Year of living dangerously, By: T.J. Quinn

For cast of steroid hearing, it's a long-running drama

The sad reality for Major League Baseball is that baseball books sell better at the start of the season: Hence the book "Game of Shadows," which eclipsed the inaugural World Baseball Classic the way Barry Bonds' head could eclipse a bowling ball.

One year ago, baseball players and executives sat before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform to deal with the fallout from another book timed for spring training, Jose Canseco's "Juiced."

The day-long hearings were so tense between Canseco and the players he outed - Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro - that he was stationed in the office closest to the hearing room, thus allowing him to make sure he was the last to enter the room.

What followed that fine St. Patrick's Day in Washington was a scene that may never be matched in American sport: Congress bellowed, threatening to pass steroid testing laws if baseball did not take proper action; McGwire cried; Palmeiro pointed; Sosa spun, ducked and dodged. Bonds and Jason Giambi weren't there because they were part of the ongoing federal investigation into the BALCO lab.

Still, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the committee chairman, says the hearings served their purpose.

"It's hard to argue with success," he told the Daily News Friday. "Even now people think we should have been going after Bonds and everything else, but we did what we set out to do: we changed the policy."

So what else has happened over the past 12 months? The News breaks it down.

MARK MCGWIRE

WHAT HE SAID: "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. What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and teammates."

WHAT HAPPENED: Part of that statement was correct. McGwire never named names or much of anything else. McGwire's testimony came three days after the Daily News documented his hardcore steroid use, and given a chance to clear his name at the hearings, he famously repeated, "I'm not here to talk about the past."

According to Davis, McGwire might have been more forthcoming had he been granted immunity. "I think that if we could have provided him immunity he would have come clean," Davis says, "but this guy had quit four years before and there was a five-year statute of limitations, and he would have subjected himself to criminal prosecution. We couldn't work out an immunity deal."

After he promised to crusade against steroids, McGwire vanished - and not just in the celebrity sense. He lives in a gated community and plays at private golf courses. No events, no interviews, no sightings at the 7-11. The only public comment of any kind from McGwire in all that time was to mark the death of his old baseball coach at the University of Southern California, the legendary Rod Dedeaux, a statement issued through a spokesman. He didn't go to the funeral.

Polls of baseball writers eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame showed he will have a tough time next year, and maybe any year after that. He'll be on that ballot for 15 years unless he's elected. That's a long time to have the world engage in an annual debate about your worth.

SAMMY SOSA

WHAT HE SAID: In a statement read by his lawyer, "I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. I've not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic."

And these gems in response to questions: "To my knowledge, I don't know." . . . "I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, I don't have too much to tell you." . . . "I don't have the specific question to explain to you."

WHAT HAPPENED: Sosa's career shriveled along with his body, and what was once a force of athletic nature faded into oblivion, like a hurricane dissipating over the ocean. As a backup for the Orioles, he hit .221 with 14 home runs and 45 RBI. And if he thought his over-lawyered statement would get him off the hook, it didn't.

You didn't need a law degree to figure out that even if he didn't inject himself or have someone else do it, he could have used oral or topical steroids in the Dominican Republic, where steroids are legal. Sosa never said, "I never took steroids." The denial his lawyer read seemed more like an admission. He didn't compete for the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic, but then there was no real demand. No dramatic retirement, just . . . gone.

DON HOOTON

WHAT HE SAID: "Players that are guilty of taking steroids are not only cheaters, you are cowards. Show our kids that you're man enough to face authority, tell the truth and face 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 today."

WHAT HAPPENED: Hooton was the father of Taylor Hooton, a young Texas athlete who hanged himself in 2003 after using steroids. Hooton, along with his wife and the parents of Rob Garibaldi, another steroid-using teen who killed himself, was the conscience of the hearing.

Since then the Hooton Foundation has received $1 million from Major League Baseball and Hooton has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of youth steroid abuse. If anyone came out of the hearings looking like a hero, it was Hooton.

BUD SELIG

WHAT HE SAID: "Nothing that went on surprised me tonight. Now we all leave here and they have to give this drug policy of ours a chance to work - and I think they will."

WHAT HAPPENED: No one took a bigger beating during the hearings than Selig, who looked exhausted by the end of the day. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) even suggested that baseball should find a new commissioner.

But Selig used congressional pressure to force the players association to renegotiate in the middle of a labor agreement - twice. For a while it looked like Selig might come out of the ordeal as a conqueror, taking on the formidable union and creating the toughest testing system in professional American sport. In Palmeiro, he even nailed a top player, something the NFL has never done.

All was going well until the Bonds/BALCO book came out, and suddenly baseball was faced with its own neglect again. Selig has repeatedly said he does not want to open a wide probe into baseball's steroid past, hoping that the new policy will end the bloated era.

But as he prepares to investigate Bonds, he is confronted with new allegations about Gary Sheffield, and who knows what books will be released next spring. And the spring after that. And after that . . .

JOSE CANSECO

WHAT HE SAID: "After this hearing, I will be happy to work . . . in whatever way I can to help convey to the youth of America the message that steroid use is unnecessary to be a great athlete and that they are harmful to use to those who take them."

WHAT HAPPENED: In his book, "Juiced," Canseco sang a love song to steroids, but after hearing the testimony of parents whose children had committed suicide after using steroids, he had what appeared to be a Joan of Arc-like religious epiphany. But instead of saving either France or the youth of America, he has appeared on the reality television show "The Surreal Life."

The one thing that can be said for Canseco, who is working on a sequel to his book, is that he came away as far more credible than some of his fellow players on the panel. Not that he's suddenly the voice of reason; as was the case with his baseball career, Canseco's truth-telling was more notable for power than batting average.

"The reality is he came out of the hearings with more credibility than we went in with," Davis said. "Not to say there weren't some exaggerations or some puffery, but he came out being fairly credible."

CURT SCHILLING

WHAT HE SAID: "I think the fear of public embarrassment and humiliation upon being caught is going to be greater than any player ever imagined."

WHAT HAPPENED: There might not have been a truer statement uttered that day. Palmeiro's total disgrace had a chilling effect throughout the game. Schilling's lowest moment at the hearing was saying that he had previously overstated the nature of the game's steroid problem. But unlike Palmeiro, Schilling came off merely as a waffler, not a liar.

He remains on an advisory panel the Government Reform Committee assembled a year ago, Davis says, but is more concerned these days with trying to show he can be a force on the mound again.

RAFAEL PALMEIRO

WHAT HE SAID: "I have never used steroids. Period. I do not know how to say it any more clearly than that."

WHAT HAPPENED: Open mouth, insert Hall of Fame career. After he returned to the Orioles' spring training camp, Palmeiro offered these comments: "If it turns out to be a positive thing that (Canseco) wrote this stupid book, and he turns himself around and if he can be a positive role model, I'll forgive him." And, "They brought me in basically to give me the chance to clear my name and to speak my heart. . . . I'm very happy that I went."

And then he tested positive for stanozolol, a hardcore steroid. He said he was the victim of a B-12 injection given to him by Miguel Tejada.

Incredible as it seems, a man with 3,020 hits and 569 home runs might not make it into the Hall of Fame. Some writers have argued that steroids had nothing to do with his ability to hit the ball, but the argument is laughable to those in the know. Steroids can quicken and strengthen muscles, improve confidence and improve recovery time from injuries and workouts (think about what that means for a user when most players are wearing down in August).

What more does a hitter need? A fly-ball out becomes a home run. A five-hop groundball now rockets past diving infielders. And a player with a beautiful swing is remembered as a liar and a cheat.