A Tentative Answer

In the previous piece, I outlined my own dilemma regarding the issue of PEDs in sport, and asked what it is that we, as fans, seek in sport. There is no easy answer to this. While working the idea over in my head, I was reminded of one occasion where I was a spectator at a sporting event when forty-two thousand people knew that the hero of the piece was a cheat, but cheered nonetheless.

It was June 27th, 2007, in San Francisco. AT+T Park is one of the most picturesque sports venues in the world. Overlooking the Bay, there is nowhere else you'd rather be on a sunny day in Frisco. So, while 42,527 people came along for a matinee game to enjoy the bluest of skies, the meeting of the Giants and Padres had a greater interest. Barry Bonds.

***

Barry Bonds had taken the single season home run record in 2001 when he launched 73 chemically enhanced shots at the age of 36 for the Giants. Bonds' late career home run surge was highly improbable. His career was easily Hall of Fame worthy before he began taking PEDs in 1999, but what happened thereafter was the stuff of computer games. Bonds' guilt was widely known by 2007. The exposé, Game of Shadows, was published in 2006 and told the story of the BALCO scandal with overwhelming evidence suggesting that he had taken PEDs. He had told a Federal Grand Jury in 2003 that he had never knowingly taken such drugs, a stance which would see him indicted for perjury in late 2007.

Bonds was known to be a cheat. By the summer of 2007 he was closing in on one of the few remaining hallowed records in baseball's history, being Hank Aaron's all time home run record of 755 career shots.

***

Bonds came into the June 27th game against the Padres with 749 career home runs. Every one of his at-bats became a national event. Whenever he came to the plate, the national sports broadcaster ESPN cut to the Giants game, hoping to catch a little piece of history.

Bonds did not start the game against the Padres. He was given a routine day off. This led to huge disappointment amongst the majority of fans present. It was clear that, despite the charms of AT+T Park, the overwhelming bulk of spectators were there to see Bonds edge closer to a place in history. An illegitimate place in history.

The game was a good one. Future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux (who one would like to think will never be implicated in any PED scandal) rolled back the years for the Padres and pitched like it was 1996. He was opposed by Matt Cain, a promising young fireballer, pitched well for the Giants. It was a classic pitchers duel, played out in the glare of the early afternoon sun in the Bay. It was perfect. But something did not seem quite right. People still longed to see Barry Bonds.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Giants were down by two runs, and very much on their last legs. Manager Bruce Bochy rolled the dice and brought up two pinch hitters. The first, Mark Sweeney, would have to try to get on base to enable the second, Barry Lamar Bonds, to come to the dish at all.

The crowd went nuts. Everybody stood on their feet. Not to cheer Sweeney on, but to catch a glimpse of Bonds in the on deck circle taking his practice swings. People began cheering for him, almost oblivious to the fact that Sweeney had to do something first before Bonds could even enter the game. As the crowd reached a crescendo, Sweeney grounded out meekly to second base, and the game was over.

***

While Major League Baseball, and most baseball fans, found Bonds' pursuit of the all time home run record to be an irritant at best, fans in San Francisco still flocked to the park to cheer on the man who had been their hero for many years. They knew he was a cheat, they knew his 'record' was not done on the level in the same way as Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth, and they cheered all the same. So to the question: what do fans seek in sport?

Is it escapism? Is the sense of history in sport - and especially in American sports - so pronounced that people are desperate to say that they were part of a 'historic' event, even when deep down they know that it was not a 'legitimate' piece of history (in the sense that the record was chemically enhanced)? Or do people simply want to see the freakshow?

I think that, in this case at least, the sense of 'history' that came with Bonds' pursuit of the record was enough for people to block out the bad stuff which had been reported in Game of Shadows. Is that what spectators seek in watching sport then - a sense of occasion or importance, no matter how false it may be? In this case, I think that was true.

