Centerfield

I don't buy into several of these arguments.

Why Baseball? Why NOT baseball? The NFL put in a much stiffer drug policy several years ago. Maybe if baseball had enacted a policy more substantial than a knock-joke joke, they wouldn't be getting called in front of Congress.

Grandstanding? So what? Baseball brought this upon themselves. All the arguments about timing and choice of sport upon which to make a stand are truly beside the point. If these congressmen are smart enough to see a parade and get in front of it, good for them for being smart politicians. All the polls I see are very strongly in favor of much higher standards against performance enhancing chemistry. This is just democracy in action, which involves theater.

My sense is that many journalists, particularly sports journalists, either don't get it, or are willing to carry the water for the leagues that when push come to shove pay their salaries. Journalists talk about fans as though the fans don't care, and then they have the gall to pretend that the evidence is that fans continue to watch. If you love baseball, what's the real alternative? Fans don't have any real power. If I want to listen to a ball game in the backyard this summer, I have one choice. Basball fans love the game too much to desert it, but they have a sense of fair play which is apalled at steroid use. It's shameful.

Legalize steroids? I can't see this unless steroid use can be proven pretty undeniably safe with regular long-term use, both physically and mentally. And I have my doubts about that. If they are legalized, then that means that prospective athletes would be faced with a Faustian choice of potentially sacrificing their long-term health simply because others are willing to do so.

Arnold? He's one of the imperfect messengers, but it doesn't make his message wrong, nor Canseco's, nor Kevin Towers. Baseball was wrong to look the other way. Players were wrong to cheat even though many felt it was the only alternative, and now the game has been tarnished. To get past it, you face the past, acknowledge the wrongs, avoid hangings, and put in place strong new policies that repudiate the recent past. Why is this so hard to understand?

With respect to football, yeah, those guys are huge, but a lot of them are also fat. I'm sure steroids are still being used, but you can't use the size of the players as evidence--most of them seem able to eat a horse-literally.

I tend to agree that I am bothered by how much time Congress is spending on this--I guess there are no other problems in the United States to deal with. However, I do think Congress has some legitimate interest in what baseball does given that steroids are something that may affect people outside of baseball. I don't buy the libertarian argument of legalizing and taxing everything. If you permit steroids, you are creating an environment where essentially everyone who wants to be a professional athlete has to use them. I don't think that's a good message to be sending. I think it makes perfect sense of Congress to hold hearings on steroid use in sports, especially since the concern is really with kids deciding they need to use steroids to become pros. I think that's dangerous and I'm not willing to adopt the stance that it's their own business.

What I do think, however, is that Congress should give baseball's policy a chance to see if it works. It's part of collective bargaining; I can't see why Congress would want to legislate it's own plan when there is already one in place, albeit weaker than many would like. I also don't see what the point is of calling in Mark McGuire; he's not playing anymore. It's been pretty much established that a significant number of players used steroids--I don't see why you need to identify particular players to decide if the policy is too weak. Is the standard going to be, we only care if star players use it but don't really care if lousy players do it?

Here's my question: What can Congress do about the problem? What legislation can they enact to stop baseball players or any athlete from using steroids? If steroids are illegal today, what else does Congress need to do?

This investigation is a complete waste of our tax money. Congress doesn't need these players' testimony to enact any legislation.

BK,

I see some of your points. I'll concede that baseball was slow to respond to this, as opposed to the NFL. That being said, I guess I'm just sick of the grandstanding when there are true issues out there facing this country.

Arnold and Jose don't fall into the same camp. Jose is actually still a proponent of steriod use, with proper education, etc. As far as the medical issues involved, I'll concede you a few points there as well. No, there aren't long-term studies. But, if someone chooses of their own free will to experiment, that is their decision. There aren't true long-term studies on a lot of the meds that are out there. That's why things get pulled off the shelf from time to time.

As far as the public overwhelmingly supporting a crackdown, I guess I see that as hypocritical as well. The general public opposes performance enchancing drugs, yet an overwhelming number of them happen to be on mood enchancing drugs. It's the old principle of obsessing with the speck in someone else's eye, while ignoring the log in your own eye. (Not your eye, I'm speaking figuratively.)

This country is so over-medicated and here Congress is obsessing about a small segment of the population. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not seeing the "obsessing." I have zero problem with congress looking into this and doing some fact-finding.

I find the "congress has larger fish to fry argument" utterly unconvincing. I might buy it if thought this: "gee, if only congress wasn't investigating steroids in sports, they'd have time to balance the budget, fix social security and medicare, and then move on quickly to curing cancer." But since that's silly, so is the argument.

