Drug Addicts Are Smarter Than Baseball Players

So, since my wife decided this week to blog about a serious issue, maybe I'm supposed to do one about food?

Anyway, I suppose the big news (for sports fans anyway) that came out this week was the Mitchell report yesterday, which lists the results of the 18-month investigation into steroids in baseball headed by former Senator George Mitchell. Reaction to the report has ranged from "finally everything is coming out" to "this report is completely impotent". As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between. In general, I think your opinion of the usefullness of the report comes from what you expected the report to accomplish. What it boils down to is that most of the report is speculation, hearsay, and guilt by association. Almost all the names in the report of people who admitted to using steroids have already admitted to it previously. Most of the rest is those people saying "so and so once told me he did steroids" and everyone declining to be interviewed by Mitchell.

Probably the most interesting thing in the report is that there are a couple of "smoking guns" where copies of cancelled checks to known steroid dealers are included. This highlights the wonderful point of proving how dumb a lot of baseball players truly are. I'm willing to bet that very, very few illegal street drug transactions take place via check. Yes, this may be because many of them lack checking accounts, but I think it also has to do with a mutual desire between purchaser and vendor to avoid a paper trail. Alas, it appears that something which seems like common sense to a crack head does not also occur to the heroes of our national past time. Further heightening the level of idiocy prevalant among players is the fact that in 2003 when baseball did an announced, anonymous test 5 to 7 percent of major leaguers failed it. Yep, even though the players knew the test was coming, at least 5 percent made no effort to try and pass it. True, since it was anonymous they didn't face any direct repercussions, but again you would think that a person with any sense of logic would say "if we all pass this test, then we can say that the sport is clean, and hopefully avoid further scrutiny." Any sane person would realize that any result above the margin of error for the test would definitely result in further testing. I suppose the final argument that can be made is that there were players unknowingly taking steroids. However, I hardly think mindlessly popping pills and injecting yourself with unknown substances is a solid argument for the intelligence of said player.

Overall, my opinion about steroids in baseball remains unchanged, and it is this: I don't care, and no one else does either. Now, making such an inflammatory statement like that calls for some clarification, and it should surprise none of you that my reasoning lies in the realm of economics. Discounting the strike and its immediate ramifications, during the "steroid era" of baseball ratings and attendance (and as a direct result, salaries) have risen dramatically (I'm too lazy to look up the stats but I know that's true). For a while, it was pretty easy to dismiss the steroid issue as baseless speculation. In the wake of the '98 home run race with Sosa and McGwire things started changing. Suddenly people began to wonder why players were looking more like Hulk Hogan and less like Kenny Lofton and asking how it was possible that players who had never hit more than 20 HRs in their life were suddenly able to hit over 40 in their mid-30s and just why the hell is Barry Bond's head getting bigger? The result from the baseball world was a collective shrug and a "nothing's been proven so this is a witch hunt" attitude. And the result of that was that pretty much every baseball fan in the country came to the conclusion that steroids were rampant in the clubhouses. But here's where my point comes in; even though everybody admitted that, they still tuned in and went to games in record numbers. We live in a capitalist society, and thus where the free market is concerned we "vote" with our dollars. So, even though you may say "I'm against steroids in baseball" if you continue to support it after you know it exists then you're really not, just like you can't say that you are against Nike paying southeast asian kids 7 cents an hour while you're wearing Nike shoes. The bottom line is that when faced with the choice of having "baseball with steroids" or "no baseball" the fans overwhelmingly chose "baseball with steroids"; myself included. I think this result is similar to what you see in people's attitude towards Congress. When asked, "do you think Congressmen are corrupt?" people overwhelmingly answer "yes" but when asked "is your Congressmen corrupt?" the answer is generally "no". Hence, I think a lot of fans have/had the attitude that "yes, there's a lot of steroid use, but not on my team".

I bring this all up not to suggest that steroids shouldn't be abolished, but just to temper this outrage that "Bud Selig and the owner's haven't done enough to get rid of steroids." While I have great disdain every time I hear the empty rhetoric from Bud's mouth of "steroids are a serious problem, and we will get rid of them" I also realize that he has no real motivation to do so. This is true of every corporation. They will use every inch of the law to do what is in their own best interest. Whenever a corporation decides to do something "eco friendly" or charitable, they are not truly doing it out of the goodness of their hearts (despite what their 30-second tv spots may proclaim). They are doing so because they believe the PR boost (or sometimes recovery from a PR hit) will lead directly to boosting their bottom line. That's how we end up with the ridiculousness where the only advertising tobacco companies are now allowed to do is ads saying "don't use our product." They don't actually want you to quit, they just want to avoid future lawsuits!

I don't want anyone to think that the preceding is an attack on capitalism, because it is not. I think that's exactly how things should be. A corporation is not a person, so you should not expect it to act morally. You can, however, expect it to act legally. That's why the role of government needs to be to set up the rules under which companies must operate, and that's where government has failed (and is continuing to fail) with baseball. Hence, I am leaning more to the side of "this report is impotent" although I realize that it never was designed to do anything more than it did. The basic hope of both baseball and Congress is that the humiliation of a couple of big stars will be enough to turn fans against them, cost them the Hall of Fame, and then hopefully deter future players from doing it. My prediction? It won't work, especially given the prevalence of HGH use (for which there is not and probably never will be a urine test for). I think when a player is sitting in A or AA and realizes that they have hit the peak of their abilities, they won't care that a potential failed steroid test "may" cost them the fan's admiration down the line. They will only see the potential million dollar pay day down the road if they are able to get up to that next level. After all, after failing a steroid test at the end of his career, Rafael Palmeiro may now be living in disgrace. But he's doing so inside a multi-million dollar home with a well-padded bank account, and that's probably more than enough for a minor leaguer who makes $30k, rides a bus 8 hours a day, and sleeps in shady motels.