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The Piledriver Report 8.15.07: Steroids: A Comparison Between Baseball and Pro Wrestling
The Piledriver Report 8.15.07: Steroids: A Comparison Between Baseball and Pro Wrestling, By: Ronny Sarnecky
08.15.2007
Last week, Barry Bonds captured the Major League Baseball career home run record. With that record came media scrutiny and a wide range of discussions regarding steroids in baseball. At the same time, the US Congress wants to talk steroids within the professional wrestling industry. This week, The Piledriver Report compares the steroid situation in baseball with that in professional wrestling.
One week ago, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's Major League Baseball home run record. There was a small pocket of fans across the country that celebrated the achievement. While others either didn't care, or hated the fact that an alleged steroid monster would be the man who would be crowned baseball's new home run king. After all, how can we celebrate a man who captured the most hallowed record in sports if he needed to be "enhanced" in order to capture the goal.
It's not just the fans that are resentful, but the media as well. Even the MLB Commissioner Bud Selig had to be convinced to stand up out of his seat when Bonds hit the career tying home run. By the look on Selig's face, you could tell that if he was wearing ruby slippers that night, he would be tapping them together, and repeating "there's no place like home. There's no place like home." It was extremely obvious that he wanted to be anywhere, but in San Diego at that time.
As Bonds inched closer and closer to the home run title, steroid talk in baseball continued to be a hot topic. However, lately that isn't the only industry that is buzzing over steroid concerns. Congress and the media have finally taken not of the many young deaths in the professional wrestling industry. Unfortunately, it took a double murder suicide for them to open their eyes to the problem.
Wrestling is a strange beast. Wrestling fans and everyone in the industry knew that steroids have been a major problem for at least the last twenty years. However, did anybody care? Do they even care now? Sure, we frown when guys like Chris Masters get pushed to the top of the card, because he has a body that would make a Greek God look out of shape. Do we do this because Masters' "cheated" his way to the top spot? No, we do this because he is a horrible worker, both in-ring and on the mic. It's like the Mets fans with Guillermo Mota, and Yankees fans with Jason Giambi. Met fans boo Mota because he isn't getting the job done, not because he is on the "juice." Last year, when it was found out that Giambi took steroids, the fans in NY vilified him. No, not because he was cheating. They booed him because he couldn't hit the ball. The minute Giambi started to tear the cover off the ball, the fans cheered him and forgave him for his sins. Why do you think San Francisco Giants fans are living in denial, and cheer Bonds? It's because he produces!
Same in wrestling. Chris Benoit was a great worker. Most people, especially those who voice their opinion on the Internet, wanted to see Benoit in the main events. If he didn't commit those horrible crimes, and just failed the WWE's Wellness Program for steroids, the fans wouldn't have cared. They would have still wanted to see him pushed, because he was a great performer. Look at Edge. He is probably one of the top 3 all around performers in the WWE over the past year and eight months. He doesn't do steroids. However, he has stated in interviews that he once used them. Are the fans booing him, because he used to "cheat" to get to the spot where he is at now? No. If he started using steroids again would the fans be irate, and demand that he be removed from the main events for a clean wrestler? Of course, not. They would still cheer or boo him, depending on if his character was a face or a heel. Plus, they would continue to buy his merchandise.
Despite Vince McMahon stating that the WWE is "sports entertainment," and should be treated more along the lines of a company in the entertainment industry, the fans of the WWE are made out of the same mold as sports fans. For the most part, neither sports fans, nor wrestling fans complain about their athletes being on steroids, as long as they are producing.
There are three instances in which the subject of steroids and sports/wrestling will reach the height of the public's attention. One is if a precious milestone of the sport is being challenged. The second is if there is a controversial event that occurred that brought steroids into the limelight. The third is death. The fourth is the government.
