The most recent player to fall in Major League Baseball’s latest laser surgery investigation is one of the biggest: Atlanta Braves All-Star second baseman Dan Uggla.
The three-time All-Star slugger was again leading major league second basemen in homeruns when it was discovered that he had recently gone to a clinic to have corrective laser surgery performed to improve his vision. As a first time offender of the Laser-Danger-Laws passed in 2004, Uggla will have to play the thirty-six games left in the regular season with a patch over his dominant eye.
Reactions around the league were mixed. Oakland infielder Eric Sogard, who wears glasses on the field, was candid in his criticism of Uggla: "As a sight-challenged player who has used glasses throughout my professional career, I take great offense that Uggla would resort to laser surgery to give him the eyesight of Ted Williams. It reduces my own accomplishments. Further, it sends the message that wearing glasses is somehow a bad thing that needs correcting. I feel stigmatized by my stigmatisms."
Other players were concerned by the potential ramifications that Uggla’s decision will have on future generations. Rajai Davis, an outfielder for the Blue Jays, worried that teenaged players hoping to make the majors might have the surgery performed at a younger age. Major League baseball wouldn’t know about it, but there would be an elevated risk for younger individuals, whose eyes were still developing. "You’re incentivizing children to take risks with their eye-sight, on the promise of a big league career. That’s troubling."
Albert Pujols, a Hall-of-Famer, put the debate in a historical context. "Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx didn’t have the chance to fix their eyeballs with lasers. Is it fair for me, as a first-baseman, to give myself an advantage of perfect eyesight, just because the technology now exists?"
When asked about the revelation, Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster warned that if Uggla ever stepped into the box against him, he better not dig in. "I’ll be throwing at him, absolutely. I don’t care what the context of the game is: whether he’s hitting at the top of the inning, or whether the game matters in a tight pennant race. It’s a Canada thing, a hockey thing. We like to settle things man-to-man. And nothing is more manly than throwing a 95-mph fastball at a person, from a distance far enough to insure that my catcher will stop the other guy if he charges the mound." Dempster added that it might take three or four pitches for him to actually hit Uggla.
Josh Johnson, a then-teammate of Uggla’s who finished fourth in the 2003 NL Rookie-of-the Year vote, said that he should be moved up to third in the ROY ballot. "Everything Dan has done is now suspect."
At least one player voiced a defense of Uggla. "If you were in his position, you’d do the same thing," he said, under the condition of anonymity. "And it’s a much more widespread problem than people realize. How many players have glasses these days? Five? Seven? Here’s some news: it isn’t because they’re wearing contact lenses."
Commissioner Bud Selig, in a statement to the media, made it clear that Major League Baseball would pursue laser-surgery violators aggressively. "Major League Baseball does not abide players who cheat by getting dangerous elective surgeries on their eyeballs. With a laser of justice we will seek these players out and hold them accountable for their actions. If I have to put eye-patches on every player in the majors, I’ll do it."
Selig went on: "This is my legacy. This and the lock-out of 1994, and that lost World Series. And the contraction of baseball in Montreal, and the addition of the Wild Cards and the Crazy Cards and the This-Is-Getting-Like-the-NBA-Cards. And that All-Star game that ended in a tie. My legacy."
The Commissioner added: "At least the eye-patches will make the Pirates look more authentic. Who ever heard of pirates on the Alleghany River?"
There are accusations from Uggla’s camp that the Braves actually urged Uggla to have the surgery, and that the organization and the Commissioner’s office are currently aligned in trying to get Uggla out of the game. Uggla is owed some $26 million over the next two years, and the Braves don’t want to pay that much money for a one-eyed second-baseman. "They gave me the time off," Uggla said in an interview. "They said they’d give Goose (rookie Philip Gosselin) a chance to play."
The Braves have an additional incentive to keep Uggla off the field: the slugger, who has 230 career homeruns, has bonuses in his contract that call for $2 million every time he moves up the all-time HR list for second basemen. Lou Whittaker (244) is within reach this year, and there is a good chance that Uggla could pass Bret Boone (252), Joe Gordon (253), and Joe Morgan (268) next year. Ryne Sandberg (282), Craig Biggio (291), and even Rogers Hornsby (301) are possible for a player who has routinely hit 30 homerun each year. These escalators limit the amount that the Braves can pay to free agents and drafted players, and they put the Braves organization in danger of crossing the luxury tax threshold.
The Braves have rejected any notion of a conspiracy, stating that they want Uggla in their lineup, and don’t regret their decision to sign the aging Uggla to a long-term contract with easy incentives. "One eye or two, we want Uggla on the field," Braves owner John Schuerholz said. "I can’t state that clearly enough. Unless there is any possible way to void his contract, or at least get insurance to kick in some portion to cover it. Because we’re working on extending Kimbrel, and we could use that cash."
When asked about the possibility of collusion, Selig said: "To suggest that I, as acting Commissioner, would collude with owners to deny players salary is an accusation without any merit. I haven’t participated in collusion since the mid-1980’s. And sure, maybe I dabbled a bit in the 90’s. But that was a weird time for all of us."
Baseball fans have been loudly intolerant of the rise in players having elective surgeries to get better at baseball. In a recent poll on ESPN, 89% of fans suggested that the present eye-patch punishment wasn’t enough, and that Major League Baseball should ban all players who are caught having had laser surgery immediately. This comes at a time when the use of laser surgery is generally on the rise in the U.S. Thousands of Americans have had their eyesight improved by the surgery, and the rate of health risks has declined sharply. "But we have to hold baseball players to a higher standard," one fan argued, standing in the beer line under Fenway Park. "They get paid a lot to be role models. Leave lasers for the common folk."
This higher standard is reflected in the results of the recent Hall-of-Fame elections: Larry Walker and Jeff Bagwell, two players known to have had laser eye surgery during their careers, went unelected this year, despite their overwhelming credentials. There has been a campaign to have Wade Boggs, a player who received laser surgery prior to Major League Baseball instituting a ban on the surgery, retroactively removed from the Hall-of-Fame.
Greg Maddux, who will appear on next year’s ballot, is an interesting test-case for how laser-players will be judged in the future: Maddux is the first pitcher of note to have had laser surgery, and a player whose career, prior to the revelation of him having laser surgery in 1999, seemed beyond reproach. Now Cooperstown is facing the prospect of having no plaque memorializing a player with 355 career victories and four Cy Young awards.
Indeed, the laser controversy is only a portion of what concerns baseball. A source within the Commissioner’s Office has confirmed that Major League baseball is investigating a wide range of surgical enhancements, some of which aren’t covered in the current collective agreement between players and owners. One prominent pitcher in Houston said: "I’ve heard that pitchers can go to the D.R. and have tendons taken from one arm and reattached in the other. It’s called Juan Marichal surgery. The rumor is it’ll let a pitcher go fifteen, sixteen innings in a game."
A final player interviewed hinted that this story wasn’t close to being over. Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez who has emerged as a rational voice of restraint in a conversation that has frequently edged towards opposing poles, stated: "If you think lasers are the end of it, you aren’t paying attention. Lasers are just the tip of the iceberg. There are things called nanorobots that are small enough to swim in your blood stream. They’re going to use them to hunt out cancer cells and stuff. If you think lasers are impressive, just think about the ethical questions that will come when we all have invisible robots swimming in our blood."
Asked whether nanorobots would someday prove better at aiding players than the current drug policy that controls and moderates the use of chemical medical enhancements such as steroids and hormone therapies, Rodriguez couldn’t say.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.