Congress Throwing A High Hard One

As you well know Congress is getting involved with performance-enhancing drugs and professional sports leagues, especially Major League Baseball. Why do they do that? Don't they have better things to do? There are "major league" problems such as the war, health care, New Orleans, etc. that deserve more attention than some juiced athletes, right? Wrong. Major League Baseball has an antitrust deal with the government because it is a business that operates across state borders, engaging in interstate commerce. That is a big deal to the government. We're not saying that this issue is more important than the above problems, but it does deserve the government's attention. Below is an excerpt from The Cincinnati Enquirer written by Ray Cooklis in March of 2005. The entire article is linked below.

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/econ352jpw/readme/Print%20-%20What%20if%20baseball%20lost%20antitrust%20deal.htm

"That baseball enjoys the exemption at all is a legal anomaly. In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that baseball was not involved in interstate commerce, so it was exempt from antitrust laws. Later the court decided that maybe baseball was interstate commerce, but that antitrust laws weren't written for that kind of business. In 1972, the court said the exemption was wrong but upheld it anyway, leaving it up to Congress to fix it - which it hasn't done yet. Thus the thinly disguised threat behind Thursday's steroids hearing.

Steroids have nothing to do with the antitrust exemption per se, although many argue the exemption has institutionalized an arrogance in baseball that allowed the performance-enhancing drug problem to grow in the past decade. 'Maybe Congress is at fault for sending the message that the antitrust exemption is also a public accountability exemption,' Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Thursday.

And maybe this is Congress' chance to set it right by forcing MLB to clean house. After all, steroids do matter.

Their users gain an unfair strength advantage, tilting the playing field and tainting the records they set. The steroid-induced cloud may be the biggest challenge to integrity of the game and its records since the Black Sox gambling scandal in 1919. On the human level, steroids are known to cause numerous, devastating health problems for their users.

'A pyramid of steroid use'

But most of all, steroid use at the Major League level creates pressure on players at lower levels to shoot up in order to compete. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 500,000 students now in U.S. high schools have tried steroids - triple the number 10 years ago. Only 56 percent of teens believe steroids are harmful, compared with 71 percent in 1992.

'There is a pyramid of steroid use in our society, and the owners and players are at the top of that pyramid,' Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said.

Fans aren't blameless. Their addiction to baseball's ultimate drug - the home run - has made it easy for Major League Baseball to let the steroid abuse continue. In opinion polls, fans now say overwhelmingly that if players are proven to have used steroids, their records should be stricken.

'But if Barry Bonds attracts record crowds this summer chasing the home run record, that's going to send a completely different signal,' Johnson said. Of course, that depends on how well the San Francisco slugger comes back from Thursday's knee surgery, which could sideline Bonds until well after the season starts.

So it's up to Congress - which is why Thursday's hearing, while certainly an exercise in political grandstanding, was important."

The reason WRAS brings this up is the talking heads on television and the mouthpieces on radio are constantly saying that Congress shouldn't be involved in this, including "legal analysts" on shows in Birmingham saying the same and they are falsely leading citizens to turn away from this issue and not care what happens one way or the other. While we respect the expertise of these people, they couldn't be more wrong. ESPN is leading the way in this, with many of their analysts saying this isn't important enough for Congress' attention. All the while showing the Congressional hearings live on their network and generating ad revenue no doubt. Thank goodness for critical thinkers like The Washington Post and Pardon the Interruption's Michael Wilbon.

Just because sports is a release and entertainment for millions of Americans doesn't mean they are above the law. And because sports is important to millions of people and because billions of dollars are spent on sports each year, integrity, honesty and a level playing field should be important to Congress and sports has a whole should be held accountable for their actions. If they weren't, Congress WOULD NOT be doing their job.