Back in 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were battling neck and neck in their efforts to break Roger Maris' single season home run record. During the chase, it was discovered that McGwire had been taking a weightlifting supplement called Androstine. At the time, Andro was a legal supplement, not in the steroid classification. While McGwire's use of the item received some media attention, he was never put under scrutiny for using the supplement. When McGwire broke the home run record, the fans and media celebrated this truly historic accomplishment. However, looking back at steroids in baseball. The McGwire-Sosa chase was really the beginning of when the public started to realize that maybe baseball players aren't doing things on just ability alone.
Enter: Barry Bonds. After McGwire set the single season home run record, Barry Bonds topped McGwire's feat in 2001. Since the year 2000, Bonds hit 313 of his record 758 home runs. In his first 14 years, he hit 445 home runs. That means he almost equaled his first fourteen-year home run total in half as many years (during the last 8 years). People started to question how Bonds, at an age were his skills should start to arode, became "better with age." They also started to notice great physical disparities with Barry Bonds. No longer was he the lean, five-tool player he once was. Instead, he was bulky, and had a big head (physically, not egotistically).
Professional wrestling has no problems in dealing with milestones. A wrestler doesn't all of a sudden "bulk up" in order to set a record. Any individual records held in the world of professional wrestling are set because the promoter pushes a certain talent in a direction to get that "record." The closest thing that would come to a wrestler going after a milestone would be a smallish wrestler getting on steroids for a few years in order to gain the size needed, or wanted by a promoter, to push the wrestler as a main event act.
Eric Bischoff once wrote a book titled "Controversy Creates Cash." His motto holds a lot of water when looking at the sports world and steroids. According to wikipedia.org, "in a Sports Illustrated cover story in 2002, a year after his retirement, he admitted that he had used steroids during his MVP 1996 season, and for several seasons afterwards. It was the first public admission of steroid use by any professional baseball player. Caminiti's announcement sent shockwaves through the sport: players became recalcitrant at being exposed, and reporters were embarrassed that no one had bothered, in the post-strike era when home runs exploded, to suspect steroid use by the players."
In 2005, former Major League baseball player Jose Canseco admitted to using anabolic steroids in a tell-all book titled "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big." Canseco claimed that up to 85% of major league players took steroids. In the book, Canseco identified former teammates Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Iván Rodríguez, and Juan González as fellow steroid users and claims that he injected them. Most baseball players and people in the media claimed that Jose Canseco was not a legitimate source. They said the number of steroid users in baseball was not what Canseco claimed, and the players named were not users.
Despite the media and baseball's disregard for the book, the federal government took his claims very seriously. They were so serious about the matter that they told baseball that it was time for them to clean up their sport, or the government would do it for them.
The most damaging piece of evidence of steroids in baseball was found during the BALCO case.
According to wikipedia.org, "In 2003, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California began investigating BALCO. U.S. sprint coach Trevor Graham had given an anonymous phone call to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in June 2003 accusing a number of athletes being involved in doping with a steroid that was not detectable at the time. He also named Victor Conte as the source of the steroid. As evidence, Graham delivered a syringe containing traces of a substance nicknamed The Clear. Shortly after, Don H. Catlin, director of the Olympic Analytical Laboratory in Los Angeles, succeeded in developing a testing process for tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Now able to detect the new substance, he tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG.
On September 3, 2003 agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Food and Drug Administration, San Mateo Narcotics Task Force, and USADA conducted a house search at the BALCO facilities. Beside lists of BALCO customers in a BALCO field warehouse they found container whose labels indicated steroids and growth hormones. In a house search at Anderson's place two days later, steroids, $60,000 in cash, names lists and dosage plans were found. On June 6, 2006 the house of baseball player Jason Grimsley (Arizona Diamondbacks) was searched as part of the ongoing BALCO probe. Grimsley later said that federal investigators wanted him to wear a wire in order to obtain information against Barry Bonds. He told people which players used performance-enhancing drugs. When the dust cleared, Grimsley was released by the Diamondbacks and was given a 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball.
Among the athletes listed in the record of BALCO customers were:
MLB players: Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Benito• Santiago, Jeremy Giambi, Bobby Estalella, Armando Rios
Athletes: Hammer• thrower John McEwen, shot putters Kevin Toth and C.J. Hunter, sprinters Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, the medium-distance runner Regina Jacobs
NFL• players: A number from the Oakland Raiders, including Bill Romanowski, Tyrone Wheatley, Barrett Robbins, Chris Cooper and Dana Stubblefield.
