Steroids fatigue

With Roger Clemens’ acquittal on perjury charges regarding his testimony about taking steroids, the Major League Baseball performance-enhancing drug (PED) issue is back in the national spotlight.

While Clemens’ was acquitted by a jury of his peers, he still has to face the jury of baseball journalists who vote for the Hall of Fame. In dealing with other suspected or admitted steroids users, the Hall of Fame voters have not been particularly forgiving.

According to a recent article by Tim Keown in ESPN the Magazine, however, there is reason to believe that forgiveness is becoming more common, and for one particular reason: fatigue. Keown argues that the public has grown tired of the steroids saga. For proof, he compares the uproar following the initial revelations about sluggers like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds to the relative calm that has surrounded the recent Ryan Braun case.

Unlike McGwire and Bonds, Braun was actually suspended by MLB for a positive steroids test, but the suspension was overturned when a mediator determined that the test procedures were slightly inconsistent with expectations. Despite his positive test, Braun has faced very little scrutiny and has returned fairly easily to his regular baseball routine, according to Keown.

If Keown is right and the baseball world has become disinterested in PED stories, then Clemens’ first shot at the Hall of Fame will be telling. Hall of Fame voters have been hard on suspected steroid users in the past, but they have had the force of public sentiment in the past.

As the public becomes disinterested, MLB loses suspension appeals on technicalities, and the US government runs out of players to charge with perjury, baseball writers may be the only group left to hold players accountable for steroids use.

--Brett Sherrick

Verducci visits PSU, discusses MLB, current challenges in sports journalism

Tom Verducci fell in love with newspapers while delivering them as a kid. Flipping through the pages, he always stopped at the sports section because he wanted to read about his other love: baseball. Eager to see how someone wrote about games he had watched the previous night, Verducci felt the post-game analysis added another layer of information to the game.

Now Verducci is the person adding extra layers of information to the game of baseball.

While visiting Penn State and the Curley Center, Verducci spoke last night about his experiences as a baseball writer and some of the controversial issues he has covered in his nearly three decades as a sports journalist. The Penn State graduate (1982) has emerged as one of the most respected writers in the profession in part because of work related to hard-hitting issues such as steroid use in Major League Baseball.

As a Hall of Fame voter, Verducci was asked about his take on allowing players who have used steroids into Cooperstown. To illustrate the divide between Hall voters, he asked for a show of hands from audience members who would vote for a great player that used steroids. The impromptu survey revealed a 50-50 split, similar to the split he sees among Hall voters—and much less than the necessary 75% approval to get elected to the Hall.

Verducci discussed the notion that a rule change regarding the majority vote would need to occur to change the current voting situation. Evaluating how people approach the issue, he spoke of reporters that believe a player makes a choice to use steroids and then must live with that legacy. The feeling is that players are doing things they know are wrong—and can’t even talk about—and are changing the way baseball is played. However, Verducci also maintained that his vote is an “endorsement of [a] whole career” and not just the “clean and dirty parts.”

The Cooperstown theme continued through a discussion about Pete Rose. Although Verducci maintains that Rose deserves lifetime banishment from the game and should never again be allowed to put on a uniform, he believes his accomplishments as a player stand alone. Verducci suggested that if eligibility rules changed he would not vote for Rose as a manager—the time period in which he allegedly gambled on the game—but would be in favor of voting for him as a player.

Moving to the issue of technologically-based time constraints felt by sports journalists, Verducci touched on the implications of the situation regarding Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Culter and the injury he suffered during the NFC Championship game. Verducci discussed the “character assassination” and how fans and current and former players jumped on social networking sites to question the extent of Cutler’s injury. He believes this is showing a shift in journalism in which people are setting the agenda regarding important issues. Instead of broadcasters and writers setting the news, these journalists and coaches are now responding to real-time fan reaction.

Verducci also pointed out that in such fast-paced settings he believes it’s more important to be right than to be first. He emphasized that Cutler was prevented by doctors from returning to the game, something no one would have known at the time of the injury. As such, even though speed has forced writers to make quick decisions, he still follows advice received from a former professor: When in doubt, leave it out.

The importance of accuracy was not the only advice offered to students. Verducci also discussed the need to outwork others and the need to strike a balance between personal and professional relationships with athletes. He also talked about the importance of finding good stories and being willing to put in the time and effort to get those pieces.

In all, Verducci provided intriguing commentary about ongoing issues in baseball and sports journalism. By expanding on topics such as steroid use and the changing pace of journalism, he shed valuable insight for the next generation of writers hoping to add extra layers of information to the sports journalism community.

- Melanie Formentin

Blaming individuals, ignoring cultures

I read two interesting Web features today that both illuminated our cultural shortsightedness about social issues and sports: Blaming individuals while turning a blind eye toward institutional beliefs and practices that underpin problems.
The first was an outstanding column by Dave Zirin answering Howard Bryant's shrill column about Sammy Sosa's steroid use. In his column, Bryant makes a bizarre charge that Sosa's positive steroids test calls for a "special kind of outrage." He is especially hard on Sosa, on players and on "Mr. and Mrs. Fan." He does not -- as Zirin points out -- take to task an institution (and its management) that has tacitly encouraged drug use for decades. Zirin, whose column will undoubtedly be read by less than a third of those who read Bryant's, raises important contextual questions that position the issue as one going far beyond the decisions of select individuals without cultural and institutional encouragement.
The second Web feature I read today was the discussion on WashingtonPost.com's "The League" about gays in the NFL. Not surprisingly, the column that brought the most response was one by a pastor who made overtly homophobic comments -- he was an easy target. Other columns by more progressive writers argued that NFL players were to blame because they hadn't come out or because individual players have "remained silent."
The problem with these kinds of arguments is that they ignore the very real function of men's football and other male-defined sports (such as baseball and basketball) in U.S. culture: defining (ideal) gender roles. As a culture, we expect the demonstration of masculinity in these sports (that's why "You play like a sissy/girl" is still an effective insult hurled by coaches). Ideal masculinity implies heterosexuality. Our cultural definitions of sport, gender (and, subsequently, sexuality) have -- as one columnist rightly argues -- made it easier for us to elect a black man to the presidency than to foster a culture where gay athletes can play high-level team sports without fear.

Media "was played"

Steroids expert Charles Yesalis, on a panel at Penn State tonight with journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams (Game of Shadows), said the idea that steroid or HGH use exists among only "a few bad apples" is a myth that many journalists bought for years. The truth, he contends, is that "there are only a few good apples in the barrel." He estimates, for instance, that upwards of 95% of NFL players have used HGH and that use of HGH or steroids among NCAA Division I football players is another story that's gone uncovered.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams acknowledged that the NFL has generally gone unscrutinized, but said a big reason is the NFL's sophisticated PR operations, in which the NFL moves swiftly to keep a story from taking off.