Bob Ryan: Problem Now Oversized

The Boston Globe
October 2, 2006

Thanks to the cheaters, everyone in baseball now is presumed guilty until proven innocent.

You may be a diehard Roger Clemens fan and say you don't want to believe your guy has used performance-enhancing drugs to pitch like this into his mid-40s, but don't sit there and tell me you haven't wondered about it.

And why is that? It's because you've seen and heard too much already. You know it's possible. After all, we've seen the still-active player whose autobiography could be entitled, ``Honey, I Shrunk The MVP." We all know funky stuff's been going on.

What about Albert Pujols? Don't we all want him to be Mr. Clean? Of course, we do. But don't tell me you haven't heard people wondering out loud about him. And why? Just because. Is this fair to Albert Pujols? No. It's manifestly unfair. But, thanks to the cheaters, that's where we are.

I could go on and on. I've been asked about Big Papi this year. Do I think he's on the juice? I tell 'em, well, David Ortiz looks more like an offensive lineman than some cut, well-defined Muscle Beach kind of guy. He doesn't look any different than he did five years ago as a Twin. It wouldn't make any sense to me. But since he's hit 173 home runs and driven in 525 runs the past four years, and since we live in these, shall we say, juicy times, someone's gonna ask questions.

The newly accused all have issued their denials, naturally. Well, duh. You didn't expect Clemens to react to the report that his was one of the names -- I love this word -- "redacted" from a search warrant affidavit filed in Phoenix at the end of May in connection with the Jason Grimsley case by saying, "Hey, you got me. I loved being Roger Clemens too much to give it up, so I did what I needed to do in order to keep it going," did you?

According to MLB.com, what Roger's saying is this: "I didn't see [this report], nor do I need to see it. But for the people involved, I think it's very dangerous and malicious and reckless on their part for some guys to have a document or whatever he did and supposedly put it out there with somebody else's writing on it. Grimsley never worked out with myself or Andy [Pettitte, also named] at any point. I don't know where that's coming from. When it's going to take a serious turn for me is when one of my sponsors pulls out. Then somebody's going to be responsible for that. Then my lawyers will take over from there."

(Come to think of it, where exactly is the official denial in all that Clemensese?)

Pettitte was more direct. "I haven't done anything," he said. "I've never used any drugs to enhance my performance on a baseball field before."

It's easy to pick on Grimsley, a journeyman pitcher who -- isn't it conveniently strange? -- seems to have passed through certain major league locker rooms without anyone remembering he was there. It would be nice if we had a "better" source, some people are saying.

Well, no one wanted to believe Jose Canseco when he made his own accusations a while back. Just a crazy man looking to sell books, we were told. That's what I wanted believe, anyway. Then came that dramatic March 17, 2005, session before a congressional panel, when we witnessed the embarrassing spectacle of a sobbing Mark McGwire becoming the first American to invoke the four and a half amendment, and we knew that Canseco was not the loose cannon we thought he was.

Sure, we'd always prefer air tight, credible sources. But in the real world, you take the sources you get. Sometimes you can't do any better than a narcissistic, aging slugger and a mediocre reliever who was caught receiving a shipment of human growth hormone at his home, which led to the aforementioned affidavit. It turns out Canseco was a lot more credible than we originally believed. Grimsley may turn out to be a similar investigative gold mine.

Or maybe not. But sooner or later there will be other equally flawed "sources" as this performance-enhancing-drug mess plays out to an ever-disgusted public.

The problem now, as we all know, is that anabolic steroids are no longer the big issue. The enhancement substance in question is human growth hormone, and the reason for that is baseball doesn't test for it. That would require a blood test, and for that the Players Association would have to approve a change in the existing policy. It was hard enough to get the PA hierarchy to sanction urine testing, let alone have it agree to blood testing. But the time has come.

Yes, the time has come for responsible players with clout to take the initiative in demanding full testing for human growth hormone, or anything else that requires a blood sample. Is it not in the best interests of those who really are clean (I hope I'm not naive in assuming they still make up the majority) to expose the cheats, not solely because the cheats have gained a competitive advantage, but also because the cheats have created a climate in which no good deed goes unquestioned?

I honestly believe people now expect to hear stories like this. The average baseball fan has become like the average European sports fan who has learned to live with the non stop revelations of drug chicanery involving such sports as weightlifting, wrestling, athletics (i.e. track and field), and, of course, cycling, in which no one is surprised when some champion is stripped of his (or her) crown because of proven use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Roger Clemens might be totally innocent. But since these are juicy times, and the only other pitcher who's ever thrown as hard at his age is the sainted Nolan Ryan, people can't help wondering. And Nolan Ryan? Nah, don't tell me . . .

Is this what Players Association honchos Donald Fehr and Gene Orza want for their sport? In case they don't know, that's what they've got.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.