By GARY SHELTON, Times Sports Columnist
Published November 18, 2005
Bully that it is, steroids is going to muscle most of the headlines out of baseball's new drug policy.
After all, here in witch-hunting season, 'roids are all the rage. Congressmen are talking about them. Ballplayers are talking about them. Except for Mark McGwire and the person in charge of Rafael Palmeiro's B-12 shot, everybody is talking about them.
In baseball, steroids have become the fashionable outrage. Steroids are about big names with comic book-sized muscles hitting long balls, and in the moral indignation of the moment, have become the cheat of choice.
Meanwhile, in the small print, baseball has done something more important. It has gone after the greenies, too.
And the next sight you see might be the groundskeeper waking up the third baseman during the seventh-inning stretch.
When baseball commissioner Bud Selig's new drug policy was announced this week, the inclusion of amphetamines seemed like something of an afterthought, little more than the last sock you pick up from the floor. It wasn't. It was baseball finally spilling the beans, and really, isn't it about time?
Amphetamines are a bigger problem than steroids. They are a greater danger. And, yes, the ban against them is going to have more of an affect.
Here's a thought gone wild: Maybe the public should pay more attention.
It hasn't happened. Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti talk about steroids, and Tony Gwynn and David Wells talk about amphetamines, and which debate do you follow? Has Congress had a special put-the-poor-on-hold session to lob softball questions at stars to ask about the use of greenies? Has anyone challenged Pete Rose's records in the name of amphetamines the way they have challenged McGwire's over the accusations of steroids?
Nope. It isn't as sexy. It doesn't sound as serious. You can't measure the abuse by the size of a biceps or the frequency of a home run.
All you can say about amphetamine use is that it is as common as a fungo bat and, pretty much, is accepted as easily.
Two years ago, Gwynn suggested that as many as 50 percent of position players used amphetamines to get ready for games. Chad Curtis, the former Yankees outfielder, says the number is 85 percent. Caminiti said there were only one or two players per team who didn't take them, who "played naked."
Day games after night games. West Coast games after East Coast games. Stadium lights after hangovers. There are a lot of reasons players say they "bean up" before games for that three-hour burst of energy and focus. Some of them, the stories go, would rather play without pants.
"Guys feel like steroids are cheating and greenies aren't," Gwynn told the New York Times.
And there's part of the problem. Even as steroid usage became rampant, the abusers knew enough to hide it. Rules or not, they knew they were cheating the game.
Even though amphetamines are illegal without a prescription, the situation is different. Players have openly joked about them for years. Back in 1969, Jim Bouton filled Ball Four with one-liners about greenies kicking in. Tug McGraw and Bill Lee wrote about them. Dwight Gooden and Wells, too. Rose admitted taking them. A court case showed the '79 Pirates used them heavily.
Amphetamines are often described as "baseball's dirty secret," but really, they haven't been secret at all. They've merely been tolerated. There has been a general indifference as to their use, as if amphetamines are somewhere between taking two Advil and having a strong cup of coffee.
The NFL tests for amphetamines, as do the NBA and the NHL and the Olympics. Baseball never has. In baseball, it often has been a bigger disgrace for a player not to take amphetamines than to take them, and sometimes, it seems the key statistic might not be a batting average but a dosage. Turns out, this might be real Green Monster in the game.
For baseball, the challenge now is to change the culture. Amphetamines are dangerous. They drive up blood pressure. They can cause heart attacks. They can damage livers and kidneys.
"They can stone-cold kill you," Dr. Charles Yesalis of Penn State told the Kansas City Star. "You can't overdose from anabolic steroids."
Amphetamines also can be addictive. They can lead to depression. There is the threat of a cycle in which a player will still feel their affects into the wee hours, where he might turn to drink before he can sleep.
Given all of that, how successfully a sport can withdraw will be seen. Will the game look slower, more sluggish? Will we see more players taking more nights off? Will there be fewer infielders with the eyes of overactive Chihuahuas?
Consider this: If you run a team, does this affect the players you are willing to trade or the ones you are willing to accept? Now that baseball is trying to get along without Cork 'n Beans, who knows what will happen.
With its history, it is easy to be suspicious of those who run the game. Baseball moves too slowly when it comes to addressing its ills, and usually, it does not go far enough. Even now, you can wonder if Selig was grandstanding to keep Congress at bay or if he included amphetamines to lessen the outcry for expunging records because of steroids or about the integrity of who is tested and when.
Bully for Selig for a policy that admitted this much: Yes, there is a problem and yes, amphetamines are cheating. They are another attempt at attaining a chemical edge. If a player's speed isn't natural, then it has no place in the game.
And for all of those sleepy-eyed players who are concerned about losing their fuel?
