Home > Opinion > No need for congressional involvement in baseball
No need for congressional involvement in baseball
BY NICK EMANUEL
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
iISSUE: 78/23
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ever since Jose Canseco told the press and wrote a book about his steroid use, the national spotlight on steroid use in baseball has dramatically risen. It has become such a hot topic over recent years that even Congress has stepped in and has started to put some alleged steroid users on the stand. This is the same Congress that is supposed to be passing laws, shaping our country’s foreign policies and deciding how the country should spend its money responsibly. But, it seems ever since the preliminary steroid hearings in 2005, Congress has been mostly focused on bringing more players in to testify about their knowledge of steroid use in baseball, not on larger and probably more important issues facing the nation.
Most recently, Roger Clemens has been in the spotlight of the current congressional hearings. Clemens has spent many hours before Congress addressing questions about his alleged use of steroids. Aren’t there more pressing issues in the world other than whether or not Clemens used steroids? Is it really necessary for Congress to spend all this time asking a man about allegations, not actual facts, of his steroid use? Aren’t we involved in some war in Iraq?
Congress is a part of the federal government, not a part of Major League Baseball. Leave the steroid allegations to Commissioner Bud Selig and his team of lawyers and other baseball officials. It’s obvious that a good number, if not most, of baseball players have used steroids or some other performance-enhancing drug similar to steroids. Barry Bonds jumped from hitting 34 home runs is 1999 to hitting 73 in 2001, according to mlb.com. If Selig can’t figure out that those numbers are an indication of possible steroid use, then he needs to give up his Commissioner title and get a new job. Steroids are so common in baseball that even mediocre players have used them, such as former Minnesota Twins second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, who, despite using steroids, according to the Mitchell Report, got worse as his career progressed.
You can’t deny the fact that most players have used or still use steroids. Arguing that players don’t use steroids would be like arguing that professional wrestling isn’t fixed. Everybody assumes it, but nobody, except Congress apparently, is terribly concerned with it. I think that Selig needs to step in and take control of his league and leave the government out of it. They have better things to do. There needs to be a standard set; either you drug test and suspend every steroids user, or you just let whoever wants to take steroids get juiced up and then you sit back and enjoy how far those guys hit the ball.
