In light of yesterday's revelation that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids, here are a few random thoughts about the steroid era.
Pity the Children
Jason Stark posted an article on ESPN.com calling the use steroids an “insane act of self-destruction,” and arguing that the steroid era is the worst fiasco in sports history.
Mr. Stark is a fine writer, but the article, which boils down to how America’s innocence has been permanently lost, is bunk. Stark writes: “[T]he sport, as a unique paragon of American culture, is devastated.” Later he adds: “So weep not for what A-Rod has done to himself. Weep for what he has done to his sport.”
The problem with sportswriters is this: they think sports are some simulacrum of what life should be like. They think sport represents a great striving of the human spirit, and imagine that all athletes embody the highest of virtues.
And it’s silly. Sports have never been above the moral fray. At best they are a bellwether of the larger social climate. When the Black Sox scandal happened, it happened at a time when dozens of American institutions were ravaged by similar corruption. When baseball integrated, it integrated because America was shifting to a new era of racial integration. When baseball had a drug problem in the 1980’s, it was because the entire country was having a drug problem.
It is naïve to hold the expectation that men gifted enough to play sports possess higher moral qualities than the rest of us. And here’s the thing: no one really thinks this. No one, as Stark suggests, is really weeping about the fact that A-Rod used steroids. There aren’t a bunch of heartbroken Little Leaguers’ who are going to turn to a life of crime because of this, because even really little kids have the capacity to recognize that an ability to play baseball is not inherently equitable to one being a paragon of virtue.
But sportswriters are constantly harping on about steroids is ruining baseball. They’re trying to best each other on how disappointing A-Rod is, about how much the soul of the game is marred by these revelations. And, quite frankly, it’s getting a little old.
Dante Was Right
To the idea that the steroid era in baseball is worse than the Black Sox scandal: again, I don’t buy it.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante depicts Hell as having layers: the worse the sin, the deeper in hell you go. Falling prey to lust gets you an eternity in a bad storm, but killing Julius Caesar means Satan gets to chews on you for all of eternity.
This makes an intuitive sense: we all recognize that certain crimes are worse than others. But how should we order those crimes? Which is worse, throwing a game of baseball or using steroids? Where does throwing a spitball rank?
To me, the distinction is obvious: cheating to win baseball games is bad. But cheating to lose games is far, far worse.
Some folks like to argue that Gaylord Perry deserves to get tossed from the Hall of Fame, because he willfully threw a spitball, a pitch that is against baseball rules. What I don’t understand is how Perry’s actions are any different than a pitcher who uses a balk-move to first base. How is it any different than a catcher who willfully blocks home plate without being in possession of the baseball? How is Perry different from Nolan Ryan, who talked about doctoring baseballs in his autobiography, or Whitey Ford or Yogi Berra, who used to spit tobacco juice on baseballs to take out the shine?
The thing about Gaylord Perry is this: he skirted the rules that were in place. When he was caught, he suffered whatever consequences were in place. When he wasn’t caught, he used that advantage to win baseball games.
To kick Perry out of the Hall of Fame seems silly: it would be a retroactive response to a player who recognized a flaw in the system and used that flaw to his advantage. Which is an absolutely necessary component to all sports. If players couldn’t seek advantages, if they couldn’t try new things, the games would stagnate and quickly die.
This seeking of advantages is exactly what A-Rod and the rest of the users did: they recognized that the system was flawed, and made use of it. Which, contrary to what most writers suggest, isn’t anything new or special.
That doesn’t mean I think steroid users should get off with a slap on the wrist. If I had a vote I’d suspend anyone found using for a year, without pay. But that wasn’t the rule: there was no rule because there was no way to find users, and no way to punish them. And I see no justification for punishing individuals with the sanctimonious bullshit that gets churned out about the likes of Bonds and McGwire.
What Joe Jackson did, and what Pete Rose could have done was far worse: their actions actually did undermine the game. Their actions went against the fundamental conceit of sports, which is that you will do whatever you can to help your team win.