Disillusionment

I recently read Jeremy Whittle's excellent Bad Blood, the story of the author's disillusionment with the world of professional cycling and the contagion of doping which pervades the péloton. Whittle was not only a sports journalist, but describes himself as a cycling obsessive, who lapped up the the romance of the Tour de France and its great competitors such as Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond in his younger days before taking to writing about cycling in a professional capacity. Unlike other exposés published in recent years, Whittle's book contains no smoking gun; rather, it is a story of betrayal and shattered dreams, as the cumulative and relentless weight of cycling's drug scandals leaves the author not knowing who or what to believe in anymore.

Anyone who has followed professional cycling remotely closely over the past decade can relate to Whittle's quandary. I first caught the Tour de France bug watching Marco Pantani's epic victory in 1998. The Italian's daredevil style, which seemed almost counter-intuitive to the point of suicidal, won him a huge following. His victory was the antithesis to those of metronomic riders like Miguel Indurain and Jan Ullrich before him, and Lance Armstrong thereafter. By the time Pantani died of a drug overdose in 2004, it was well known that he had been doped in 1998, but he was one of many. Pantani's tragic demise was an extreme case, but the point remains that, as Whittle and Paul Kimmage before him pointed out, the majority of professional cyclists over the past fifteen or so years have been doped. Pantani's outing as a cheat began my own disillusionment with the sport and I have struggled to take much interest in it since.

On my travels through America in the summer of 2007 I recall meeting a Dane who was cycling from coast to coast. By chance, we were staying at a hostel in Memphis which was run by a huge cycling buff from South Carolina, and as the Tour de France was on at the time, cycling naturally dominated the conversation. At that point, every Tour winner since 1996 had either been exposed as a drug cheat, or had a deal of circumstantial evidence amassed against them (Lance Armstrong being subject to huge scrutiny and many accusations, but no positive test to this point). The 2006 winner, Floyd Landis, had been stripped of his crown. Cycling needed, yet again, some positive publicity.

During my week in Memphis, the Tour was being led comfortably by the Dane, Michael Rasmussen, who seemed poised to win, and hopefully restore some pride to the battered classic. My new Danish friend, Henrik, went to great lengths telling us how we really could trust Rasmussen, how he was definitely clean, and we all wanted to believe this was true. Such was his enthusiasm that another hostel visitor posted a sign - purely as a practical joke - stating that Rasmussen had been disqualified from the Tour. Mortified at first, Henrik laughed at it afterwards, only for the joke to become reality the following day, as Rasmussen was dropped by his team for a number of testing violations (he never tested positive, however).

I have seen sports fans crushed after particularly painful defeats. I have been in the doldrums following certain games (Ireland-Spain 2002 being a particular low point). Henrik's reaction was beyond anything I had witnessed before. It was beyond defeat - it was a betrayal. Before my eyes I witnessed his own disillusionment with the sport hit him like an ACME anvil hitting the Wiley Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon.

If you're a cycling fan, it seems that these things will come to you. As Whittle's book demonstrates, in cycling's recent history, nobody is above suspicion.

***

It seems to me that there is a great parallel between cycling's current predicament and that of baseball. The past few months have seen more scandalous revelations pertaining to the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in the sport. First the sport's brightest star, Alex Rodriguez, was revealed to have failed a test in 2003, and subsequently admitted to juicing. In the past week Manny Ramirez was suspended for fifty games for a positive test for a women's fertility drug often used at the end of a steroid cycle. With new revelations emerging about his alleged use, the pitcher Roger Clemens broke his public silence on ESPN radio to continue his denials of any wrongdoing in the face of a good deal of circumstantial evidence. As one commentator put it yesterday, Clemens was like Seinfeld's George Costanza, who once remarked that 'it's not a lie if you believe it.' The shadow of Barry Bonds' home run records still looms over the sport.

