Laughable Rules Better Than None

There were moments of silence observed before the starts of both the National League and American League championship series last October. As ordered by baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig, those moments were in memory of Ken Caminiti. It might even be said that baseball’s new attitude about steroid use began with those Caminiti moments.

Look, maybe the prospect of impotence and urinary tract pain doesn’t scare you. Maybe you’re certain you’ll never develop heart, kidney or liver disease. Maybe you wouldn’t mind becoming a paranoid jerk subject to fits of rage.

If so, go ahead and needle up. You probably think all that health-risk stuff is bogus. You can say it hasn’t been proved in studies over time. Besides, you say, we live in a society addicted to performance enhancement delivered by vitamins, drugs and surgeries, and all of that can be harmful if abused.

You can find experts who insist today’s steroid phobia is the latest example of unthinking panic, a 21st century version of the 1930s “Reefer Madness” movie that portrayed marijuana as the devil’s tool.

Those arguments can be made by reasonable people. Reasonable people can argue that steroid abuse is the problem, not steroid use. They can argue that if you get the right scientists and use the right stuff properly, steroids are not dangerous. They can argue that when the government gets involved in protecting us against ourselves, it too often winds up costing us more in freedom than it’s worth in protection.

Yes, all that makes sense.

And then come the chilling moments of silence for Ken Caminiti.

If you’ve ever used steroids, or if you’ve contemplated using steroids, those moments of silence should have scared you straight.

Two and a half years ago, Caminiti confessed to using steroids over the last six years of his major league baseball career. He told his story to Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci. He said that maybe half of all major league players were on the juice. Though Caminiti backed off that percentage, he retracted only the number and not the truth as he saw it. He saw baseball as dirty with ‘roid boys.

“Look at all the money in the game,” he told Verducci. “A kid got $252 million. So I can’t say, ‘Don’t do it,’ not when the guy next to you is as big as a house, and he’s going to take your job and make the money.... It’s no secret what’s going on in baseball.... They talk about it. They joke about it with each other.”

Caminiti’s troubles began with an addictive personality. During his playing days, he was an alcoholic. He began using steroids midway through the 1996 season. He had torn up his left shoulder. He said he didn’t use the steroids to become a better player but to repair the damage more quickly.

Not only did the shoulder heal, Caminiti became a kind of hitter he had never been. He had never hit more than 26 home runs in any of his nine seasons. He was 33 years old when he first injected steroids. He then hit 28 home runs after the All-Star break and finished with 40. He hit .326 and had 130 RBIs. When the Padres won a division championship, Caminiti became the NL’s MVP by unanimous vote.

In the world of athletics, baseball’s new steroid rules are laughably lenient. The penalty for a first positive test is a 10-day suspension; in Olympic track and field, the first positive gets you a two-year suspension. A second positive in baseball brings a 30-day suspension, but a world-class sprinter, say, is banned for life.

Laugh if you will. Call it a Band-Aid, call it a public relations gimmick, call it pandering to politicians rattling sabers on Capitol Hill. But something is better than nothing. And I am in favor of something because ...

1) Use of steroids without a physician’s prescription is illegal. In some ways, today’s BALCO affair is a replay of 1981, when players, Pete Rose among them, testified about a doctor’s illegal distribution of amphetamines. Under oath, Rose said, “What’s a greenie?” As if he had not, two years before, admitted his use. When great players -- a Rose, a Barry Bonds -- are entangled in illegal activities, it’s an insult to fans who pay their salaries.

2) Steroids build strength and so create two levels of play -- one for users, another for honest men.

3) Steroids can create health risks in normal people and exacerbate flaws in flawed people. Physical breakdowns while on steroids ruined the last five years of Ken Caminiti’s career, and friends believe his devolution from MVP was a factor in his choice of cocaine.

He died Oct. 10, three days before the NLCS opened. He had overdosed on cocaine and opiates. He was 41 years old.