Your Wish Is Granted, Long Live Giambi

Unprecedented, folks. A third straight day of news to report. Just as I was going to bed in the wee hours of the morning, the SF Chronicle broke a story that virtually shakes the Peterson trial into oblivion: Yanks slugger Jason Giambi and his younger brother each admitted to using various banned substances. It was all over the sports radio airwaves even as NY newspapers were already going to print.

This story, in all truth, is turning out to be especially troubling. The elder Giambi suffered both an intestinal parasite and a tumor (allegedly located on his pituitory gland) over the past year, and as a Yankee has fallen well off of the impressive numbers he had put up for the A's. It has been suggested for years that his earlier offensive production and subsequent slump could have been explained by steroid use.

The other wrinkle is the man who supplied Giambi with illicit juices and creams. Greg Anderson is also Barry Bonds' personal trainer. The nature of his relationship with Giambi, who says he first approached Anderson after a barnstorming tour of Japan with Bonds and other players after the 2002 season, calls further into doubt the validity of Bonds' claim that he has never used banned substances. That such drugs were provided in forms said to be "undetectable" all but proves that Barry's 73-homerun season in 2001 was the result of steroid and growth hormone use.

The New York sports media, of course, is in a frenzy. Provided that he did not lie, Giambi was given immunity from any repercussions of his testimony, which some have suggested was leaked by prosecutors to pressure a follow-up. It seems unlikely that either he, his brother Jeremy, or Bonds will ever face punishment from Major League Baseball. I hate to invoke the whole "think of the children" argument, but it sends a pretty bad example to young athletes when it is assumed that a large number of athletes in a given sport are known to cheat, or to have cheated.

Too few will understand that athletes do not become heroes by admitting a past misdeed in order to assure freedom from future blame, or banishment. This case, and especially these new details, calls all of Major League Baseball into question. We will never know how many players have been using steroids and other banned substances; most will never want to know. The number certainly goes well beyond the two Giambis and Bonds, and might be as high as 50% according to some players.

The problem here is not that sports is entertainment and therefore subject to special rules of engagement. Hollywood actors and musicians are dragged through the mud regularly by a scorned press eager for revenge, while athletes can always use the "on field/off field" defense. Performance enhancement is, after all, about performance, not image. It is nonetheless disappointing when a transgression that undermines the very principles of athletic competition does nothing to tarnish an athlete's image, and is instead used to promote a dubious crusade against what amount to black-market purveyors.

War on drugs, war on terror. Symptoms, nouns, and above all, problems. However it shakes out, don't expect athletes to be held responsible or even asked to change the status quo.