Conte was also connected with supplying "vitamin supplements" to the U.S. Olympic Judo team coached by Willy Cahill of San Bruno, California. Patrick Arnold, BALCO's chemist, alleges that Bonds and Sheffield were given "The Clear", though the athletes deny knowing about it and Arnold does not claim to have personally witnessed it..[2]
On July 15, 2005, Conte and Anderson cut plea bargains, pled guilty to illegal steroid distribution and money laundering and avoided an embarrassing trial. They will spend approximately four months in jail and four months on probation."
The wrestling industry had it's share of controversial investigations. Around 1992, Dr. George Zahorian, a Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission doctor was indicted for steriod distribution. During this investigation, the FBI found what they believed was indisputable evidence that Vince McMahon was a central figure in the steriod distribution of WWF wrestlers. In 1993, he was indicted on these steroid distribution charges. McMahon was put on trial in 1994. He was acquitted of all charges after hearing two weeks worth of testimony from various different wrestlers and company personnel. During this time, the media jumped all over the story. Not only did news shows cover the Vince McMahon steroid trial, but they also uncovered other dirty secrets that hurt the WWF, such as Mel Philips sexually harrassing a ring boy, and former referee Rita Chatterton claiming on an April 3, 1992 edition of Geraldo Rivera's television show Now It Can Be Told alleging that on July 16, 1986 McMahon tried to force her to perform oral sex on him in his limousine and, after her rebuttal, subjected her to rape. McMahon was not charged with any offense relating to the alleged incident, as the criminal statute of limitations having passed. However, when combining the two incidents with the steroid trial, the WWF was no longer seen in a positive light by the public.
After being a company built on steroids and "big" bodies in the eighties, following the trial, the WWF administered steroid testing, and started to push smaller, more athletic wrestlers. This new company business plan did not last long. Soon enough, the WWF was back to their old habits.
Through the late nineties and into this decade, the WWF/E has been free of any steroid scandal. It's not as if there were no wrestlers who used steroids. Of course, there were. However, in the late nineties, the media was more concerned with the WWF broadcasting a more adult-oriented violent form of wrestling while selling their merchandise to children. During this decade, pro wrestling faded from its height of popularity of the late nineties. Since wrestling was no longer the "in" thing to watch. Therefore, the mass media has ignored pro wrestling for the most part of this decade.
In late June of this year, the media finally woke up from a 15 year nap in regards to steroids and wrestling. This was because of the double murder-suicide that Chris Benoit committed against his wife, child, and himself. When investigating the scene, the police found steroids in the Benoit household. This piece of evidence created a wave of "roid rage" accusations from the media in regards to why Chris Benoit would kill his wife and son. No matter what news channel you turned on, there was a panel of "experts" discussing the case. However, unlike previous news stories regarding steroids and wrestling, this time the media did their homework. They wanted answers as to why Chris Benoit had a bunch of steroids in his house, and why didn't the WWE Wellness Policy pick up on Benoit's steroid abuse.
How many steroid related deaths have there been in sports history? It's hard to say. There was Lyle Alzado fom the Oakland Raiders, who died of brain cancer. He believed that years of steroid use helped to contribute to his fatal illness. In baseball, the most recent death that one could say was attributed to steroids was in October 2004 when Ken Caminiti died. The official cause of death was a drug overdose. However, the New York City Medical Examiners Office announced that Caminiti died from "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates," but coronary artery disease and cardiac hypertrophy (an enlarged heart) were also contributing factors. Caminiti was an admitted steroid user, and an enlarged heart is one of the many side effects of steroid use. I'm sure there have been other cases, but these are just two of the more famous ones.
How many steroid related deaths have there been in professional wrestling history? I know, it seems like all of them. While everybody knows steroids play a major role in the wrestling industry, it wasn't until the Benoit tragedy happened that the media and people who do not normally follow wrestling actually found out how many people in the industry have died under the age of 45 over the last decade due to the drug. The sad part of that last statement is that the number of deaths that were tallied on the news shows was actually a lot lower then what the real number is.
