Steigerwald doesn't get the point, By: John Perrotto

09/28/2006

I marked my 24th anniversary at The Times earlier this month, which means I have spent my entire adult life chronicling sports for this esteemed publication.

I haven't always agreed with everything this newspaper has done in those 24 years, but had never been embarrassed to say I was associated with it. That nearly changed when I picked up last Saturday's edition of The Times. I turned the cover of the sports section and was met with KDKA-TV sportscaster John Steigerwald's weekly column.

I read it once and thought I misunderstood it. So, I read it again. Then, I read it a third time.

The more I read, the less I believed what I reading.

It turns out Steigerwald believes San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams deserve to go to jail for refusing to reveal the source of the leaked grand jury testimony in the BALCO steroids controversy.

Let me say that I've watched Steigerwald on television forever and have always been an admirer of his work, even if he has tended to be on the cranky side in recent years.

Let me also say that everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. After all, it is that personal freedom that makes this country great.

That being said, it stuns me that anyone in the media - unless they work for Fox News - could side against Fainaru-Wada and Williams. That any person in the business could feel that way baffles me.

Yes, Fainaru-Wada and Williams technically broke the law when they wouldn't reveal their sources. But even the judge who sentenced them to up to 18 months in prison was apologetic and made it clear he was doling out punishment only because he had no other choice.

At the sake of sounding self-serving, there are very few things more important to continuing to ensure freedom in this nation than to have freedom of the press. If the press is controlled by the government, then all means of corruption and scandal will go unchecked.

Granted, a former rock-and-roll singer turned mad chemist with a cheesy moustache named Victor Conte selling steroids to professional athletes is not a matter of national security. In fact, matters of national security are the one place I don't have a problem with the press being muted.

The BALCO story was big in the fact that some of the most prominent athletes in the world were involved, including home run champion Barry Bonds and sprint queen Marion Jones. Keep in mind, possessing steroids without a prescription is illegal.

Fans spend plenty of dollars to watch professional athletes. They have a right to know if those athletes are clean.

More importantly, the whole BALCO scandal relates to potential health risks for young athletes.

Various studies show steroid use among adolescents spiked in 1998 and 2001. The significance of those years is obvious to anyone who follows baseball.

Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' single-season record by hitting 70 home runs in '98, the same year he admitted to using andro, then a legal supplement but now classified as a steroid. Bonds broke McGwire's record in '01 by belting 73 home runs.

Impressionable young athletes were left with the idea that peak performance could be achieved through chemistry. And, make no mistake, chemistry helped McGwire and Bonds achieve those incredible numbers.

McGwire's use of andro was uncovered by The Associated Press' Steve Wilstein. Fainaru-Wada and Williams provided irrefutable proof in their book "Game of Shadows" that Bonds was a steroid user.

If this were the old Soviet Union, we wouldn't know these things because TASS, the government's official news agency wouldn't report them.

However, that is apparently where at least one member of the media wants us to go, which is quite unsettling.

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