Six to eight NFL players are under investigation for using a masking agent for steroids. So what’s the controversy du jour in this crazy, mixed-up sports world of ours? It’s whether Bud Selig made the right decision to play Game 5 of the World Series in rain-soaked Philadelphia.
Typical. No matter what Selig does, he gets questioned, scrutinized, criticized and raked over the coals.
Then there’s the NFL. Six to eight players, some of them big names, under the specter of steroids? Where’s the outrage? You know, the Barry Bonds jokes. The call to arms by the media. The political grandstanding on Capitol Hill.
Major League Baseball had to face all of the above when its steroids issues hit the headlines. Not the NFL. This is a league in which several former players’ deaths have been linked to steroids. But for whatever reason, the public and the media shrug their shoulders when NFL players are alleged to have used performance-enhancing drugs.
Not that there hasn’t been some outrage over the latest story. Players and agents are hacked off because the names became public, because the confidentiality clause in the collective-bargaining agreement was violated.
Excuse me?
If only a confidentiality clause had been there to save Roger Clemens’ legacy. He never tested positive for anything, but his name landed in the Mitchell report along with dozens of other players.
When it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, the difference between Major League Baseball and the NFL isn’t in the level of their use, but the public’s acceptance of it and the industry’s acknowledgment of it. Selig has been roundly condemned for looking the other way as steroids use mushroomed during his regime. But give him this: Once the media got wind of things, he was relentless in naming names.
Yes, we’re left to wonder about the NFL’s steroids problem. But if anything, given the physical nature of both sports, the use of performance enhancers figures to be a bigger problem in football than baseball.
It just doesn’t get as much attention.
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
