Chuck HSteroids: Would You?---Part 3 of 3
May 4th 2009 16:22
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round
Life in minor league baseball can get really tough mentally. You keep thinking big, you keep telling yourself that each bus ride you take is for a reason. Another destination, another venue to display your talent and hopefully one day it all pays off and you’ll get your shot. Most don’t get their shot, and when you think about it, these kids on these bus rides were the best players in their towns and cities as they were growing up, bar none. Neighborhood baseball legends. These are the lucky ones who have been drafted by a Major League organization and yet most of them will never see a major league uniform. That is how hard it is to make it. Take a look at who you consider to be a “bum” or a weak link on your favorite MLB team of choice and take a minute to realize how talented he really is at the sport of baseball. The worst guys you see in the majors were so much better than everyone else on their high school or college teams as they’re growing up. Competition is so intense and skill sets of these guys can be so close that sometimes it just comes down to the tiniest little edge you can gain on your peers.
In reading Odd Man Out, authored by Matt McCarthy, there were so many funny stories about the life of a low level minor league ballplayer trying to fit in and trying to make it. Then McCarthy explained a situation that came up on a night out at a local chain restaurant while the team was on the road. McCarthy was in the Anaheim Angels organization. He was in A level ball, the starting point of most careers after you’ve been drafted. That night at the restaurant, McCarthy and a few teammates were just shooting the breeze, talking about girls and talking about how the season was going. Then the subject of “gaining an edge” came up. Keep in mind that these kids are either freshly out of High School or College. They are just beginning the journey in pro baseball. The subject of “standing out” came up. Separating yourself from the pack. I think you get where I’m going with this: Steroids came up. Think about it, so many kids with similar talents thinking, “how can I break free from the pack and make a name for myself?” How? McCarthy was adamantly against the use of steroids. He wouldn’t try them. McCarthy was performing better than one of his fellow pitchers on the squad who was actually juicing. McCarthy “washed out” after one year in the minors. He was cut. He had a bright future since he graduated from Yale. He enrolled in Harvard Medical School and is now an intern at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He did it his way. He gave it his all, and in the end that wasn’t good enough. McCarthy was a rarity in terms of being an Ivy League graduate with something to fall back on if baseball didn’t work out. He played it clean, but what about the kids who don’t have their education to fall back on? The kids who only have baseball. Baseball is their Yale and they HAVE to make it. What do you do? Is working hard going to be enough? Especially when you see teammates and opponents at the same level of competition taking steroids. Teammates and opponents that if they weren’t on the juice, weren’t as good as you. Would you play it clean or would you want the edge?
Let me state my position clearly on this whole topic of steroids. I’m against them. 100% against them. But I understand the predicaments that these kids and these pro athletes find themselves in and I understand the temptations and why they do it. Do I wish sports, particularly the game I love most (baseball) were clean. Yes I do. Is it realistic to believe they will ever be clean or ever were? No. Chemicals, supplements and illegal substances have come so far and are as advanced as ever.. but don’t be naďve enough to think that back in the “good ole days” all they did was eat hotdogs and chug beer. There was something back then to give you an edge if you wanted it. Not as advanced and not as refined as today, but it’s all relative. Trust me, there was something.
Chuck
Two Cents From Beantown
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