Everyone is a suspect. We know from Senator George Mitchell's (very limited) report that there was no profile for baseball's drug user - it could be the skinny utility infielder or the bullpen specialist as much as the musclebound slugger. A huge number of players were using and not just to set records, but to break the major leagues in the first place and make a decent living. This is not dissimilar to Paul Kimmage's description of systematic abuse amongst the lowly domestiques of the péloton - they simply wanted to hang on. Before last week, most fans thought that Ramirez was too lackadaisical to stick to a drugs programme. But apparently he did.

Everyone is a suspect and increasingly it is a case of guilty until proven innocent. This was hammered home in a recent column by ESPN's Howard Bryant, himself an author of an exposé on steroid use in baseball a couple of years ago. Just before the Manny Ramirez story broke, Bryant had interviewed David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox, a feared home run hitter as recently as two years ago, who inexplicably (or explicably, depending on how cynical you are) has yet to hit a home run this year. In Bryant's article, he discussed many reasons for Ortiz's struggles with the hitter, but never even broached the topic of PEDs. This was spite of the fact that Ortiz and Ramirez were teammates for the former's most productive years.

Bryant wrote a follow-up article describing how he had received 109 emails from readers regarding the piece, only one of which did NOT take him to task for neglecting to mention PEDs. Ortiz has no connection (as far as is known at present) to shady gyms, personal trainers, dealers, supplements, or the like, but still many fans assume his guilt.

Is a collective disillusionment taking over baseball?

***

The point of this article is to ask quite simply: what is it that we, as fans, seek in sport? It cannot, simply, be escapism. It has to be a certain type of escapism. Until the respective drug stories emerged both cycling and especially baseball were enjoying huge popularity (the epic, and steroid fuelled Home Run Chase of 1998 essentially saved baseball in the aftermath of the players' strike of 1994 and brought the fans back). Would fans rather be left willfully ignorant?


I am not sure there is an easy answer. I was captivated by Pantani in 1998. Would I feel differently if he had never been caught? The fact remains that there are many prominent sportsmen who use, or have used in the past, that we are unaware of. Certainly we know this to be true in baseball (seeing as A-Rod's name was one of 104 positive tests taken in 2003 which were supposed to be kept anonymous). The rewriting of sports history - especially a history which we have lived and loved - leads to confusion above all, certainly in my case. If we accept that anyone is potentially guilty, then the feats of the past must be glossed over. The only positive is that, in theory, stricter drug testing should clean up sport in the future.

I have a lot of respect for Usain Bolt

Yes, his world records in the 100m and 200m sprints are very impressive. And yes, it might be argued that I admire anyone who reinforces cultural stereotypes in comedy fashion ("In Jamaica, you learn as a child how to roll a joint.") But the real reason is this:

Bild said one of its reporters met Bolt at a disco in Kingston, Jamaica, and that the sprinter drank Guinness mixed with Red Bull. The paper added that Bolt has been assigned two bodyguards by the Jamaican government.

Who the hell mixes Guinness and Red Bull?! That is possibly the most unappealing drinks combination I have ever heard of - and I'm open to most things. It's not quite Paul McGrath locked in a hotel drinking poitín for the weekend, but for sheer creativity, I give him much kudos.

Eoin Ryan Loves Political Capital

An advertisement has appeared on a number of facebook pages recently. I'd imagine that it is tailored to appeal to the hitherto non-political footballing yoof of Ireland. Placed by Eoin Ryan, a Member of the European Parliament for Fianna Fail, it promises us that: 'Eoin Ryan loves football, MOST of the time! Click here to find out why!'

Like a dutiful old dog I clicked on the link. It takes you to this, a letter written by Ryan to (I presume, as this isn't clear) the President of the European Parliament, outlining Ryan's disgust at Scottish born players who represent Ireland at international level receiving racist abuse. I have no problem with this, in theory, although it presupposes that Irish fans are saintly in their terrace comportment, when this is plainly not the case (does anyone remember when Ireland played Denmark in a friendly a few years back and the PA mistakenly informed the crowd that Peter Lovenkrands, then of Rangers, had come on as a sub? The player who actually came on was booed for the remainder of the game, on the grounds that he [Lovenkrands] played for Rangers).

