‘Howe’ Much Does Baseball Just Say No?

Steve Howe is just about ready to pitch in the majors again, the Texas Rangers say. But, he had better not do drugs again, because baseball is really cracking down. They might not be able to give him a fourth chance.

LaMarr Hoyt is back in professional baseball, back in the Chicago White Sox organization, under contract. He had better not get caught smuggling pills across an international border a third time, boy.

Dwight Gooden is pitching again for the New York Mets. He used cocaine, but don’t worry, he turned himself in. And, he really paid a stiff price. He had to miss several turns in the rotation.

Baseball is busy fighting the war against dope and booze abuse. Baseball is telling kids: “Just Say No.” Baseball is supposed to be the place where drug addiction and alcoholism will not be tolerated, and will be discouraged at every turn, and will be dealt with harshly.

Yeah, sure.

Instead, baseball has become the place where you take a little time off, lay low, lay off the stuff, count your money, wait for your phone to ring, then go back and get a standing-ovation fix.

Baseball is the place where, Lonnie Smith says, an admitted ex-doper like himself doesn’t even get checked on a regular basis, and pays his fines when and where he feels like it.

Baseball is the place where, when the San Diego Padres try to set an example by forbidding Alan Wiggins and Hoyt to play for them again, other teams snap them right up. Just say no to drugs, kids, unless you need a second baseman or a pitcher.

Baseball is the place where, when the Padres try to set an example by removing beer from the clubhouse, players cry that they are being treated like babies. These same players call the ballpark their “office,” and we all know that most offices supply beer on the premises after work.

When the White Sox told the beer distributors to take the clubhouse off their shipping list, Carlton Fisk complained that “pizza with Sprite just doesn’t make it,” and threatened to bring some beer into the clubhouse in defiance of the rules.

Fisk didn’t care about setting any examples. Let somebody else set examples. He just wanted the same privilege the customers at the ballpark have, the privilege of belting down a brew or two before he climbed into his car and drove home.

This is the same privilege, by the way, enjoyed by hypocritical sportswriters and broadcasters who stack beer cups in front of them while they work, or do their drinking at their place of employment after the game.

Getting everybody to go along with the program isn’t easy. How do we expect baseball to protest against alcohol abuse when the St. Louis Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays are owned by breweries, and when the Milwaukee Brewers are supported by fans who work for breweries, and when Miller Lite has become the Gillette of the ‘80s, and when the drunken fans are the ones doing most of the bitching about the behavior of the players?

Drinking comes with the territory. What do we expect champions to pour over one another’s heads in the clubhouse after winning the World Series--Sprite?

The problem is a real one, though, and Mothers Against Drunk Drivers did not get organized just so they could meet at somebody’s house to buy Tupperware and drink tea. It remains a very serious worry, and representatives from the wide world of sports must do their part, especially when a Philadelphia hockey goalie is killing himself in a drunken crash, and when a Chicago football coach is pulled over after a game and when an Angel pitcher is arrested twice.

One of the Raiders’ starting linebackers entered an alcohol rehabilitation program recently, after being busted for possessing cocaine. It didn’t mean that he had to miss practice, of course.

The people who run professional sports are sincere about cracking down on dope and booze abuse, but they don’t know what punishment is fair and what punishment is cruel and unusual. Peter Ueberroth, the baseball boss, wants to do what is right, but Lonnie Smith says he isn’t doing much, and Steve Howe is living proof that too much is never enough. If ever we thought we’d seen the last of a guy, it was this guy.

Perspectives are all out of whack. It’s the same way it is with money in sports. You can’t fine anybody any amount that is meaningful any more. The athletes light cigars with their money. Lonnie Smith talked about giving away $42,000 the way some people talk about giving away 42 cents.

Darryl Strawberry of the Mets laughs at fines and oversleeps to his heart’s content. Dick Williams, the Seattle Mariner manager, recently said that he no longer can influence his players by taking their money, so he threatens them with the loss of playing time. Benching a good player hurts the team, which in turn hurts Williams himself, but sometimes a teacher must keep the whole class after school, until all the good kids get fed up with the bad kid causing the trouble.

It is startling how nonchalant wealthy people can be about money. When a pro basketball player was fined $7,500 after a fight, Laker Coach Pat Riley said it would do little to discourage more violence, since it was “chump change.” We talk so casually about $2-million yearly contracts and $2-trillion national debts that we don’t even remember how much $200 might mean to the average person on the street. Or 20 bucks. Or two.

On a couple of TV comedies last Thursday night, an unmarried waitress on “Cheers” threw a diamond ring out the window of a car because she found out it was only a $1,200 copy of the $5,200 ring she wanted, and an unemployed, divorced New York woman on “The Days of Nights of Molly Dodd” tore up a $6,000 check from her ex-employer because she was angry at him. And they say they don’t write intelligent roles for women any more.

Robin Williams once joked that cocaine was “God’s way of telling you that you make too much money.” Sometimes you get the feeling that there are crack dealers on street corners who take Visa and American Express.

Baseball is supposed to be drug-free. The commissioner promised it would be, assured us it already is.

Yeah, sure.

Take a look at who’s playing. Baseball doesn’t have any users. Baseball just has guys who used to be users.