Righteous Indignation and the Mitchell Report: A Tempest in a Teapot?

            Righteous indignation is sweeping the nation.  Of course, this hue and outcry has nothing to do with a Presidential administration which ignores the findings of its own intelligence community.  Instead, our attention is drawn to the cultural obsession with celebrity and sport:  the bread and circuses of our time.  We are shocked, shocked to discover that professional baseball players are injecting themselves with steroids and performance-enhancing drugs, shattering our illusions of an equal playing field in which athletes are evaluated on talent alone, free from the inequities of race, gender, and class.  Unfortunately, our professional sports all too well reflect the economic chasm in American society and the misguided economic priorities of the culture.

            It is certainly no coincidence that the Mitchell Report arrived the same week in which New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez signed a ten-year contract worth a reported $257 million.  It is this type of economic incentive which drives athletes to take long-term health risks in order to play through injuries and extend their careers for a few more lucrative years.  The reasons for the steroid era in baseball, however, are often clouded by the media preoccupation with the cult of celebrity.

            Although Senator Mitchell asserted that the focus of his report should be upon implementation of strategies to prevent future substance abuse, the naming of names drives the chatter of sports talk radio.  Like the McCarthy accusations of communism during the 1950s, the report carries with it a presumption of guilt.  But the allegations are selective.  The results are skewed as not all clubhouses included informants who cooperated with the investigation.  There are also questions regarding whether the accusations made by the Mitchell Report would hold up in court if Commissioner Bud Selig takes action against the named players, many of whom are now retired from the game.  Barry Bonds, however, must be expressing some relief that the public eye is now concentrated upon such white athletes as Roger Clemens, demonstrating how easy it was for sportswriters to concentrate their venom upon an arrogant black athlete.

            But even if guilty, Clemens and Bonds are only the poster boys for an era in the sport when there was broad use of performance-enhancing drugs.  And certainly the blame for this state of affairs should not be simply placed upon the players and their influential union.  Baseball ownership and the Commissioner’s Office were concerned that the labor dispute of 1994-95, which resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, might destroy the game.  Baseball’s salvation came in the 1998 National League home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, whose exploits were supposedly aided by steroids and drug supplements.  According to published reports, it was only after the game embraced McGwire and Sosa that Bonds turned to steroids.  And Bonds would hardly be the only one to take notice that increased home runs were bringing fans back to the game. 

            Owners responded by seeking public financing for new smaller, home run friendly parks and ignoring the changing body shapes of some ball players.  The Commissioner’s Office even promoted the sexist advertising campaign that “chicks dig the long ball.”  The former owner of the Texas Rangers who now occupies the White House asserts that he did not notice any steroids during his baseball watch. Nevertheless, the Mitchell Report is not news for followers of baseball.  Although the late 1990s were the era of steroids in baseball, the sport’s establishment is demonstrating considerable hypocrisy toward the Mitchell revelations.

            Shrill commentators are wringing their hands over the sanctity of baseball records, but we hardly place an asterisk next to the name of players who never faced Negro League stars.  While cheating on the field with the stealing of signs and doctoring the baseball has always been part of the game, others insist that steroids, like gambling activities, constitute a force outside of baseball which could destroy the game.  Accordingly, there is a demand that those associated with steroids should be banned from the game like the Black Sox of the 1919 World Series.  However, with a powerful union to protect their legal rights, it will be impossible for Selig to act against players in the arbitrary fashion of Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1920.

            Mitchell is right that we need to go forward.  The union and ownership have agreed upon a drug-testing policy, but with the money at stake there will be always be an imperative to devise a new drug or masking agent to circumvent testing.  Albeit far more sophisticated today, this search for the competitive edge goes back to tobacco, caffeine, and “pep” pills.  The players’ union has a legitimate interest in protecting the privacy of its members in the Mitchell investigation, but like any good union it also has a responsibility to insist upon a safe working environment.  Accordingly, the union should negotiate with the owners for a reduced playing season which would place less stress upon athletes and reduce the temptation to employ drugs for playing through injuries.  But the bottom line is that our young gladiators are not simply little boys playing for the love of the game.  Professional baseball is a big business in which the players are finally getting their share of the revenue following the abolition of the reserve clause.  Despite all the righteous indignation expressed following the Mitchell Report, it is worth noting that the report is not exactly news and that Major League Baseball continues to shatter attendance records.  Perhaps the casual fan does not care about steroids and simply “digs the long ball.”