Baseball doping

It's disturbing how what is released in the media an what actually is happening behind the scenes are often two vastly different things. I of course remember the two Blue Jays World Series victories, but I also remember the very next World Series was cancelled because of a strike/lock-out. The stoppage turned me off baseball for a few years, like many other baseball fans, and also like many other baseball fans, I eventually returned to the sport.

Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in the 1961 season, a mark that lasted until 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke that record with 70 and 66 home runs respectively. Since then that mark of 61 home runs has been broken four more times, most recently in 2001 when Barry Bonds hit 73 (the current record). The drive the point home a bit further, before 1961 the record was 60 home runs. Babe Ruth achieved that mark in 1927. Only once in 70 years with a player hit over 60 home runs, since the World Series was cancelled in 1994 it's happened six times.

It wasn't the home runs that brought me back to the game. For one it's the pitching that interests me most. I just eventually missed the game, but how many of us consider the increase in home runs to be a calculated move by the owners and MLB to bring fans back to the game?

We all know there is doping in baseball, Bonds and Roger Clemens head the list of scapegoats, but what people don't know is that there are many more people to blame, people that somehow skirt responsibility. When people began to take note of steroid use in baseball, Bud Selig claimed that he knew nothing about it and then proceeded to try and stop it. This of course cam after fans had returned to the game. In 2005 he said "I never heard about it."

What people don't know is that when Selig owned the the Milwaukee Brewers, he did know about it. Brent Starr, a former Cleveland Indians trainer, said that he was at a meeting in 1988 between the owner's group and the Players' Association in which team physicians told the owners that there was a doping problem that needed to be addresses. Selig was there too, but 17 years later he claimed to be hearing about the problem for the first time.

So what happened? The only thing that makes sense to me is that the owners always knew about doping, and once they saw attendance fall, they encouraged it, or turned an even blinder eye, although I don't see how that could be possible. Once fans were back in the seats, they condemned doping. If it wasn't already public knowledge that doping existed, they probably wouldn't ever have done anything about it.

I'm not saying the players aren't at fault, but if you ask an average fan who the culprits are, they would probably respond with Clemons, Bonds, or maybe they'll say some trainers were at fault. All of those people are at fault, but so are the owners who are capatalizing on the players using steroids, but few fans point any of the blame at them.

The "Mitchell Report" is a farce, aimed at putting all the blame on players that aren't able to make them money anymore.

George Mitchell wrote the report when he was  on the board of the Boston Red Sox. It makes sense that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were both not included in the Mitchell Report. The Red Sox needed them to win the 2004 World Series, so of course Mitchell excluded them.

I would also note that while the Mitchell Report ruined the careers of many players, it was all based on hearsay, and none of that hearsay affected Bud Selig or any of the league's owners.

Owners need to be brought into the spotlight. They need to be questioned by grand juries about how much they knew about doping, but I doubt that will ever happen, and that is a crying shame.