A Sport's Faustian Bargain

The American pastime has taken another devastating blow with the revelation of steroid use by New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, the supposedly clean hitting machine who was counted on to reclaim the sport's revered career home run record from surly alleged cheater Barry Bonds.

Rodriguez at least admits to past transgressions, skipping the evasions of such highly suspected fellow superstars as Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. But this may not reflect strength of character so much as the awareness that he probably would be forced by Congress to repeat his denials under oath and risk facing perjury inquiries like Bonds and Clemens.

However, it's time that someone besides players faced tough questions under oath. Our list starts with Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. The fact is, the cheaters are only a symptom of baseball's core problem: the refusal of Selig, team owners and the players union to do anything to stop the steroid invasion, which began in the mid-1990s.

Instead, they all welcomed the fan-pleasing, money-generating home run barrage by players mysteriously fortified with 25 pounds of new muscle.

After the 1994 season was canceled at its midpoint due to labor strife, the sport was reeling. Then it was steroids to the rescue. Baseball only fully recovered in 1998, during McGwire's and Sosa's epic battle to set a new single-season home run record.

Selig led the cheering. Three years later, when Bonds broke McGwire's mark, the commissioner was nowhere to be found. Bonds' feats were simply too extraordinary — and his physical transformation too extreme — for the commissioner to pretend everything was on the up and up.

Still, Selig did nothing. It was not until Congress shamed baseball into action in 2005 that the sport finally took steroids seriously.

So while we encourage fans to feel outraged and betrayed as still more stars are revealed as cheats in coming weeks and months, they should keep things in perspective. By looking the other way when steroids took over his sport, Selig effectively gave players a huge financial incentive to cheat.

And they did. Boy, they did.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

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