MLB faces nightmare day

Major League Baseball faced its worst nightmare Thursday. After a year in which they made great strides in reacquiring many of the fans it lost in 1994, baseball now has to deal with its greatest challenge ever.

The year 2004, by most accounts, was a banner year for baseball. Washington finally was awarded the Expos, the regular season had pennant races right until the last weekend of the year, the playoffs were as exciting as they've been in recent memory and the Red Sox had the greatest comeback in team sports history and won their first World Series in 86 years. However, the year ended badly with the leaked grand jury testimony of Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, allegedly implicating that both took performance-enhancing steroids. Then came former slugger, and now social outcast, Jose Canseco's book claiming a number of players, including Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, took steroids.

All spring, players on every team have been bombarded with questions about steroids. Even after MLB re-opened the current collective bargaining agreement and got the player's union to agree to more stringent testing standards, people - now including a number of U.S. congressmen - have claimed the standards are still not stringent enough.

Thursday was a day Major League Baseball hoped would never come. First most of the players "respectfully declined" invitations to attend the hearing and then the league and the player's union attempted to fight the subpoenas presented to the players. The hearings became a public spectacle - one which was mostly spent bashing the game and some of its current and former stars.

Among those former stars was former single season home run king Mark McGwire. McGwire, along with fellow testifier Sammy Sosa, captured the nation's heart in 1998 with the chase of Roger Maris' single season home run record. McGwire handled the pressures and constant media attention gracefully that season - embracing not only Maris' family, but also his competitor Sosa. He became one of the game's brightest and most popular stars - he essentially was the anti-Barry Bonds. However, the Daily News story this past weekend implicating McGwire of allegedly taking steroids, the allegations made by Canseco in his book and his non-denial denial at the hearing Thursday have all put McGwire in a negative light, deserved or undeserved.

"I will use whatever influence and popularity that I have to discourage young athletes from taking any drug that is not recommended by a doctor," McGwire said. "What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and teammates."

When pressed, McGwire refused to answer questions about whether he ever used steroids, citing his lawyer's advice not to say anything incriminating about himself.

McGwire was not the only players panel member to take a shot at their former colleague Canseco. Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who has long been an advocate of steroid testing, took perhaps the most obvious shot at Canseco.

"The allegations made in that book, the attempts to smear the names of players both past and present, having been made by one who for years vehemently denied steroid use, should be seen for what they are: an attempt to make money at the expense of others," Schilling said.

Canseco certainly was an unpopular figure at the hearings. The Associated Press reported that during breaks in the hearings Canseco had to be placed in an entirely different room than the rest of the members of players panel and he was placed at the very end of the table. Canseco also probably rankled congressional leaders by declaring his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination after his request for immunity was denied earlier this week.

However, one of the players present at the panel forcefully denied using steroids, making himself the player who perhaps came out of this better than he was going in.

Palmeiro, who has denied Canseco's claims all along, forcefully denied the allegations, pointing his finger and looking directly into the camera. It is true that he was the player most believed was innocent anyways, but his inspired performance at the hearings helped further show him in a positive light.

The hearing represents another landmark day in baseball history - unfortunately it is a sad landmark. The fact the steroid issue came to the point where Congress felt it had sufficient grounds to step in is an indictment against both the league and player's union. At a time of renaissance for the game, the last thing it needed was to be publicly accosted by Congress. Let's not forget what the politicians get out of this either - they got an easy target which they could go after and then return to their constituents and claim they did what was in their best interests. However, the issue was important for lawmakers to hear because it transcends major league ballparks - it extends to high schools, colleges and who knows where.

"Players that are guilty of taking steroids are not only cheaters, you are cowards ...," said Donald Hooton of Texas, who lost his son to suicide after the high school baseball player used steroids. "Show our kids that you're man enough to face authority, tell the truth and faces the consequences. Instead, you hide behind the skirts of your union and with the help of management and your lawyers you've made every effort to resist facing the public [Thursday]."

Commissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr can defend their "historic" steroid policy all they want. However, at the end of the day it won't do them any good if America, and its leaders, believe it is nothing but a farce.

- Information from the Associated Press contributed to this column

andrew.silva@uconn.edu