Monday, 03.31.08

Juicing and the Game

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

As baseball season begins, questions remain about the after-effects of the steroid scandal.

Here's a prediction that's safer than picking the Brewers to win the NL Central, or the Mariners to win the AL West: Baseball's attendance and TV ratings will be entirely unaffected by the winter of steroid-related scandal. Whereas previous black moments for the game tended to depress fan interest, the slow unspooling of the juicing scandal has coincided with a boom period for baseball, with MLB's revenues rising toward the money-machine standard set by the NFL. Fans like to boo steroid users (at least when the play for the other team), suspected and proved alike, but they're apparently still happy to pony up to see them play.

Why hasn't the steroid scandal produced the sort of public backlash that greeted the Black Sox scandal, or the '94 Strike? The easy answer is that Americans are softer on high-profile misbehavior than we used to: Bud Selig may be not Kenesaw Mountain Landis, this line of argument runs, but the times make the man, and even if the Players Union could be persuaded to accept a draconian approach to today's athletic malfeasance, the public wouldn't stand for it.

But the public may also be more inclined to forgive juicing because the steroid user is ultimately pursuing, albeit by foul means rather than fair, the same thing that every fan yearns for - the big hit or the crucial strikeout, the ten-game winning streak and the charmed October run. When Chick Gandil and Lefty Williams took thousands from gamblers to throw the '19 Series, or when the Players Union decided that its members' salaries were more important than even playing the 1994 postseason, they were shattering an illusion that professional sports depends upon - the illusion that players are just as invested in the on-field outcome as the most passionate Cubs fan or Royals rooter, rather than being primarily invested (as most of us would be, if playing baseball were our day job) in their own material success.

Obviously, the steroid scandal is about material success as well -- the 4-A prospect trying to make himself into big-league material, the thirtysomething journeyman trying to coax one more payday out of his aging body. But it doesn't cut against the grain of fandom in the way that throwing games or going on strike does. Rather than sacrifice the goal of winning for material gain, it arguably heightens a player's commitment to winning. This perhaps, is why fans seem to view juicing as somewhat worse than spitballing (long considered a semi-lovable form of rulebreaking) but not so bad as throwing games. It's treated as a booable offense, but it hasn't bred disillusionment with the sport as a whole.

This doesn't mean that there aren't good arguments for taking a zero-tolerance approach to steroid use. It just means that would-be reformers shouldn't expect to have the weight of public outrage on their side.

— Ross Douthat

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