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Tib · 02-24-2013, 02:03 PM

Chapter 54
Aftermath

Baseball wasn’t the only sport racked by drug controversy in 2011-2012. It happened in basketball, hockey, cycling, soccer, and even professional golf – and it seemed to happen every month of the year without a break. In 2012, organized sports took a huge hit when soccer stars like Ruben Castrejon and Nino Palaguay were caught doping in January. Then in early March defender Johnny Brown came up dirty and cost Chelsea a European Championship. In April it was Scott Allenson, an Australian rugby star. In May it was Vilo Markarukis, the Bosnian Olympic discus silver medalist. In June Brad House had banned mood stabilizers in his system after shooting a 65 during the Wednesday pro-am at The Greenbriar.

In July the Spokane Grizzlies (the Mounties’ AA affiliate) announced that a pitcher named Justin Johnson was suspended for PED use. Less than a month later Johnson was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 22.

Johnson’s death shocked the baseball community. Somehow the stakes had been raised. Over the years the cost of winning had risen with salaries, advertising revenue and television contracts. It figured that the more money was linked to winning the more winning was linked to PEDs --and the more PEDs were linked to winning, the more a positive test blemished your career. For Justin Johnson there was nowhere to go after his suspension. Baseball had no re-entry plan, no post-suspension plan for forgiveness, just a lot of finger pointing by the league at a young man who made a mistake. Only my friend Del Harrison said: “There will come a time when the drugs are out of a suspended player’s bloodstream. We have expensive and complicated ways to determine if the drugs are there, why not use the same technology to clear a suspended player and get him back to doing what he’s supposed to be doing?”

For those of us fortunate enough to live and work in the privileged world of professional sports, these new realities were hard to accept. “I’m not hurting anybody” and “These are not illegal substances” were common quotes from dishonored athletes. The hunt for banned substances created an entirely new category of drugs: performance enhancing substances that were not banned. Players flocked to them as they were discovered, usually through a league drug test. The league banned many soon after they were discovered. As they did, players moved on to the next “flavor of the day”. The cat and mouse game of several years earlier became a lot more contentious as accused players sought to protect the records they were setting. Timelines were questioned. “When I took it, it wasn’t banned” became the excuse. Never mind that it was banned later that week. In such cases the league had no choice but to accept the argument, thus angering fans who could see the forest for the trees.

Messy inquiries and contentious public comments became all too common -- mostly, I think, because players had no way to save face except by denying the allegations and fighting the results with chemistry and testimony of their own. When that happened it became a game of Who Do You Trust? Any case that wasn’t resolved cleanly became a source of dark speculation. Other players, myself included, began testing ourselves far more often than the bargaining agreement called for, just to prove we weren’t on anything. Even then skeptical fans whispered that we were just too smart to be caught.

The game’s historians, usually a quiet group of reasonable men, suddenly became the guardians of legitimacy. In an atmosphere of doubt, fans looked for someone they could trust to uphold the values they revered. For many, the Office of League Statistics (the OLS) became that entity. The fans accepted whatever the OLS accepted because they kept the record books. But the OLS did not have the power to accept or deny a player’s accomplishments; they could only add or remove “recognized statistics” based on a player’s current status. Nevertheless, fans accepted what was in the record books and the OLS kept the record books – and fans knew about the debates that raged within the OLS because of a 2010 book by Mike Domiani called Numbers Game, The Secret Conflicts Among Baseball’s Statisticians.

The book didn’t help the situation, but that wasn’t Domiani’s fault. It did place baseball statisticians center stage in the debates, though, and it was an uncomfortable place for many of them to be. Long accustomed to living in the cool shadows of the game, the bright lights of media attention made household names of a few, and prompted some even to retire – those like the venerable Head Statistician William P. Guest. Perhaps the last great traditionalist, Guest feuded with the press and with forces within the game for the last five years of his distinguished tenure. At his retirement dinner in early 2012, Guest summed up his final years by saying, “Baseball moves now into a new age. No more sun bleached wooden fences. No more DeSoto advertisements. No more woolen uniforms. No more wooden bats. Modern stadiums and modern technologies come with modern problems. As the game is pulled into the technological age, we must be careful to keep the game healthy, to keep its purpose pure. Recent trends may have seemed to weaken it, to question its beauty and cast doubt upon its legitimacy. As we have seen, baseball and its institutions can no longer keep the wolves and vultures at bay. But remember, only the weak are prey for such creatures. Baseball is a game of thoroughbreds and eagles, and not of baser creatures. Keep the game strong and it will survive. It must survive, for it is the greatest game, and the purest reflection of the American spirit.”

