Pubdate: Sat, 22 Jan 2005
Source: Keene Sentinel (NH)
Copyright: 2005 Keene Publishing Corporation.
Contact:  http://www.keenesentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/223

PHONY ON DRUGS

Every summer, this community gets romantic about the Keene Swamp Bats, a
fixture in a New England college-age league. The way the game is played at
Alumni Field is nostalgic and pure, what with the crack of the wooden bat,
the playfulness in the stands, the mid-game entertainment outside the
basepaths, and so on.

The sweet innocence of the game there sustains us through the rest of the
year, when baseball — particularly as it's performed by major leaguers
- - is everything but sweet, pure and innocent.

The latest evidence is Major League Baseball's charade regarding illegal
drug use by its players. Last week, with much fanfare, players proudly
announced that, golly, they were going to get serious about drug use. The
object of their pride  a policy that doesn't even mention the most widely
used illegal substance in the game, amphetamines - confirmed that Major
League Baseball is incapable of embarrassment. The new policy would suspend
players who tested positive for steroids, but in a way that mocks the widely
accepted notion of zero tolerance: An offending player would receive a
one-year ban only after testing positive four times.

As for amphetamines - a controlled substance that, when hippies celebrated
it decades ago, was said to threaten the very foundations of American
society and that more than half of ball players today are believed to use
regularly - the policy is inexplicably silent.

Compared to other sports organizations, professional baseball clearly isn't
serious about drugs. For example, the National Football League and the
Olympics give offending players the boot the first time drugs turn up in
random testing.

So, if self-respect won't move professional baseball to get straight with
drugs, what will? The answer is fear. Court cases and legislative threats on
steroid use were what got the players to step forward with last week's
policy. More such threats are needed to clean up the sport that claims to be
as American as apple pie, and should be as honest as the version that's
played at Alumni Field every summer.
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MAP posted-by: Josh