Wrestlers dying young are such a common occurrence that the wrestling fan is no longer surprised when they hear of a wrestler passing away. It doesn't matter who the name is anymore. Today, you are shocked if a wrestler lives a long life. When a wrestler passes away, the reaction is always the same. "X wrestler died. Another one. How old was he? This can't continue anymore. Something has to be done about these deaths. I wonder if the fill in the name of the wrestling company will do some kind of tribute on their show?" The fans scour the Internet for the news on what the cause of death was. They read articles that memorialize the performer. Then after a week, things go back to normal. It's a sad, vicious cycle, and it has to change. But, will it?
When Congress wanted answers from Major League Baseball, they decided to hold a Congressional hearing on the subject of steroids in sports. Among the baseball representatives who appeared before Congress were the MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, the MLB Players Rep Donald Fehr, Rafeal Palmeiro, Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire. While the government didn't know much about steroids, the baseball reps came across like fools. Selig and Fehr talked about the new steroid policy in baseball, which was very weak when it came to the types of punishments that would be handed down for a positive test. Sammy Sosa all of a sudden forgot how to speak English, even though he has been speaking the language throughout his career. All Mark McGwire would say is "I don't want to discuss the past." Huh? Wasn't that why he was there in the first place? Rafael Palmeiro, who could have passed for a member of Congress on that day by looking sharp in his suit and tie. Palmeiro would deny using performance-enhancing drugs. The "honest" Palmeiro on August 1, 2005 would be suspended for 10 days by Major League Baseball after testing positive for steroids.
The executives of Major League Baseball feared Congress' involvement. After all, MBL had an anti-trust exemption that they absolutely did not want to lose. When Congress complained about baseball's weak steroid policy, and threatened to make changes on their own, MLB stepped up. Bud Selig worked with the ever difficult Don Ferh to create the strongest steroid testing policy in major American sports.
Following the Benoit tragedy and the arrest of Chris Benoit's personal physician Dr. Phil Astin, two different sub-committees of Congress have petitioned the WWE for their medical records on who failed the WWE's steroid testing. Whereas, baseball has worked with the government, and the players union to create an acceptable drug testing/punishment system, the WWE hasn't been as proactive. It appears that they will give Congress the records they request. However, instead of examining their own Wellness Policy, and formulating a way to improve the system to check steroid abusers, the WWE has put up a "us against the world" front.
Instead of feeling sorry for themselves because the "big, bad government is picking on them," the WWE needs to wake up and think about what they can do to work with the government to help figure out a way to help protect the present and future of the business. The big question on everyday's mind is what will the government accomplish if they have a Congressional hearing centered around professional wrestling and steroids?
Chances are that it will be all talk, and little action. However, if the government wants to scare the professional wrestling industry straight, they would force promotions, like the WWE and TNA, to come up with a legitimate, strict testing policy and punishment system. Otherwise, the government would create their own testing policy that the industry must follow. They should also threaten to create a division that would act like the old "state athletic commissions," without the "doctors" that the boys could get their candy from. Remember when WCW and the WWF would not run Oregon because of their strict drug testing policy. Maybe if Congress threatened to create a strict policy, like what these federations faced in Oregon, perhaps the WWE wouldn't use a half-ass Wellness Policy. Not to knock the Wellness Program, as from what I've read, it has helped many people. The problem is that there are way too many loopholes, and the punishment system is severely flawed. A wrestler, who fails a test gets suspended from house shows, but not TV or pay per views. OK, so where's the punishment?
Steroids in sports is a major topic in the media these days. Right now, it appears the "major" American sports are doing a good job of catching "cheats" and dishing out severe punishments. Now it's professional wrestling's turn. Or, should I say, the WWE's turn at the plate. Will they step up to the plate, and swing for the fences, or will they not even bother to get in the game. Only time, and perhaps Congress, will tell.
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