They’re two of baseball’s nice guys, which makes you want to believe them. Rafael Palmeiro, a superstar slugger for the Baltimore Orioles, is known for his durability and humility. Ryan Franklin, though he has lost more games than he’s won as a pitcher for the Mariners, is a quiet player who has made the most of less-than-superstar talent.
Both were suspended for 10 games this week for violating Major League Baseball’s steroids policy. Both tested positive earlier in the season, and were ordered to the sidelines after exhausting an appeals process.
Both claim they never knowingly took such drugs.
Palmeiro, who was accused of steroid use in a book written by former teammate and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco, vehemently denied the charge in testimony before Congress in March. The day his suspension was announced, Palmeiro hinted that there must have been steroids in an over-the-counter supplement he had taken. Franklin suggested the same thing may have happened to him, insisting that he would never do such a thing.
Much as we’d like to believe that, medical experts doubt such claims. Indeed, they’ve been used again and again by athletes who get caught trying to enhance their performance this way.
Whatever the final disposition of these two cases, the spotlight is again on the use of illegal doping in sports, and it’s shining squarely on America’s pastime. The embarrassing glare won’t fade until the sport puts serious teeth into its anti-drug rhetoric by establishing penalties that fit the crime.
Exposing the eight major leaguers who have tested positive this year to public scrutiny and embarrassment may provide some deterrent, but the 10-game suspension each player received is a joke. Using steroids is cheating, and it’s dangerous – to the player and to the youngsters who emulate their heroes. Allegations of wide steroid use, which now appear to be well-founded, have stripped integrity from the baseball record book’s more recent entries.
If the players union continues to resist stronger penalties, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig should use his “best interests of baseball” power to implement them unilaterally. Selig favors a 50-game suspension for a first positive test, 100 games for a second, and a lifetime ban for a third. That’s still less than the World Anti-Doping Agency standard of two years for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second.
The National Football League is no better than baseball in this regard. The first three steroid violations in the NFL bring suspensions of just four games, six games and a full season. That’s far too light, especially considering the NFL’s dark history of steroid abuse.
For their part, individual players should follow the advice of Franklin and teammate Jamal Strong, who tested positive during spring training. “Don’t take anything on your own, not a vitamin – nothing!” Strong said Tuesday. “It’s your career in the balance.”
From this point on, ignorance won’t be even slightly believable as an excuse.
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