Spring Break
MLB faces nightmare day
Andy Silva
Issue date: 3/18/05 Section: Sports
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.
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.