America At Large: Whether he was trying to divert attention from his misguided adventures in Iraq or attempting to create a new election issue, the former president of the Texas Rangers startled a joint session of Congress and a nationwide television audience last month when, in the midst of his annual State of the Union address, he made an abrupt left (or was it right?) turn and sailed into what sounded like a direct attack on Barry Bonds.
"To help children make right choices, they need good examples," said George W Bush. "Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example.
"The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message - that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now."
If he hoped to win votes by claiming the moral high ground on the issue he could have saved his breath. A recent poll commissioned by USA Today asked baseball fans whether their interest would be diminished were Major League stars identified as confirmed steroid users. Nearly half of the electorate responded that it would make no difference at all.
Two weeks ago US Attorney General John Ashcroft personally appeared at a grandiose announcement that the Justice Department had obtained a 42-count indictment against BALCO, the California drug lab which ranks as the world's foremost distributor of tetrahydrogestrinone (TGH), the designer steroid which this week proved the undoing of British sprinter Dwain Chambers, and which imperils the participation at least half a dozen of America's Athens Olympic hopefuls.
Four individuals were also indicted in the federal probe, including BALCO founder, CEO, and Bonds nutritionist Victor Conte and Greg Anderson, the San Francisco slugger's "personal trainer" who has for several seasons enjoyed a free run of the Giants' clubhouse as the most prominent member of Bonds's travelling posse.
The names of Bonds, the Yankees' Jason Giambi, and newly-acquired New York outfielder Gary Sheffield all appeared on BALCO's client list obtained when the feds raided the lab, and all three were subpoenaed to testify before the Grand Jury which produced the Conte and Anderson indictments.
Under a newly-adopted scheme in which baseball was supposed to clean up its own mess, all major leaguers were tested for steroids last season. The arrangement was supposed to be that it would be a one-shot deal if fewer than five per cent tested positive.
Neither TGH nor its ancient cousin andro were among the substances tested for, but seven per cent of the players failed the test anyway. In keeping with its agreement with the Players Association, the names of those stupid enough to be caught despite advance warning have been withheld by Major League Baseball.
Significantly, in the first season following mandatory testing, not a single major league player hit as many as 50 home runs last summer, the first time that has happened since 1993. (In a mini-press conference in the Giants' dugout when he reported to spring training in Arizona last week, Bonds, who shattered baseball's single-season record when he hit 73 homers in 2001, offered an explanation which was, to say the least, original: Bonds, who hit 45 last year, claimed the baseballs used in 2003 were for some reason "softer" than in preceding seasons.
When Giambi showed up at the Yankees' complex in Tampa his appearance, if not his chemical composition, had been so visibly altered over the off-season that all three New York tabloids felt obliged to run headlines over pictures of his new body. "Here's the Skinny," trumped the Post. The Daily News described the transformation as "Slim Fast", while Newsday described the first baseman as "The Thin Man". Giambi claimed he had lost approximately 15 lbs from last year's playing weight by "cutting out fast food," thereby shifting the focus from BALCO to McDonald's.
Sheffield, also in a denial mode, offered to urinate on the spot, while Bonds said: "They can test me every day if they choose to," a grandstand claim if ever there was one, since, (a) the Players Association wouldn't allow it, and, (b) said testing wouldn't include Andro, THG, or whatever "nutritional supplement" BALCO might have cooked up over the winter in its ever-vigilant attempt to stay one step ahead of the law.
Suffice it to say the questions being asked at major league camps right now will continue to be asked all season, particularly should Bonds, deprived of his nutritionist, and Giambi, deprived of his Big Macs, experience significant statistical free-falls.
In Mesa, Arizona, Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker compared the current inquisition to "McCarthyism". Baker was for 10 seasons Bonds's manager in San Francisco, and now manages Sammy Sosa, who, while not connected to the BALCO probe, continues to be regarded with suspicion. (Sosa, who was caught red-handed using a doctored bat last summer, is at the very least a confirmed cheat.)
At his initial meeting with the press a few days ago, Baker pleaded ignorance. Straining credulity, he said he'd never seen evidence of steroid use among any of his players and that, moreover, "I wouldn't know what somebody using steroids even looks like."
We could help him a bit with that one. He'd look a lot like Barry Bonds.