Reader Tim Connelly has a fine article about the contexts of the 1919 World Series, which is both interesting and insightful. It makes an interesting argument for Jackson, which is that we must consider Jackson’s actions within the context of the times. It’s an interesting argument, but I can’t accept it. Whether or not he chocked the World Series, Jackson took money and made promises that set his interests against his team’s. Same goes for Pete Rose: in gambling on Reds games he created a scenario where his interests could potentially come into conflict with the team’s interests.
To my mind, it’s obvious which is worse. Cheating to win games, cheating to be the best, is as old as the game itself. Throwing games, or establishing scenarios where you are actively working against your team’s interests is far, far worse.
A-Rod
The term ‘scapegoat’ comes from an old Yom Kippur ritual. In Jewish tribes, the people would cast the sins of their community upon a goat, and then drive the animal off into the wild. Sometimes it was a symbolic placing, and sometimes they would attach symbolic objects, or actual slips of papers, to the goat. Then they’d gather rocks and make sure the poor goat knew it wasn’t wanted.
I was thinking about this the other day, and it occurred to me that Alex Rodriguez is baseball’s scapegoat.
Remember the time Joe Torre dropped him from the lineup during the ALDS? It was a blatant scapegoat move: the Yankees were tanking in the postseason and Torre went and made a big show of calling attention to A-Rod’s, who was 0-for-something then. It was a class act by a class clown: a cheap way to divert attention from the team’s failing. And it worked. Suddenly the Yankees losing wasn’t the team’s fault: it was A-Rod’s fault. He was the failure. He wasn’t a real Yankee.
Same thing holds true for the whole Jeter thing. A-Rod, when he came to the Yanks, willingly gave up his position to a far worse defensive player. He did so with one snarky, completely true comment, and suddenly A-Rod is a pariah for offending the vulnerable soul of Captain Intangibles, whose gross arrogance at playing shortstop costs the Yankees at least three games a year.
He was scapegoated in Texas, because it was his fault the management of that team thought one player would make them contenders. He’s the whipping boy for outrageous baseball salaries, the guy permanently linked to the other absurdly-made media devil, Scott Boras. Even though he is the biggest reason the Yankees make the postseason, it’s his fault that they haven’t won a World Series in thirty-two minutes.
Alex Rodriguez is the most thoroughly disliked player of this generation. He is more disliked than even Bonds, who was at least cheered on by Giants fans. He is ripped by the press every time the Yankees lose. He’s booed by fans, and publicly humiliated by his manager and teammates. His private life is scrutinized to the point that everyone in the world gets the chance to play amateur psychiatrist whenever his name shows up on the back page of the papers.
For what? What is the purpose?
So we can look at his failings, his 0-for-whatevers, his errors, and for a little while ignore all of the minor failings of our own lives. We can read about that one stupid thing he said about Derek Jeter, and we don’t have to think about the myriad of stupid things we say all the time. We follow the sad dissolve of his marriage and stand in self-righteous judgment of his trists, and for a while we can forget our own deceits, our own insecurities. So we can be absolved.
Alex Rodriguez is our scapegoat. He is that upon which all of us cast our sins. And now baseball has a chance to pin the steroid era on his shoulders, which is exactly what they’ll do. The writers will all race to say what a sure-fire jerk A-Rod turned out to be, and they’ll continue to harp on about all the ways he’s ruined baseball. And the Commissioner’s office and the owners and the Player's Association, those three entities most responsible for this entire steroid mess, will stand idly by. They’ll make no apologies for their own complicit role in this whole shabby fiasco. They’ll launch no investigations into how and where this information is being leaked. They’ll stay quite as baseball’s scapegoat is kicked around again, because after all, that’s what a scapegoat is for.
(Dave Fleming is a writer living in Iowa City. He welcomes comments, questions, and angry rebuttals here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com)