Be it the Black Sox in 1919 or integration in 1947, major stories in baseball have a way of captivating not just the sports world but America at large. Today (in case you just picked up a newspaper for the first time in eight months) the baseball story that has hijacked the entire media is steroid use.
With yet another major leaguer suspended Monday, one can hardly go 10 minutes on news or sports broadcasts without mentioning "the juice." In fact, after last month's Congressional hearings that featured several former and current big leaguers, Congress has now set its sights on the NFL, the NBA and even the NCAA by requesting materials about the organizations' testing policies.
Virginia baseball coach Brian O'Connor has experienced baseball as a college and professional player and as a college coach within the last 20 years. O'Connor played a year of minor league baseball and has been coaching since hanging up his spikes.
Like most people in the sport, O'Connor makes it clear that steroid use is completely unacceptable by any baseball player.
"I think it's a very serious issue in all levels of baseball," O'Connor said. "It's disappointing because it completely ruins the integrity of the game."
While O'Connor said steroid use wasn't rampant while he was in the minors in 1991, there is clearly a substantial problem now. The suspension of 38 minor leaguers less than 10 days ago certainly is evidence of that.
"When I played, I really didn't see it," O'Connor said. "But I've had players that have gone into Minor League Baseball over the last 10 years and said that it is a serious problem."
There is a fine line, however, that Congress or anyone else who attempts to uncover steroid use by athletes must walk. Accusers must be careful about who they finger as cheaters. One can't assume anything, particularly in an age where fitness has become a science and weight rooms have become second homes for professional athletes not named David Wells.
"Are players out there in professional baseball bigger and stronger than they ever have been? Without a doubt," O'Connor said. "But maybe there isn't that many of them using steroids. Maybe it's because weight training, nutrition, all the kind of stuff has dramatically improved in the last 20 years. Back 30 years ago, those guys didn't even lift weights during the season."
While Major League Baseball has come under fire because of a lack of a stringent testing policy, there seems to be a strong testing system in college sports. While the NCAA tests during post-season play, Virginia tests athletes throughout the year in the various programs, not just for steroids but also for street drugs and other illegal supplements.
"Throughout the course of the year, every one of our players is randomly going to get tested, sometimes twice," O'Connor said. "You don't know about it until the day of the exam. I think it's a great program that our department has in place to deter things like that from happening."
The real difference though, is in the culture of the sport. Testing policies are necessary deterrents, but to remove steroids and the accompanying suspicion from the game, baseball can't just catch the offenders. Baseball has to at least attempt to erase the idea that it's okay to use steroids as long as you don't get caught. Perhaps that is too tough a request for MLB, to attempt to purge itself of something that now seems to be so ingrained in the sport.
O'Connor isn't convinced that there is an overwhelming steroids culture issue (like there seems to be in MLB) in college baseball, but he won't completely rule it out.
"I don't think it's a problem in college baseball just from seeing other teams," O'Connor said. "I haven't heard of it being a problem in college baseball, but it could be."
Even as O'Connor explains that there doesn't seem to be a major problem in college baseball, rumors on Internet message boards (the least reliable source of information in America) swirled about two top-tier players at Arkansas suspended March 30 for team rules violations. While it's nothing but a rumor that the two players suspended, Scott Bridges and Casey Rowlett, were removed for steroid use, rumors seem to be enough to launch full-scale investigations recently.
The biggest problem with steroids is that testing doesn't solve the culture issue. Testing is a start, but it isn't enough, and I'm convinced that's why Congress stepped in. If steroids are in the culture of the game, testing will not remove the worst of the impact. No high school kid is participating in the MLB testing policy, and that's who Congress was attempting to protect.
"You get all these young kids who look up to professional and college athletes, and if they're doing this, I think we're sending the youth of America the wrong message," O'Connor said. "We're sending them the message that there's a quick fix to have success."
When people talk about steroids ruining the integrity of the game, they aren't simply talking about the legitimacy of home run records -- They're talking about the game's purity, from top to bottom, on all levels of competition. O'Connor put it quite succinctly.
"It's cheating," he said. "There are other things that people look at in the game of baseball that people say might be cheating, whether it's stealing signs in a game and things like that. But this, in my opinion, completely ruins the game of baseball."
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