Steroids in Baseball: Tinker to Evers to a Second Chance

In the court of public opinion, most sluggers of this era are already considered guilty.  Every era of baseball had power hitters, and if they could hit so well without using steroids, then there is a chance that some sluggers of the last decade or two were able to perform at that level on their own.

Baseball has had many great hitters during this era, including Ken Griffey, Jr., Vladimir Guerrero, and Manny Ramirez, whose integrity has never come into question.

Jose Canseco, who before testifying before the House Committee had written a book about his use of steroids over his career that also named a few other players as having injected or purchased steroids, requested immunity for his testimony.

When it wasn't granted, he kept his answers guarded, but he chastised the media for blaming the players when it was Major League Baseball that condoned the behavior of the players by not testing properly for steroids.

In an interview before his testimony, Canseco estimated that 85 percent of professional baseball players were using steroids at some point.  Curt Schilling would later plead that the committee and the nation should not listen to Canseco, flatly stating, “He's a liar.”

It may be that Canseco was merely trying to promote himself with his book and return to the spotlight, but McGwire's insistence that he did not want to talk about the past and avoidance of questions about his alleged illegal steroid use, along with Palmeiro's staunch testimony that would soon blow up in his face, discredited them in the long run.

Although the government decided not to seek perjury claims against Palmeiro because they were unable to determine whether he had taken steroids before his testimony to the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, or if he did for his first time afterwards, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are both currently under investigation for perjury regarding their steroid use.

If they are found to have lied under oath, then there will be solid grounds to use them as examples in the same way that Palmeiro was vilified for his hypocrisy.

Parents do not need much more than the stories of these men and their career- and life-altering choices to prove to their children that steroids can come with dire social consequences, even without the specifics of their dire health effects.

Nobody wants the baggage that would come from being the next vilified superstar, and the peer pressure of a nation that disapproves of the use of steroids could help discourage young athletes from taking the drug.

The Mitchell Report claimed to have found enough evidence on 86 current and former major league players to have listed them in Congress's official steroid investigation.

Most of this evidence came from the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), the testimony of former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, the testimony of former New York Yankees personal trainer and conditioning coach Brian McNamee, and newspaper reports, although one player admitted his use in a phone interview for the investigation.

The overwhelming majority of evidence came from the Radomski testimony, who was cooperating with officials in exchange for a lighter sentence after pleading guilty to distributing steroids and money laundering.

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