Hank Steinbrenner Has a Point

Hank Steinbrenner, the senior vice-president of the New York Yankees, made a comment that was the talk of all of the sports radio shows throughout the week. In addressing the issue of steroids and baseball, Steinbrenner had this to say:

"I don't like baseball being singled out... Everybody that knows sports knows football is tailor-made for performance-enhancing drugs. I don't know how they managed to skate by. It irritates me. Don't tell me it's not more prevalent. The number in football is at least twice as many. Look at the speed and size of those players."

Anybody who is a fan of sports has to give Hank's assessment of the steroids situation in spots some credit. The fact of the matter is, that most intelligent people would come to the conclusion that there are more people in football using performance enhancing drugs than in baseball. For starters, football is a much more physical sport. Most players in baseball are the equivalence of a quarterback in football when you're talking about athleticism, and the quarterback is the least athletic player on the field. Secondly, just look at the NFL players. They are stronger, faster, and most noticeably, bigger than players in football. Not only does that suggest more prevalent use, but it suggest longer roots in steroids.

So while Steinbrenner's assessment has merit at face value, he is apparently failing to realize why baseball is getting slapped in the face when it comes to steroids. It really has nothing to do with performance enhancing drugs being more prevalent in baseball, because that really has not been the case in terms of the numbers of people who have been caught. The reason for baseball having undergone so much scrutiny is because they have given the public the illusion of impropriety. Leaders in baseball, like Bud Selig, the owners, and Donlad Fehr, were severely slow in instituting testing into the game of baseball. In fact, they pretty much had to be forced to do it before a Congressional hearing. Football on the other hand, cleaned it's own house. They established a testing program without outside forces weighing on them, and they started it in 1990, as opposed to just a few years ago.

Thus, the NFL's tendency to "get off Scott-free" on issues of performance enhancing drugs is, well, deserved. Baseball does not have that privilege, because for so many years, owners profited from the use of performance enhancing drugs without even having so much as the appearance of trying to put an end to it. And that, Hank, is why baseball is being singled out.