• Steroids? What steroids? Steroids? What steroids? Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has come up with a novel approach to the game’s steroid controversy: Don’t talk about it. The commish, concerned that steroid talk is overshadowing the usual excitement of spring
• Steroids? What steroids?
Steroids? What steroids?
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has come up with a novel approach to the game’s steroid controversy: Don’t talk about it.
The commish, concerned that steroid talk is overshadowing the usual excitement of spring training, last week issued an order to all 30 big-league clubs: Don’t comment on reports that stars like Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were chemically enhanced. In fact, don’t talk about steroids at all.
Behind the scenes, Mr. Selig is trying desperately to reach agreement with the players union to strengthen baseball’s steroid rules. In the meantime, he says, the best way to deal with the problem is to ignore it.
It’s too late. After all, thanks to President George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech, combating steroid abuse by pro athletes is now a major national priority.
People are yukking it up. At the Chicago Cubs’ spring training camp last week, a beer vendor hawked “Old Style, five bucks, steroid free!” Sports Illustrated suggested that Mr. Giambi, the New York Yankees’ first baseman, had lost so much of his suspicious bulk that people would soon call him “Jason Giambi-Hilton.” As they say in baseball, the pine tar is out of the tube.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
