My mild taste of steroids puts game’s drug problems into perspective
The doctor told me he recommended steroids. He is an ear specialist discussing possible treatments for my malfunctioning ear. My other ear still works well and when he mentioned that s-word, it picked it up loud and clear. I immediately thought of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens — Hall of Fame-level ballplayers who are not in the Hall of Fame because of widespread suspicion that they used steroids to enhance their natural talent. I knew what this doctor was proposing was a different treatment for different reasons, but my thoughts were racing.
Perhaps the doctor realized that. Something, at least, prompted him to ask me what I thought. My response was that, inasmuch as he had more medical degrees than anyone else in the room, I would be willing to follow his advice.
He repeated that sword with some emphasis. He thought there was at least a chance that steroids would neutralize my ear affliction and that was well worth a try. He outlined a 10-day plan in which I would take the heaviest doses the first four days, then use the next six days to “taper off.” He said it would be important for me to take the first dose that very day (it was already mid-afternoon), then take subsequent doses daily before lunch.
I took the first pills with my supper that night and the next dose with lunch the following day. At some point in the afternoon I wandered over to my neighborhood gymnasium. I put a ballgame on the television and focused on that as I went about the humdrum of my workout. Stretching…treadmill… free weights…etc.
The humdrum came to an abrupt end shortly after I climbed aboard a weightresistant machine. As I began to exercise I felt as if there was almost no weight at all. I thought I must have carelessly put the pin in the wrong place. I jumped off my seat, ready to correct my error, only discover that there had been no error. The pin was exactly where I had intended to place it. It was the same place where I had placed it three times a week for the past several months, but something was clearly different on this day.
Briefly I wondered if someone had oiled the machine and, if so, I wondered how that could make that much difference. Then the light went off inside my head. I remembered the pills I had been taking. The whole thing took my breath away.
This was a grunt-‘ngroan machine and I had it set on what, for me, was a grunt-‘n-groan weight. At least two days ago it had been a grunt-‘n-groan weight. Now those metal bars in front of me felt like two bars of soap. This particular weight was no challenge at all.
And I had taken two doses of steroids.
Suddenly I wasn’t paying much attention to the television — or, for that matter, to my workout. My thoughts again turned to Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens and probably hundreds of others. If two doses of steroids could make that much difference for an old baseball writer like me, how much difference could a full program of steroids make for a healthy young athlete rounding into his prime?
Once again my mind was racing. My personal medical treatment was teaching me first-hand about one of baseball’s biggest on-going problems.
I thought of how, seemingly every year, a handful of minor leaguers are suspended after testing positive for steroids. Those suspensions get very little attention because the players aren’t known. Invariably, however, the majority of the players suspended come from the Dominican Republic or some other impoverished country.
Now it was easier to understand why that is happening and why it will probably continue to happen.
After all, countless of people from impoverished lands literally risk their lives to reach our country when most of them hope for, at most, employment at our paltry minimum wage. For those few who have a chance to secure the fabulous wealth that comes with being a major league baseball player, steroid use will certainly seem like an acceptable risk.
That’s the world we live in and there is very little Major League Baseball can do about it. The one thing it can do is adopt policies that convince youngsters that steroid use will put their baseball career at risk. They have to make the strongest possible effort to identify violators in entry-level minor leagues and make it clear that repeated violations will result in the player being permanently banned.
Oh, by the way, my 10day program lasted only nine days. At that point it was clear the steroids weren’t going to solve my ear affliction and the doctor told me to throw my remaining pills away. I did exactly that and my mind’s not racing any more.