Have we thanked Lance Williams '72 and Mark Fainaru-Wada yet?
President Bush has. At a small reception at the 2005 White House Correspondents Dinner, the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, being honored for their work in revealing the BALCO steroids scandal, were introduced to the president. The first thing he said to them, Williams recalled, was "You've done a service." The reporters then chatted with Bush, a former owner of the Texas Rangers, for a few minutes about baseball and the Congressional hearings on steroids in the sport. Then, before they parted, Bush told them again, "You've done a service."
Of course, we know what happened after that. A year later, the federal government thanked them again, this time by sentencing them to 18 months in jail for not revealing how they obtained sealed grand-jury testimonies in which Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, among others, admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. The two are likely to avoid jail time now, but only after a lawyer pleaded guilty to leaking the information.
It still surprises me how ungrateful both Major League Baseball and the government have been to Fainaru-Wada and Williams, who is speaking in List 120 tonight in a lecture sponsored by The Herald. Through their investigative reporting, which won them a 2004 George Polk Award, the reporters are forcing baseball and the government to do something it wouldn't have done otherwise - clean sports of dangerous drug abuse.
Baseball wasn't looking to clean up its act anytime soon. It had plenty of chances to investigate the prevalence of performance-enhancers among ballplayers - in 1998, when a reporter noticed a bottle of androstenedione sitting on Mark McGwire's shelf during the home-run race, and in 2002, when Ken Caminiti confessed to Sports Illustrated that he had been abusing steroids for years, including in 1996, when he was named the National League's Most Valuable Player.
It wasn't until early 2005, just after Williams and Fainaru-Wada wrote the stories about Bonds and Giambi's grand-jury testimonies, that the league instituted a tough drug policy. And it wasn't until after the reporters published "Game of Shadows" in 2006 that baseball commissioner Bud Selig started taking the matter seriously and asked George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader, to investigate doping in the sport. Though the drug policy is still lax when compared to National Football League or Olympic standards, and though the Mitchell investigation seems destined to fail because of lack of cooperation from ballplayers - Bonds, namely - baseball is at least taking steps to admit the problem and to correct it.
The U.S. government had also been reluctant to get into this mess. Obviously, during the BALCO case, the government wanted to keep the names of the athletes quiet, even after some admitted to steroid use. And last year's Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball was all show, telling us nothing we didn't know already while humiliating McGwire and, ultimately, Rafael Palmeiro in the process.
But the government is now taking a more active approach in trying to stop doping. Last month, authorities busted a steroid ring in Orlando and Mobile, Ala., to which baseball player Gary Matthews Jr. and former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield have been linked. Williams told me he thinks that doping agencies will continue to give way to law enforcement agencies, as has been the case in Europe. It may be lamentable that professional sports needs government intervention, but it's probably in the best interest of both sports and our country.
A more important question might be, Why should we care?
In the current issue of ESPN The Magazine, Chuck Klosterman compares athletes taking steroids to Jack Kerouac being on a Benzedrine binge while writing "On the Road," or the Beatles using psychedelic drugs while recording Rubber Soul and Revolver. "Absolutely no one holds it against them," Klosterman, the respected Esquire columnist, wrote of the Beatles.
It's a fantastic point. Rubber Soul and Revolver are no less "authentic," and they would not and probably could not have been made without the use of drugs, Klosterman wrote. To take it back to the playing field, why should we care about steroids? They make linebackers hit harder, baseball players hit farther, Olympic sprinters run faster and, thus, spectator sports "funner".
I posed this question to Williams, who basically bonked me on the head with this answer: It's the kids, stupid.
If steroid abuse is unwatched in professional sports, "it could really pervade prep school sports and even middle school sports," he said.
Steroid use in professional football and baseball, the country's two most popular sports, is widespread. Klosterman pointed out in his article that in 2004, the Carolina Panthers' punter (!) was suspended for using steroids. "It's kind of crazy to think punters would be taking steroids but defensive tackles would not."
In baseball, Caminiti estimated in 2002 that at least 50 percent of baseball players use steroids, while Jose Canseco, who wrote a book on steroid use, put that figure at 85 percent. Williams believes it's somewhere between. Regardless, with such a high number of steroid-abusers in professional sports, it's reasonable to think that it would trickle down into sports in college, high school and even middle schools.
Fortunately, the NCAA has a tough drug-testing program, but unfortunately, most high schools and middle schools don't. It's not inconceivable that if steroids become easier and cheaper to make and harder to detect, many teenagers might try using performance-enhancers, whether to get an athletic scholarship to their dream school or to simply make the varsity team.
The health implications of using steroids are becoming more and more clear. Caminiti died of a heart attack at age 41, with his history of drug abuse likely contributing to his death. Klosterman pointed out that Andre Waters, a former Philadelphia Eagle strong safety, committed suicide last year at age 44. An examination of Waters's brain after his death showed that he had the neurological tissue of an 85-year-old with Alzheimer's disease, which was probably brought on by using his skull as a weapon during his career. And Waters was not linked to steroids. Just imagine the extra pop a linebacker or safety could deliver to his opponent and himself with a little bit of steroids. It's not something that kids need to start doing when they're 12.
Fortunately, baseball is finally catching up with the rest of professional sports in trying to squelch these steroid buyers, and the government is cracking down on suppliers. It's still early and it's still unclear what work needs to be done, but at least we have a start now.
We should thank Williams and Fainaru-Wada for that.
