Major League Baseball and Drugs

Just as we've always known that powerful men get sexual favors from women that other men don't, we know that sports fans don't pay money to watch people play who are "average."

Clinton was not the first head of state to get head in the cloakroom. He's just the first one the media told us about. Professional athletes know that enhanced performance gets bigger and better endorsements and makes the difference between a regular career and that of a Star. Ask anyone.

I'm a rabid baseball fan, and I'm tired of people pretending to be surprised and disappointed that players take drugs to enhance their performance.

Remember the films Wag the Dog and Syriana? Remember the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995?

Let me refresh your memory.

The players walked out Aug. 12, 1994. The rest of the season, including the World Series, was called off Sept 14. It was the eighth work stoppage in baseball history.

The reason was that the owners wanted a salary cap, and the players were adamant they would never accept that. The dispute was played out with a backdrop of years of hostility and mistrust between the two sides.

On December 14, labor talks headed by a federal mediator broke down. The next day, the owners approved a salary cap plan by a vote of 25-3, but agreed to delay implementing it so that another round of talks with the players could be held. On December 23, with negotiations at a standstill, the owners unilaterally implemented a salary cap.

When the time came for spring training to begin, owners, managers, and players had decisions to make. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who was then acting commissioner, said, "We are committed to playing the 1995 season and will do so with the best players willing to play." The offer made to the replacement players was an insult, reportedly $5,000 for reporting to spring training and another $5,000 if they made the Opening Day roster.

Some managers cancelled spring training in support of the players. The players' union announced that it would not settle the strike if replacement players were used in regular season games, and if results were not voided. On April 28, the Ontario Labor Board announced that replacement umpires would not be allowed to work Blue Jays home games.

The strike lasted 234 days, dragging into the next spring. Baseball became the first sport in history to lose its postseason to a labor dispute.

The cost on the field: Besides the obvious financial losses, baseball also ruined a season of fascinating possibility. The unsung Montreal Expos were six games ahead in first place in the National League East. San Diego's Tony Gwynn had a batting average of .394, making him a contender to become the first .400 hitter in 43 years. San Francisco's Matt Williams had 43 home runs and was on pace to hit 61, challenging Roger Maris' record four years before Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did so.

The strike ended when a federal judge issued an injunction against the owners. On April 25, 1995, when the season resumed under the conditions of the expired contract, the fans were angry. They felt they had been robbed, and they HAD.

On Opening Day in 1995, three men, who were each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word "Greed," leaped onto the field at Shea Stadium and tossed more than $150 in $1 bills at players. In Cincinnati, one fan paid a plane to fly over Riverfront Stadium that dragged a sign reading "Players and Owners - To Hell With You!"

Two World Wars, the Depression, earthquakes, and other disasters could not cancel a World Series, but financial issues could and did.

The owners and players of Major League Baseball were made painfully aware of the fact that they needed the fans, that without fans they might as well take their balls and go home.

This brought the owners to find a hook to bring fans back to a positive viewpoint of the game: Cal Ripken, Jr. symbol of old-school baseball, who hadn't been absent a day, and who had loyally played for the same team even with the opportunity for free agency, became the first public attempt at baseball healing its relationship with America's fans.

Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. played his 2,131st consecutive game, September 6, 1995. He broke Lou Gehrig's 56-year-old record. That evening is generally considered the beginning of baseball's "rebirth."

MLB made this highly publicized streak into the first high-profile moment in baseball following the strike, and his record-setting evening was the first time baseball regained the nation's attention.

The powers behind the game began to carefully reconstruct the Major League Baseball image, making certain that we, the fans, were aware of every good deed performed by any player, manager, or owner. It was a masterful job.

By 1998, in what many consider one of the game's greatest seasons. St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa engaged in a home run race for the ages. With both rapidly approaching Roger Maris's record of 61 home runs (set in 1961), seemingly the entire nation watched as the two power hitters raced to be the first to break the record. McGwire reached 62 first on September 8, 1998, with Sosa also eclipsing it later. Sosa finished with 66 home runs, just behind McGwire's unheard-of 70.

Wasn't it exciting to see Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa going head to head that year? Those of us who watched this play out will never forget it.

But looking back over that time with new eyes, I can see that the moneymen behind baseball were doing what politicians have been doing for years. Brainwashing us into giving up votes and our money.

In my mind's eye, I can visualize the scene in the Major League Baseball owner's meeting in 1996. I can see them agreeing that something had to be done to get the fans to return to the stadiums across the United States and Canada. I can see them passing the word down the food chain until their message reached the players:

"Get bigger, get better or you're outta here! Work sick! Work hurt! Or don't work! Got some pain? So what! We're paying you big bucks, so take the shots and get on with it!"

Barry Bonds appears to be the scapegoat this time. Although Bonds has never failed a drug test, despite being tested by Major League Baseball in 2003, 2004 and 2005, the media will not give up. The man has had a glorious career and has stood up to the bullies of the Fourth Estate for a long time, but I believe they've finally gotten to him.

In his last years as a professional athlete, poised to break Hank Aaron's home run record, a disheartened Barry Bonds' home run hitting has slowed to a crawl. There's nothing wrong with his bat, it's his heart that's broken.

Wag the Dog, Syriana, the two Wars in Iraq, a stolen Presidency:

How hard is it to imagine Major League Baseball owners handing the first syringes to their players?