Let's face it, it's pretty easy to sit around and say what congress should do. But congress isn't going to deal with any of these harder issues unless there's both more will and more widespread agreement on plausible solutions to those issues. Not dealing with steroids, is extremely unlikely to lead to solving any other problems
.
I'm also a little leery of the "waste of money" argument. Have more people been hired to deal with this? What giant additional expenses have been incurred?Are we counting the salaries of government employees who would be getting paid regardless of exactly what they were doing?

it's not like this is the first time congress has held hearings primarily as a way of officially expressing concern and attention. It's a little bit bully pulpit, and it's a little bit "shot across the bow."

Frankly I'm surprised at how many people have been duped into being willing to just move on now that basball has enacted an extremely anemic drug testing policy as window dressing. It's an embarssingly lame policy which makes it extremely unlikely that any non-morons will get caught, and includes no substantial punishment unless you are caught 3 or 4 times.

AH, this has little to do with worrying about ballplayers. It's really about setting an example for kids regarding cheating.

an overwhelming number of them happen to be on mood enchancing drugs

Data, please. And when you bring it, don't be so silly as to compare steroid use to occasional use of alcohol and other recreational drugs, since steroid users have to use them in a regimented form to get the desired effect, and there are a substantial number of Americans who either don't drink or use other drugs, or who only use them once or twice per month, which is quite different from the way steroids are used.

Congress could, if it wanted, mandate a tougher drug testing policy (although I'm not sure how the collective bargaining issue would affect its jurisdiction). Basically, as long as baseball is engated in interstate commerce, Congress could, I think, require baseball to enforce tougher drug standards, similar to the way that Congress can legislate health and safety standards (OSHA) on private businesses. Whether it makes sense to do so or not, of course, is another question. Baseball could presumably challenge Congress's jurisdiction in court, but unless the courts are really going to restrict Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, IMO, it could probably get away with it.

BK,

Obviously I'm not trying to convert you to my point of view...just making a few points. Here are some stats to back up my earlier statements:

1. According to SAMHSA's 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 3.1 million Americans use marijuana on a daily basis. (That is, more than 300 days per year.)
2. According to their 2002 study, 8.2 million American have a daily dependence on alchohol. (Including nearly over half a million under the age of 18.)
3. The 2002 study also identifies over 1 million Americans using Psycotheraputic drugs on a daily basis for non-prescribed purposes.
4. The same 2002 study also points to over 1 million Americans who have a dependence on heroin.

Obviously, the list could go on and on. I guess I have an interest in this because I've had some research experience through a non-profit I work with that looked at prescription drug abuse. Unfortunately, our study was never taken too much in-depth because of other pressing needs, but we heard from many in the upper and middle income brackets with some very personal stories about prescription drug abuse. I guess that's why I see something like that as a much more serious issue than a few sports figures using steroids.

Thanks for making me back up my statistical claims though...lol. I think we sometimes have a tendancy to throw out percentages...you can call me on the carpet if I do it again.

Here's the one I was looking for....

The Washington Post on December 3, 2004 reported that 1 in 10 American women take an anti-depressant such as Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft. According to the paper, use of anti-depressants has tripled in the last decade.

The same article said that more than one in 3 doctor's office visits by women involved a prescription for an antidepressant.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/implant_fda_approves_depression_implant.htm#wapost

Hmm, the post number describes a much higher use rate than the others. Percentwise, the illegal drug use rates are single digits or less.

Is the anti-depressant rate really 10%? It doesn't strike me as unreasonable, but it is still sort of surprising.

This leads me to wonder whether anti-depressants should be considered "performance enhancing drugs." :-)

I also wonder whether there are any long-term studies about adverse effects due to long-term usage of anti-depressants. I expect there might be some drawbacks, but the extent to which users seem to respond favorably to the treatment sure mitigates that.

But I hestittae to make comparisons to steroid use. I think the thing to be most concerned about with steroids is the possibility of encouraging athletically aspiring adolescents to use them. On its face, it seems to me like a very bad idea to add artificial hormones to the already volatile hormonal mix of a teenager's chemistry.

I'll grant you that. Teenage hormones really don't need any assistance...lol.

Ideally, the media and the fans should be able to bring enough shame into a player's life if he is caught on the roids.

Congress ought to stay out of this in my opinion. If Congress wants to protect children, they should make high school testing more frequent and less expensive. If kids do it to be better at sports, then go to the source and kick their ass off the team if caught on it.

Having Congress provoke a witchhunt and destroy the reputations of some of these players accomplishes nothing.