At the height of this turmoil, James Jaffe was elected to the Hall of Fame. There was never any doubt that he would be a first time selectee, he was the best shortstop in the game for fifteen years -- and maybe of all time. But his election seemed to be the marking point of a new era. Never tied to PEDs, never to a scandal of any proportion, Jaffe’s straightforward personality and intelligence always seemed to cut through any smaller issues and get right to the heart of the matter. In 1997 he was asked what he took to get so big. He replied, “Iron supplements.” When he was asked what kind, he said, “Two thirty pound barbells.”

Jaffe brought a new kind of commitment to the game, one fueled by resolve, not remuneration. He accepted record setting contracts, but he never seemed too excited about the money. When he signed his last huge contract he said, “I don’t play for dollars, I play for precious metals.” He got those precious metals, too, in the form of Championship rings. And he got his Player of the Year trophies, and his Playoff MVP trophies, and his Comeback Player of the Year trophy in 2006.

Maybe it was because I was a shortstop, but I had to wonder what kind of player would fill the vacuum left by his retirement. Would he understand what Jaffe meant to the game? To history? Would he be influenced by Jaffe’s determination and goal-mindedness? Or would he try to cut corners and dabble in double-speak when he got caught with PEDs? I think it was because of players like James Jaffe that players of today enjoy such big contracts. I wonder, even all these years later, if the younger players know what he did for them, and could still do – if they took to heart what he said and how he played.

Speaking of drug testing, in March Gwen told me she failed a drug test of her own. She was pregnant with our second child.

So I began 2012 on a high note, for sure, hitting .305 through May. But the Comanches didn’t fare so well. We were 10-13 at the end of April, 25-27 at the end of May. In spite of our talent, we couldn’t get any kind of confidence going. It didn’t help that Pat Laubach hurt his rotator cuff for the second time in his career and was out for six of those eight weeks. It also didn’t help that half the team was investigated for PEDs in May. It was like a cloud of doubt was over us, a thousand eyes were on us, and a million fans were against us.

And when you live in Chicago, that’s not going to make things any better.

