at once so I swung at the middle one.”)Towards the end of his booze shortened life he was prevailed upon by our medical moralists to issue a demeaning mea culpa to his fans. Let’s also kick Joe DiMaggio out of the Hall of Fame; it turns out he was a chain smoking, paranoid, caffeine addicted, ulcer ridden cheapskate. Half the members of the Big Red Machine played high on amphetamines and/ or cocaine. Shall we evict Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and teammates from the Hall? Granted, Barry Bonds, Giambi, Canseco and many others broke some utterly ineffective laws proscribing drug use, just as their predecessors did to get booze during prohibition. However, you would think, from reading the sports pages and listening to sports talk radio, that they’d murdered innocent children in the cradle. Any sentient sports fan past the age of 6 has been well aware that Popeye shaped athletes got that way with artificial help. We’re talking about ballplayers, not candidates for sainthood.
        Let us remember that baseball is a form of entertainment, no matter what various wordsmith intellectuals like John Updike and Roger Angell may assert. Do we demand that actresses and actors not “enhance” their bodies with plastic surgery or control their weight with amphetamines and other drugs? Did we insist that Judy Garland or Miles Davis perform only while sober and drug free? Was Janis Joplin, wailing “Come on, come on, come on, take another little piece of my heart, baby..” less authentic because she was stoned and drunk while singing? Horsefeathers would suggest that the pundits who feign shock over the latest news about human nature, are as hypocritical and phony as the various targets of their wrath. Jason Giambi made a deal with the devil and now the price has come due. Before we join the witch hunt of condemnation let’s ask ourselves what each of us would have done in his or Barry Bonds’s shoes. In Horsefeathers' case, unfortunately, no matter how much human growth hormone or prednisone we might have taken we'd have been in approximately the same position as the rookie minor leaguer who wrote a letter to his mother saying “I’ll be home soon; they’ve started throwing the curve ball.” Horsefeathers will, however, continue to enjoy the game, not expecting ballplayers to be noble role models for the youth of America, and recalling what Casey Stengel once said of Bobby Richardson, a virtuous man: "Look at him- he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't chew, he doesn't stay out late, and he still can't hit."