Wouldn't it read better as 'Eoin Ryan Loves Political Capital!'?

Bring a Hard Hat

Yes! For only €175 you can watch Ireland play 'an outstanding match' against Bulgaria on March 28th. Screw Croke Park: 'For those seasoned football fans among us: the Landsdowne Road in Ireland is the perfect venue to see Ireland - Bulgaria!' I'm not sure which is more fanciful, the idea of it being an outstanding match or Lansdowne Road being the perfect venue.

I suppose there's an obvious joke about a building site suiting our style of play, but I am not going to make it. Lets just see how Worldticketshop.com survives the recession.

Holding out for a Hero

Alex Rodriguez's admission on Monday that he had used steroids has left baseball writers in something of a bind. Aside from all the moral outrage at what has come to be known as the 'steroid era' - encompassing the players, the owners, Major League Baseball, and the players union - it has led to a fundamental problem regarding the interpretation of the game's history.

Baseball is a sport which prides itself on history. More so than any other sport, it is a game of numbers. Numbers are hugely important even to those who are not statistically inclined. It's a game of twenty-seven outs organised into nine innings. Three strikes and you're out, four balls and you get a walk. It may be a cliché, but most Americans can tell you that Babe Ruth wore number 3, or that Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs, that Joe DiMaggio had a 56 game hitting streak, or that Ted Williams was the last player to have a batting average of .400. The great players have their uniform numbers retired. The truly great can hope to acquire a sufficient number of votes to gain entry to the Hall of Fame. It's a game of numbers, numbers, numbers.

The BALCO scandal began a process which is still playing out and may have a long distance left to run. Being integral to it, Barry Bonds' achievements (breaking both the single season and all time home run record) have been invalidated, even though the history books will show that he hit 73 home runs in 2001 and 762 for his career. He is due to stand trial for perjury on March 3rd for lying to a federal grand jury about intentional drug use.


Bonds was never very popular and although he trampled all over the history books, the proximity of a number of less bulky, and less obviously 'roided players to Bonds in the all time home run list meant that his record was not expected to endure. Alex Rodriguez, the prodigy who made the major leagues at the age of eighteen and who did not seem to physically change much throughout his career would break it. While A-Rod was never a popular figure - he was seen as vain and preening and a big-time choker - he was at least assumed to be clean. Hell, he didn't need steroids, or so they said (nevermind that this applied equally to Bonds. Also, lets ignore the fact that baseball's history is littered with cheats who bent the rules in a myriad of ways).

It turns out that Alex Rodriguez is another drug cheat.

People always gasped and gawked at the sudden emergence of Sammy Sosa to become a perennial 60 home run threat in the late nineties, or at the size of Mark McGwire's arms when he and Sosa went head to head for the single season home run record which had stood for 37 years in 1998. Bonds' late career power spike drew similar amazement. A-Rod never experienced this. He was a natural from the get-go, one who hit 36 home runs in his first full season in 1996 at the age of 20.

A-Rod was the saviour of baseball, the redeemer, who although lacking in charisma and public relations savvy, would at least wrench back one of the sports' most hallowed records for the good guys. That won't happen now.

A revisionist movement is suddenly under way. Nobody from the previous twenty years is above suspicion. Players who had been somewhat overlooked are now being rehabilitated on the fly.

Take Frank Thomas for example. Thomas was similar to Bonds in his career - surly, seen as a bad team-mate, and not particularly kind to the press. He won two MVPs in the early 1990s and topped 500 home runs for his career last year. He was always viewed as a borderline Hall of Fame candidate at best due to his 'character issues' and the fact that he didn't 'play' a position for large chunks of his career (being a designated hitter). Thomas was the only player who consistently spoke out against performance enhancing drugs, advocated the introduction of testing, and more importantly, was the only player in all of Major League Baseball who agreed to cooperate in full with Senator Mitchell's report into the issue. Could he be the hero?

