(Sportsbooks) - Once a cheater, always a cheater. Break the rules once, and they'll be broken again, especially if there's no harsh penalty in place.
That's how the latest BALCO fiasco should be viewed when it comes to information released about San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds and New York Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Giambi told a federal grand jury that he took human growth hormone in 2003 and also used steroids for at least three seasons. The newspaper also revealed that Bonds, a seven-time National League MVP, testified before a federal grand jury in December 2003 and that earlier that year he used both clear and cream substances provided by his personal strength trainer, Greg Anderson. However, Bonds said he didn't know they were steroids.
We know now what's been suspected long ago about steroid use in regards to Bonds and Giambi. Everyone can debate about possible home run records, if Bonds passes Hank Aaron, and if the mark will be tainted. We can talk about the Yankees trying to void the $82 million left on Giambi's contract, or on an amateur scale, how Marion Jones could be forced to give up her five Olympic medals won at the 2000 Sydney Games.
There are plenty of angles to the BALCO scandal, but one topic that must be addressed immediately is if and when Major League Baseball will change its policy on drug testing.
Baseball's steroids problem seems to be a runaway locomotive. There was plenty of smoke coming from Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte during his television interview with ABC. Conte said he "would guesstimate that more than 50 percent of the athletes are taking some form of anabolic steroids." During the interview, Conte also took a poke at baseball's relaxed policy on steroids saying, "I think they still believe there's a Santa Claus. They're not in contact with reality. I mean the program that they put together is a joke."
Conte also said he guessed more than 80 percent of baseball players are taking some sort of a stimulant before taking the field for each game.
Let's face facts. MLB's policy of testing and identifying players, which went into effect this past season, needs to be toughened. As far as we know, not one player tested positive for steroids during the 2004 season. That's because there was no announcement of a failed test.
While the NFL announces suspensions for violations of the league's substance abuse policy, a player who tests positive for steroids in baseball doesn't even have to be suspended. That is up to commissioner Bud Selig. Players who are suspended will have their names published, but ones who are only fined could remain anonymous. In fact, there is no measurable penalty for first-time offenders, only treatment. It would take a fifth offense to reach a possible one-year suspension. Also there's no year-round random testing, only in season, and just once per player.
Selig knows the steroids issue is one that needs to be fixed. In the current bargaining agreement, which expires in 2006, the union and owners can sit down and agree to modify any issue, even the drug-testing policy.
"As I have repeatedly stated, I am fully committed to the goal of immediately ridding our great game of illegal performance-enhancing substances," Selig said in a statement on Friday. "The use of these substances continues to raise issues regarding the game's integrity and raises serious concerns about the health and well-being of our players.
"I am aware the Major League Baseball Players Association is having its annual meeting with its Executive Board of player representatives next week. I urge the players and their association to emerge from this meeting ready to join me in adopting a new, stronger drug testing policy modeled after our minor league program that will once and for all rid the game of the scourge of illegal drugs."
Under the current minor league policy, there is a year-round testing program and first-time offenders are hit with a 15-day suspension without pay. Players who test positive a second time receive a 30-day suspension, and a third offense means a full season suspension without pay.
The union and management must get together and amend the current agreement in regards to testing at the major league level. Right now, the penalties are a joke.
Reaction on the BALCO issue has touched just about every field, even the medical community. William Roberts, a team physician from St. Paul, Minnesota, and president of the American College of Sports Medicine, the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world, sent an open letter about the recent developments.
Roberts called for Major League Baseball and the MLBPA to agree to random and out-of-competition testing for steroids.
"This pair of related organizations must act in a meaningful way to address the integrity of the sport, as well as the health and well being of its athletes," Roberts said.
Roberts noted that statistics from the NCAA show steroid use among athletes increased 27 percent from 1996 to 2000. Also, a survey from the University of Michigan showed 54 percent more high school seniors took steroids in 2003 than they did seven years prior.
"This is a national problem in need of a coordinated response," Roberts continued. "No other entity in American culture is in a better position to address this than Major League Baseball. Baseball and its players union simply cannot shun their ethical responsibility to society by failing to eradicate steroid use by its players."
Although the two sides agreeing to a policy on par with the NFL's by April 2005 seems unlikely, if the BALCO case proceeds at lightning speed, and there are more revelations of steroid use from league MVPs, the union and owners may have no choice but to change the testing policy immediately to avoid further embarrassment.
Sure, there's no excuse for using recreational drugs like marijuana or cocaine off the field, and they are punishable offenses. However, it doesn't correlate to trying to improve one's performance on the diamond through illegal steroids.
In professional sports, players get paid to do one thing, perform at a high level and do it with the utmost honesty. By violating a drug policy, the game is tainted and it won't stop until a strong deterrent is put in place.
The time is now for change to save our national pastime, the current players, and most of all the children, who emulate the stars of the game, from falling into a hole by thinking that success can be attained by cheating.
