Yesterday, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, I attended a news conference hosted by four separate entities: University of Massachusetts Boston, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Taylor Hooton Foundation and the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society.
The latter three organizations funded a study for UMass-Boston concerning the American public’s perception of illegal steroid use. Here are five takeaways from the event:
1. The actual conclusion from the study, as written up well here by MLB.com’s Spencer Fordin, is that the public is too focused on professional athletes who use illegal performance-enhancing drugs and not focused enough on young amateur athletes who use this stuff. That, to put it mildly, is not a shocker.
Too often, it seems, we’d rather shake our fist at big names that get caught and scream about “Cheating!” and “tainted stats!” than discuss the underlying health risks that makes these drugs illegal in the first place. The presenters made an interesting case that, at the high school level, there’s a correlation between the ubiquity of illegal PED usage and the increased attention on bullying.
2. In that vein, I liked that the speakers emphasized education over discipline at the high-school level. This is just me talking as a parent and a former teenager, but it would seem that the goal should be to make illegal PEDs less cool, just as smoking cigarettes has become less cool (at least, I think that’s the case).
Let’s face it, that’s what has happened in professional sports and especially in Major League Baseball. Most baseball players now want illegal PEDs out of the game, and that reality is reflected in the increasingly tough testing program.
I’ve never quite understood why those of outside the game get so offended by players who do things to try to help them get better. I understand why the players themselves get offended; it’s their livelihoods on the line. That, too, goes back to the players translating their desires into the sort of rules that currently exists. For the rest of us, though, why should we care? Statistical integrity? Doesn’t exist. Competitive integrity? Eh. We’re always going to have all sorts of doubt in that arena, too.
There are always going to be people who use every edge they can find, because that’s life. If we can educate youngsters about the dangers of illegal PEDs, though, maybe some of those folks wired to use them will seek out different avenues that don’t risk your health quite as much. You know, like doctoring baseballs and bats.
3. I spoke with Don Hooton, the President of the Taylor Hooton Foundation, for the first time since the Biogenesis story first broke. Back then, he told me that he had yet to communicate with Alex Rodriguez, who had spoken to youngsters many times as a Hooton Foundation representative.
That was over three months ago. So I checked to see if that had changed.
“I haven’t talked to him since any of this has come out,” Hooton told me. He has, however, spoken with one of A-Rod’s representatives in the interim.
“We’re waiting for Major League Baseball to resolve it before we do anything,”Hooton said. “So we’re laying low and basically idle, as I think you would expect. We’re watching and waiting, just like you and everybody else.”
It’s not exactly going out on a limb to predict that A-Rod will never again speak at a Hooton Foundation event, no matter what happens with MLB’s investigation. Of course, MLB will keep pounding away in an effort to nail A-Rod, his fellow top target Ryan Braun and the others roped in the Biogenesis mess. It’s not like MLB is going to call a news conference one day to announce, “We give up,” with bigwig Rob Manfred citing Homer Simpson’s, “Never try.”
4. Former Yankees head trainer Gene Monahan attended as a representative of PBATS and spoke specifically about the risks illegal PEDs carry to your heart, kidneys and emotions, in particular.
Monahan retired from his post after the 2011 season; he put in 39 years on the job and, as evidenced by yesterday’s appearance, is still engaged. He flew up to New York from his North Carolina home to speak.
Monahan said he misses being in the ballpark with the players and rest of the traveling staff, although not necessarily the grind of the job, which is why he hasn’t completely given it up. He served as the trainer for Team USA in this year’s World Baseball Classic _ he said he was stunned when Mark Teixeira’s injury turned out to be so serious _ and might fill in for his Yankees successor Steve Donohue for a series this year. Last year, Monahan worked for the Yankees during their series in Washington against the Nationals. He’ll also be at the Yankees’ Old Timers Day on June 23.
5. Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson also attended, and he, too, focused on the educational element, discussing the Hall’s BASE program. While the Hall and its voting process is under particularly heavy scrutiny right now, thanks to this year’s writers’ ballot that produced no inductees, Idelson has proven himself to be adept at preaching patience and not enacting any dramatic changes quite yet.
This isn’t easy. No matter what happens with controversial players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, whether they eventually gain induction or never do, there will be hard feelings both ways. But Idelson and the Hall have time on their side. As per the current rules, a player stays on the ballot for 15 years as long as he gets five percent support. So it behooves Idelson and the Hall to act deliberately and stay open-minded.
–Have a great day.