02-24-2013, 02:03 PM	#778
Tib All Star Reserve Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Paso Robles, CA Posts: 992	Chapter 54 Aftermath Baseball wasn’t the only sport racked by drug controversy in 2011-2012. It happened in basketball, hockey, cycling, soccer, and even professional golf – and it seemed to happen every month of the year without a break. In 2012, organized sports took a huge hit when soccer stars like Ruben Castrejon and Nino Palaguay were caught doping in January. Then in early March defender Johnny Brown came up dirty and cost Chelsea a European Championship. In April it was Scott Allenson, an Australian rugby star. In May it was Vilo Markarukis, the Bosnian Olympic discus silver medalist. In June Brad House had banned mood stabilizers in his system after shooting a 65 during the Wednesday pro-am at The Greenbriar. In July the Spokane Grizzlies (the Mounties’ AA affiliate) announced that a pitcher named Justin Johnson was suspended for PED use. Less than a month later Johnson was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 22. Johnson’s death shocked the baseball community. Somehow the stakes had been raised. Over the years the cost of winning had risen with salaries, advertising revenue and television contracts. It figured that the more money was linked to winning the more winning was linked to PEDs --and the more PEDs were linked to winning, the more a positive test blemished your career. For Justin Johnson there was nowhere to go after his suspension. Baseball had no re-entry plan, no post-suspension plan for forgiveness, just a lot of finger pointing by the league at a young man who made a mistake. Only my friend Del Harrison said: “There will come a time when the drugs are out of a suspended player’s bloodstream. We have expensive and complicated ways to determine if the drugs are there, why not use the same technology to clear a suspended player and get him back to doing what he’s supposed to be doing?” For those of us fortunate enough to live and work in the privileged world of professional sports, these new realities were hard to accept. “I’m not hurting anybody” and “These are not illegal substances” were common quotes from dishonored athletes. The hunt for banned substances created an entirely new category of drugs: performance enhancing substances that were not banned. Players flocked to them as they were discovered, usually through a league drug test. The league banned many soon after they were discovered. As they did, players moved on to the next “flavor of the day”. The cat and mouse game of several years earlier became a lot more contentious as accused players sought to protect the records they were setting. Timelines were questioned. “When I took it, it wasn’t banned” became the excuse. Never mind that it was banned later that week. In such cases the league had no choice but to accept the argument, thus angering fans who could see the forest for the trees. Messy inquiries and contentious public comments became all too common -- mostly, I think, because players had no way to save face except by denying the allegations and fighting the results with chemistry and testimony of their own. When that happened it became a game of Who Do You Trust? Any case that wasn’t resolved cleanly became a source of dark speculation. Other players, myself included, began testing ourselves far more often than the bargaining agreement called for, just to prove we weren’t on anything. Even then skeptical fans whispered that we were just too smart to be caught. The game’s historians, usually a quiet group of reasonable men, suddenly became the guardians of legitimacy. In an atmosphere of doubt, fans looked for someone they could trust to uphold the values they revered. For many, the Office of League Statistics (the OLS) became that entity. The fans accepted whatever the OLS accepted because they kept the record books. But the OLS did not have the power to accept or deny a player’s accomplishments; they could only add or remove “recognized statistics” based on a player’s current status. Nevertheless, fans accepted what was in the record books and the OLS kept the record books – and fans knew about the debates that raged within the OLS because of a 2010 book by Mike Domiani called Numbers Game, The Secret Conflicts Among Baseball’s Statisticians. The book didn’t help the situation, but that wasn’t Domiani’s fault. It did place baseball statisticians center stage in the debates, though, and it was an uncomfortable place for many of them to be. Long accustomed to living in the cool shadows of the game, the bright lights of media attention made household names of a few, and prompted some even to retire – those like the venerable Head Statistician William P. Guest. Perhaps the last great traditionalist, Guest feuded with the press and with forces within the game for the last five years of his distinguished tenure. At his retirement dinner in early 2012, Guest summed up his final years by saying, “Baseball moves now into a new age. No more sun bleached wooden fences. No more DeSoto advertisements. No more woolen uniforms. No more wooden bats. Modern stadiums and modern technologies come with modern problems. As the game is pulled into the technological age, we must be careful to keep the game healthy, to keep its purpose pure. Recent trends may have seemed to weaken it, to question its beauty and cast doubt upon its legitimacy. As we have seen, baseball and its institutions can no longer keep the wolves and vultures at bay. But remember, only the weak are prey for such creatures. Baseball is a game of thoroughbreds and eagles, and not of baser creatures. Keep the game strong and it will survive. It must survive, for it is the greatest game, and the purest reflection of the American spirit.” At the height of this turmoil, James Jaffe was elected to the Hall of Fame. There was never any doubt that he would be a first time selectee, he was the best shortstop in the game for fifteen years -- and maybe of all time. But his election seemed to be the marking point of a new era. Never tied to PEDs, never to a scandal of any proportion, Jaffe’s straightforward personality and intelligence always seemed to cut through any smaller issues and get right to the heart of the matter. In 1997 he was asked what he took to get so big. He replied, “Iron supplements.” When he was asked what kind, he said, “Two thirty pound barbells.” Jaffe brought a new kind of commitment to the game, one fueled by resolve, not remuneration. He accepted record setting contracts, but he never seemed too excited about the money. When he signed his last huge contract he said, “I don’t play for dollars, I play for precious metals.” He got those precious metals, too, in the form of Championship rings. And he got his Player of the Year trophies, and his Playoff MVP trophies, and his Comeback Player of the Year trophy in 2006. Maybe it was because I was a shortstop, but I had to wonder what kind of player would fill the vacuum left by his retirement. Would he understand what Jaffe meant to the game? To history? Would he be influenced by Jaffe’s determination and goal-mindedness? Or would he try to cut corners and dabble in double-speak when he got caught with PEDs? I think it was because of players like James Jaffe that players of today enjoy such big contracts. I wonder, even all these years later, if the younger players know what he did for them, and could still do – if they took to heart what he said and how he played. Speaking of drug testing, in March Gwen told me she failed a drug test of her own. She was pregnant with our second child. So I began 2012 on a high note, for sure, hitting .305 through May. But the Comanches didn’t fare so well. We were 10-13 at the end of April, 25-27 at the end of May. In spite of our talent, we couldn’t get any kind of confidence going. It didn’t help that Pat Laubach hurt his rotator cuff for the second time in his career and was out for six of those eight weeks. It also didn’t help that half the team was investigated for PEDs in May. It was like a cloud of doubt was over us, a thousand eyes were on us, and a million fans were against us. And when you live in Chicago, that’s not going to make things any better. __________________ https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...ad.php?t=64219 Last edited by Tib; 02-24-2013 at 02:42 PM.