Fouls and Fairness

In an age so full of suspicions -- and suspicions about the motives behind the suspicions -- it’s encouraging to see Major League Baseball and, significantly, its players union finally move jointly to impose a real drug-testing program. Many groups have become suspect recently -- corporate heads, accountants, priests, Olympic officials and judges, Little League coaches, journalists. A few fouled their trust, tainting peers with, naturally, suspicion. Whom to trust anymore?

One of the strongest threads running through American society is a sense of fairness. Never mind politics or background -- if something offends the social consensus about what’s fair in politics, business, sports, courts, even on the playground, serious trouble can erupt, even riots.

Fairness is especially important in sports, whose contests, personalities, values, lessons, stories and even language permeate our culture’s free time, advertising, entertainment, conversations, casual clothing. The multibillion-dollar business of sports creates role models and shared experiences for millions, plus the commercial vehicles for endless selling. Terms like punt, quarterback, end run, penalty box, Hail Mary pass and level playing field now mean much more than their narrow sports applications.

Belatedly, the historic national pastime of baseball recognized that if people wondered which players cheated with performance- enhancing drugs, like custom-designed steroids, it would destroy the game’s credibility, limit commercial potentials and invite comparison with pro wrestling. Not to mention the health risks to the drug users.

Last year, the league anonymously tested all 1,438 pro players. Between 5% and 7% -- 72 to 100 players -- tested positive. That triggered a stricter test regimen next season with fines and no-pay suspensions as punishment. The National Football League began such drug suspensions in 1989, with 13 the first year and four the second; there have been six so far this season. Track and field is moving to tighten rules. Pro hockey tests only during rehab after-care.

Appearances do matter. They shape how we act, feel and think about ourselves and society. Some players will probably cheat successfully as tests inevitably lag behind new stealth drugs. That’s not the point. Though the pressure of job competition and the temptations of fame, fortune and acclaim seem severe, most pro athletes do not make the Faustian bargain to use drugs and become something they’re not naturally. It’s important that we know and document that, lest in our own lives we slide into that too-comfortable modern rationale for cheating on anything, “Well, everybody does it.” Well, now we know everybody doesn’t cheat. You may have suspected that too.