HGH is baseball's latest burden
Posted: Friday, September 07, 2007 2:16 PM
Last night highlights of Rick Ankiel’s seven-RBI game for the Cardinals exploded across our television screens. This morning headlines of Ankiel’s purchase of HGH exploded through media outlets across the country.
St. Louis, a city that still reveres its Cardinals in a manner reminiscent of another era, is dealt another body blow in a season that must feel like cruel payback for the franchise's unexpected World Series win last year.
Baseball, after watching the NFL reel through the Michael Vick saga and confront its own HGH issue, is thrust back into the drug use/misuse spotlight.
The New York Daily News reported the story, and the newspaper has done impeccable work in chasing this story, led by T.J. Quinn, the reporter who overheard Barry Bonds’ grand jury testimony in a hallway, clearly reported in the Daily News story is that Ankiel has “not been accused by authorities of wrongdoing.” Major League Baseball did not ban HGH until 2005, the year after Ankiel’s reported purchase.
So two questions seem relevant to me, the first being what does this mean?
The curtain continues to be pulled away from the next phase of performance-enhancing drug use in sports. HGH has been the ace in the hole for players over the last decade. Undetectable via urine tests, athletes have been believed to have turned to HGH for help without fear of detection.
Last year’s bust of Jason Grimsley came first, and now this (the same company is involved that sold to NFLer Rodney Harrison). What's likely begun is an ongoing string of revelations about HGH use. More names will emerge. With names will come excuses like the lame one offered by Harrison. Know this: no athlete dives into anything like HGH without knowing the score. No one will use HGH just to recover from injury -- as Harrison claimed -- but instead to gain size and strength without fear of detection.
We will learn that HGH has been the real scourge of sports in this era. Unlike “creams” and “clears”, HGH is legal with prescription. It provides massive growth, and no union of a professional sport will allow its athletes to be blood tested. Simply put, it has been known that HGH was a “free ride” for athletes.
The second key question is where does this go?
Ankiel’s actions should be quick, clear and decisive. If the allegations are true, admit to doing wrong, apologize, and ask to go on putting this in the past. In such a scenario, Ankiel's backstory should generate a higher level of forgiveness. Learn from Mark McGwire and cop to the truth, especially given that no MLB rules were broken in 2004.
Kevin Towers, San Diego's general manager, was quoted this week that baseball is back to “being played the right way.” Steroid-free with testing in place, homers are down and speed and defense are coming back into vogue. But is this really true? How are we to believe that HGH isn’t widespread throughout sports, given the lack of means of detection?
Does baseball respond to the HGH issue as the NFL did with Harrison, and the WWE did -- in mortal fear of Congressional intervention -- in suspending 14 wrestlers? How does baseball deal with the inevitable revelations to follow?
Will baseball's players union cooperate with MLB in taking all possible steps to keep players clean? These are the answers we need to really know if the game is indeed now “being played the right way.”
