Manny’s deceit proves cheaters’ era isn’t over
If times are tough and a moment of amusement is needed, keep your ears open. At some point, you are going to encounter a person who believes baseball’s steroids era is over.
Your belly will ache from laughter.
It is not over because … the stuff works.
It is the fundamental message so many evade. Baseball today might have nabbed itself a whopper of a fish in Manny Ramirez, but it can’t influence the young boy in Venezuela or the Dominican Republic or Oklahoma or Las Vegas who realizes the level of fame and fortune to be gained through cheating.
It can’t sway enough a child whose options in life are never making the major leagues and accepting a minimum-wage existence for staying clean, or rising to the level of a multi-million dollar contract by juicing.
Risk? None.
Reward? Ramirez will lose $7.7 million after being suspended 50 games Thursday for testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance. When his two-year contract ends with the Dodgers after next season, he still will have collected $38 million from the team.
And you’re telling me the kid in Curacao making $2 a week stitching shoes isn’t going to connect the dots and realize the quickest way to immense wealth is through steroids?
It is not over because … baseball’s testing program is awful.
They didn’t even catch Ramirez for a steroid. They got him for an agent cheaters use within a steroid program. Human chorionic gonadotropin is a women’s fertility drug used by steroid users to restart their body’s natural testosterone production while coming off a steroid cycle.
Ramirez claims to have passed 15 drug tests over the past five seasons. So what? Test results are meaningless today. He’s only 145 passed tests behind Marion Jones, who never failed one until being painted into a corner by federal prosecutors and pleading guilty to lying about steroid use to avoid major jail time.
There is no clarity with baseball’s testing program. What were Ramirez’s testosterone levels? Why was he being tested more than the standard twice a year? Did officials see something in previous tests that raised a red flag?
They are questions for which we will never know the answers because unlike the Olympic program — which, by the way, would’ve banned Ramirez for two years after his failed test and essentially ended his career — baseball has never allowed for an independent process and has collectively bargained itself into utter silence.
How can you justly promote and police your game at the same time? You can’t.
It is not over because … fewer idiots are cheating.
The Mitchell Report and those congressional hearings on steroids in baseball acted like that small Band-Aid you put over a large gash. You just try to control the bleeding.
Then everyone using got a whole lot smarter.
We have long since passed the time when steroid users were unrefined dolts. This is the age of clever cheaters, many with the money to finance the best drugs and masking agents, to continually stay three steps ahead of those testing.
It is not over because …
Jason Giambi hit 43, 38 and 41 home runs during the 2000, 2001 and 2002 seasons. He then admitted to taking steroids and says he quit in 2003, when he was on pace to hit 50.
In the final few months, his power numbers plummeted like Arlen Specter’s popularity among Republicans. His biceps shriveled, and his batting average for August and September was .219.
The following season (in which he suffered from various injuries and had a pituitary tumor, which can be caused by steroid abuse), he hit .208 with 12 home runs.
You had 104 players test positive in baseball’s 2003 survey testing program, and a handful returned to spring training the next season slimmer and with less power.
But not near enough to make you believe the majority stopped using.
It is not over because … as BALCO mastermind Victor Conte Jr. has said often, it’s not about failing a drug test, but rather an IQ test.
If you believe Ramirez that this is a case of him being prescribed a medication for a personal health issue, you must also believe that the most powerful agent in sports (Scott Boras) knew nothing of it, the Dodgers knew nothing of it, those who handle Ramirez’s affairs knew nothing of it, the physician prescribed a known baseball star something that involves testosterone production without asking questions, and Ramirez didn’t feel the need to request from baseball’s drug program administrators a Therapeutic Use Exemption in order to use the medication, of which hundreds have been issued.
Sorry. It’s like a red ink stain on a white blouse. None of it washes off to be true.
It is not over because … human performance is separated by less than 1 percent.
Do you really believe there will ever come a time when someone doesn’t want to increase those odds by 10 percent through drugs? Do you honestly think we will ever see a day when a Manny Ramirez doesn’t use to remain the star and the major league pitcher doesn’t use to strike out the star and the Triple-A outfielder doesn’t use to become the star?
The steroids era isn’t over.
It never totally will be.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.
