Bud Selig, Donald Fehr, and Major League Baseball are a joke. I'm sorry (said with more sarcasm and disdain than any person on the planet), but the new steroid testing policy is so bad and enhances nothing when it comes to preventing steroid use in this granddaddy of professional sports.
I first thought maybe this was like a parody of professional wrestling, and the MLB was actually encouraging more players to start using steroids. Heck, my friends and I wonder what drugs you actually can test for and if any of them are truly banned or illegal.
Every record set by Barry Bonds and the other BALCO buddies should be wiped from the books, as well as their real drug status revealed. But no, MLB and Selig have decided to do nothing and also have stirred the pot so much it is beginning to stain all the other professional sports, and I believe absolutely wrongly. So you ask, "Why do you think that, Tom?"
So I'm reading this news report about new Russian tennis champion and current U.S. Open women's champion Svetlana Kuznetsova that says that she tested positive for a "banned substance" at a tennis exhibition in December. The article was written professionally enough, but the headline drew a lot of attention to the story and made every, yes every, major media publication around the globe. My first thought was disbelief, but then I thought, "Okay, anything is possible."
Then I read the story and did a little checking. First, the "banned substance" was ephedrine, and it really isn't a banned substance for the WTA. As a matter of fact, since ephedrine is in a ton of legal, over-the-counter medications, even the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, which has a very strict interpretation and list has it listed as one that is prone to unintentional use for that reason. Ephedrine is also best at enhancing very short-term performance, as it makes your heart beat faster, raises your blood pressure, and provides a very short lasting defense from fatigue and oxygen depletion. Better for sprinters and weight lifters.
One thing you don't want for several long hours is your heart beating faster and your blood pressure rising. Add the fact that the test given was not part of the WTA official substance-testing program, and the Belgian official who leaked the story did not apparently follow all the proper protocols in dealing with what was viewed by him as a violation.
Then, I looked at the matches played. This was a December exhibition. Read that to mean out of season. So, this wasn't even a real match that counts, nor is it one that the players probably care if they win or lose. They get the same paycheck either way. The exhibition was in Belgium, and my sources tell me that the official and a few others involved in the story may have been upset with the recent decline of the Kim Clijsters/Justine Henin/Hardenne combo on the women's tour.
Then we have the player herself. She freely admits that during the exhibition she was ill, and was taking over-the-counter meds so she could fulfill her contractual obligation. Her doubles partner, Aussie Alicia Molik, confirmed in other media accounts that her friend was ill at the exhibition. So, what then, is the story here?
We have an up-and-coming Russian woman athlete, playing a contractually obligated exhibition for a set fee, in the offseason for the WTA, who was ill and taking over-the-counter medications which include ephedrine as an ingredient, which is not specifically a banned substance and has no real benefit in enhancing tennis performance, who was "outed" by an upset Belgian official. Basically, we have a non-story. But the headline was all that it took, and no matter what the true story is, the athlete in this case suffers, and in this case, a few other athletes who also were at the exhibition also were affected.
The recent attention given to steroid use in professional baseball has provided the media with another wild goose chase. In this case, a reporter got a scoop on what would initially appear to be a huge story, only to not truly check his facts and the publisher didn't care, either. Several players were damaged in the process, if even for just a couple of days. While I must lay blame with my journalistic brethren here, I will not let the other professional athletes off the hook.
First, my great sport of tennis has a more universally accepted drug-testing policy then American Baseball or football and it is stricter then anything that Bud "the slug" Selig, Don Fehr, and the rest of the joke of a sport governing body called Major League Baseball will ever have. Second, the players who have been shown to test positive in baseball here clearly have more ego then the entire WTA and ATP tour combined. Third, unless someone slipped through the cracks, none of the players on the tennis tour have any links to labs or supplement companies suspected in working with these substances.
Baseball historically has been nothing more then a collection of thugs, meanies, drunks, and scoundrels. Up until the 1919 Black Sox scandal, the sport was unregulated and full of nefarious personalities (yes, even the great Ty Cobb was not the greatest person or sportsman). The appointment of Judge Keenesaw Mountain Landis did nothing to change that, and until the recent Pete Rose fiasco, no commissioner has ever made any real important ruling to clean up the sport. With the exception of the late 1940s and early 1950s, baseball continued the tradition of non-professional "professionals" that culminates with today's mega players.
Now Bud Selig adds to the tradition by practically telling the players it's okay to use steroids, and this negative attention has caused all sports across the globe, including cricket, rugby, Speedminton, and yes, even tennis, to review their current policies and tighten them up even further. The lax attitude of the MLB board and behavior of all the consenting players and owners just goes to show that MLB doesn't care about sports integrity. And because of this, all sports suffer.
So the next time you watch a baseball game, or take your kids to the ballpark, don't forget to stop and thank all the players, managers, and coaches for telling your kids it's okay to use steroids, that the key to getting ahead is breaking all the rules, and that the negative consequences of their actions don't matter no matter how many others those actions may actually effect.
Then, I hope, when you're done with all that, you leave the park, go to the sporting goods store, buy your kid a racquet (or call me and I'll be glad to get them one) and put them on a better path in life.
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