Major-league baseball has had the misfortune (self-imposed and otherwise) to suffer eruptions of bad publicity during or immediately after the World Series. This year appears to be no exception, as the likely NL MVP and the starting first baseman for the AL pennant winners have both been subpoenaed to appear before a US grand jury. The investigation in question relates to a California company called Balco Laboratories and a product it makes called tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), an apparently "invisible steroid" that the US Anti-Doping Agency didn't even know existed until a syringeful of it showed up at their headquarters. The rumblings are that by the time this thing is over, it's going to make the Ben Johnson scandal and the Dubin Inquiry look like a day at the beach.


In addition to several world-class sprinters and top NFL players (apparently including 'roid rage poster boy Bill Romanowski), Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi will be called to testify as well. I'm actually a little surprised that these two names were mentioned: Giambi is not exactly known for his rippling physique, and Bonds is not one of these impossible-muscles guys, although his two back-to-back monster home run seasons caused a lot of eyebrows to rise. Jason says he was merely on a tour of their factory, while Barry, well, he doesn't normally chat much with sportswriters anyway. So there's at least a chance that these subpoenas are publicity stunts as much as anything else. But baseball doesn't ban most steroids, of course, other than the ones that kill Oriole pitching prospects, so we can't call steroids or nutritional supplements "cheating" in the baseball sense (call it the McGwire Rule). But most people would agree that if chemically increasing a baseball player's strength and muscle mass isn't cheating in the technical sense, it undeniably leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

The question, of course, is whether anything will really change after this investigation. The odds that Carl Lewis, to pick a name entirely at random, will have his medals and records retroactively erased are about equal to the odds that JP Ricciardi will sign Tony Womack to a long-term deal. The double standards at work here, especially from organizations as odious as the US Olympic Committee and Fox Sports, will ensure that nothing detracts from the image and strength of American athletics, no matter what.

The other question is whether anyone will care. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's become so jaded by "nutritional supplements" and doping accusations that I barely care anymore whether an athlete "cheated" to win. Ben Johnson was to athletic sportsmanship as Bill Clinton was to presidential character: the astoundingly blatant exception that just pushed the envelope of acceptable conduct further out. Can anyone remember the last time any athlete (golf excluded) undercut their own chances of victory in order to comply with sportsmanship, let along something as quaint as the rules? Or put differently, how did you react the last time Vernon Wells successfully trapped a shallow fly ball and it was ruled an out?

That last point is the real stickler. If the paying public and sports fans really hated athletes who bent or broke the rules, including chemically enhancing their performances, we'd do something about it. But we don't, because by and large we're happy if our favourite athlete/team/country succeeds, regardless of the means by which that success is achieved. Athletes, unsurprisingly, take their cue from us and from leagues and organizations that strain their neck looking the other way. So I don't fully blame athletes who dope up or otherwise seek unfair advantages -- they're only doing what we indirectly tell them we want them to do.