People are looking once more to Ken Griffey Jr., the original 'natural', a lithe and athletic guy with a sweet swing who was sure to break both the single season and career home run records in the mid 90s without all that muscle. Injuries derailed his career somewhat in the late 90s and especially into the 2000s and he missed out on baseball's steroid fuelled home run binge. He has still topped 600 career home runs. Larry Stone of the Seattle Times wrote on Monday that 'Griffey will rightly emerge as the most celebrated player of his era.'

Some writers are advocating the abolition of all records set in the 'steroids era'. It is a measure of the distrust that has gripped baseball over the past five years. Nobody is above suspicion. Numbers have become meaningless. The players of the steroids era etched themselves into history and now the process of rewriting this history is beginning. The dust has yet to settle. Baseball needs to decide who its hero is going to be.

ClapTrap

The official FAI website recently ran a feature called 'Ask Trap'. This allowed readers to submit questions for the great Trapattoni with the promise that the six 'most popular' questions would be answered by the lovable but indecipherable Italian. One wonders why they would choose to run with the six 'most popular' when it's clear that, in my opinion at the very least, the six most popular questions amongst Irish fans would be the following:

1) Whither Andy Reid?

2) Whither Stephen Ireland?

3) Why are you so bloody conservative?

4) What do you make of the Robbie Keane drama?

5) What's Marco Tardelli's favourite nightspot?

6) Is 'mentality' the only English word you've learned since you've been in charge of Ireland?

Ok, so the last two aside, I think that the other four, perhaps in slightly different forms, would be the most popular questions. And although we have heard plenty in the press about both Stephen Ireland and Andy Reid, it doesn't make these any less pressing issues for Irish fans, especially given the former's scintillating club form.

The questions published on the FAI website were predictably censored. Most popular? Lets see...

Question 1: Do you think Robbie Keane going back to Spurs is a good move?

That's one of the six, fine.

Question 2: When we were 1-0 up on Cyprus we had them for the taking and if we had pushed on we would have easily scored and killed the game but instead we played out the 1-0 win but came very close to conceding at the end which would have been a very bad result, we were lucky I feel. Do you not think that when a team is there to be beaten more than one goal that we should be more attack minded?

That's also one of the six, but seriously, don't they have an editor at the FAI? Ultimately, I have no problem with this one as it elicited the wonderful response from Trap that 'If you give [Cyprus] space they will skewer you like a chicken.' I'm not sure if he means they will skewer you in the manner that a psycopathic chicken might skewer its quarry, or in the manner in which a kebab shop employee (lets say Fatih Terim) might prepare his produce. Either way, I'm with Trap on this one.

Question 3: How important do you feel it is having 'B' internationals and should we be putting more impetus on our u21 side?

This is a reasonably important issue but ultimately tangential, in my opinion. Bigger fish to be fried. Yes, the food analogies will continue.

Question 4: Who was the best player that ever played for you and how does Robbie compare?

This is clearly a joke entry that slipped through the net.

Question 5: Mr. Trapattoni. Your opinion about Georgia national team? About Héctor Cúper? What is your prognosis about the recent match between Ireland and Georgia?

Eh? Seriously? This was one of the top six most popular questions submitted? And this was the best phrased example? Just who are we trying to kid here? It's so badly phrased that you'd be forgiven for thinking that Giovanni had written the thing himself.

Question 6: Why not go with a 4-3-3- formation and go for it from here on out?

Yawn.

The media people at the FAI could have claimed that they would print the best six questions (a little more plausible, but still way off the mark) instead of the most popular ones. Are they trying to pretend that Irish fans simply do not care about the Ireland and Reid situations? They may be exasperated by the former's inexplicable moodswings, but he's still a huge source of comment, for better or worse, amongst Irish fans. Andy Reid too. Hell, he's even broached the subject a couple of months ago. While we never would expect that Trap would give away all the inside information in such a format, it is ridiculous of the FAI braintrust to claim that it's not an issue.

[Also: they never answered my question about Mick Wallace. Bastards].