More Than Just Baseball

It would have been naive to believe the cloud of steroids would never touch the Blue Jays.

Now it has, but for this club, it's more than just an issue surrounding one ballplayer.

It adds to their credibility woes.

SCOTT AUDETTE/REUTERS

Troy Glaus has been linked to a Florida pharmacy alleged to have illegally distributed performance-enhancing drugs to pro athletes.

Attendance is basically flat at slightly better than 28,000 per game, better than it was in 2004 and 2005, slightly down from '06. As much as the Jays like to complain about having to compete against the BoSox and Yankees, the fact they can't convince their own fans to turn out in consistently greater numbers cuts into their revenue base.

Team performance is similarly stagnant. At 72-70, equalling last year's 87-win record is unlikely, and even tying the 80-win record of two years ago is going to require beating Tampa Bay once in a while.

So much was promised this year, and the injury excuse can only carry J.P. Ricciardi so far as his five-year plan moves into its second five years. Even the embattled Leaf GM John Ferguson always says, "You are what your record says you are."

Ricciardi, meanwhile, looked very, very bad earlier this season with his out-and-out fibbing over the B.J. Ryan story, and Paul Godfrey's insistence on backing up his GMs verbal contortions didn't make him look much better.

Basically, the two men agreed that lying to the fans through the media was okay in their books.

Now comes the Troy Glaus mess.

Sandwiched between ugly revelations involving St. Louis outfielder Rick Ankiel and Baltimore outfielder Jay Gibbons (a former Blue Jay farmhand), with the media apparently still doing all the digging, Glaus may have been outed at the very least as a player who was in possession of steroids from the controversial Signature Pharmacy at a time when baseball had finally got around to making them illegal.

Interestingly, the Glaus allegations are getting a lot of traction in the San Francisco area when Barry Bonds is god but people now want to know if Glaus was on the juice when he won World Series MVP honors in '02 as part of an Angels team that beat the Giants.

So far, Glaus has said nothing. Ricciardi has said nothing. Godfrey, uncharacteristically, has been silent.

A stonewall? Are these guys serious? In a market that is clearly still lukewarm towards them despite all the efforts to remake the ballpark and create a new (if rather phony) team philosophy of being the Oakland A's east, this is no time for these people to go silent.

If Glaus has a case to make for himself, he should make it. The one approach that no athlete has ever really tried is just coming clean. How the fans at the dome react to him when the team returns home will be interesting. These are same folks who have booed Jason Giambi mightily and forced Rafael Palmeiro to wear ear plugs, after all.

Ricciardi, meanwhile, has to try and convince the world that he had no knowledge that he was fooled into buying a possible steroid user when Glaus was acquired. And Godfrey has to somehow spin this favourably to a Jays public that is getting rather fatigued over promises and more promises from a baseball team that used to play with the big clubs.

Go with the Mark McGwire approach if you want, boys. But for the Jays, this isn't just about Troy Glaus, and it isn't just about steroids.

Comments

[Jim Boyd]

By the number of comments or lack thereof, on this story, I think it would appear that the average sports fan really doesn't care anymore about who is juiced and who isn't.......

I think we take it for what it is/was, and move on. As long as the boys help my fantasy teams,,,,,carry on - jerk them out of the ballpark, pump a hatrick every game, run for a gazzilion yards,,,whatever.I can use the $250 or so at the end of every season.

[Bob Orr]

Are we really foolish enough to believe that players in the glory days of baseball did not try some sort of performance enhancing substance. I am pretty sure that as far back as caveman days they ate certain roots and herbs that they felt made them run faster. Who knows what prescriptions the Babe had when he hit all his dingers. The media then would have buried the story and never mentioned it. It has gone on at some level on every team in every league in almost every sport and will continue until the end of time. Its not newsworthy any longer. Lets hear about the sport again and get the gossip / tabloid crap off the sports pages and back into the Enquirer.

[Sanj]

I wonder if it really matters anymore who is on roids or not. I just saw Asafa Powell run the 100 m in 9.74 seconds. A new world record and a thing of beauty. It's getting to a point where I don't care if he did it clean or not anymore. All I care is that it was a great moment.

[M.J. Di Rocco]

I think you're right. The Jays are in a poop load of a mess without the juiced up Glaus issues. I think J.P. had a good run, and is good at building a team that looks good on paper, but he has yet to build a contender. The excuse "We're in the same division as the Yankees and BoSox" is getting old and Toronto baseball fans are getting fickle. Its time for uncle Ted to revamp his management and try to the Jays into form.

[alex]

Mr Boyd cannot be an "average sports fan" ... sounds more like you are a "betting fan", and if I were too, I would sure want to know if the deck was stacked!! Maybe people don't comment because they are sick and tired of more stories about cheating athletes (as well as the variety of other bad behaviour) and just don't care about the sport or the team ... in fact, that may just be the worst thing for sports leagues - people that just don't care. Even negative comments shows that people are at least paying attention and showing some interest ... empty areans and stadiums may be what is required to get their attention. Barry Bonds may be fine with being a cheat, but I'll bet what would really bug him is if people ignored him.

[Andrew Cunningham]

It is unfortunate that Jim Boyd is right in his comment: "the average sports fan doesn't care anymore..." Fans have been saturated by juicing stories for the past half-dozen years, from MLB to the Tour de France, and it seems that as soon as the cloud of 'roids and human growth hormone starts to thin, another story pops up about another of our worshiped athletes doping to either gain an edge or recover from catastrophe at an un-natural rate (a la Troy Glaus).

What is it honestly going to take to clean sports up? As far as I'm concerned, the Toronto, national and international media have been far too kind on Mr. Glaus and the Blue Jays. They all seem too quick to accept this "no comment" and move on. Barry Bonds got (and, to a certain extent, still gets) drilled over his alleged use of performance-enhancing substances, so why are the Jays and Glaus seemingly immune? Solely because he doesn't put up Bonds' numbers or isn't chasing a record?

He and the Blue Jays' ownership and management should be grilled consistently until he comes clean or at least explains his side of the story. When things like this are allowed to fall to the wayside, we, the fans, all lose confidence in the integrity of sport. And that itself is irreparable damage that no labor dispute, betting scandal, or ownership controversy can match in terms of magnitude.

[Simon]

I agree - it would be novel and refreshing for a player to just come clean. It wouldn't make the cheating any better but it would allow one of these players to keep a semblance of integrity. Try telling your 8-year old that one of the stars he watches is a cheat.

[Andy Knetsch]

So, in a nutshell, the Jays basically are overpaid underachievers who are quick to come up with excuses.

[George Orr]

I have lost all respect for Jay's management as they continually avoid or don't tell the truth. It is time for a full management change starting with Godfrey, J.P, Gibbons and the batting coach. My thinking would be Cito for batting coach and Phil Garner for manager. Pitching looks good for the next few years

Jays drafting has been poor and in a few years we will be lucky
to finish 3rd....watch out for Tampa

I am sure a lot of fans feel the same way....we are going downhill. It is time for Mr Rogers to get his money's worth..

[Jim M]

The one thing that really bothers me about all the hysteria about baseball players on steroids/performance enhancing drugs, is that for the most part the players being vilified didn't actually break the rules of baseball. As Ankiel said he stopped taking HGH once it was illegal to do so.

I'm not condoning the use of such substances but it seems odd that NFL football players do their 4 game suspensions and move on (in some cases to the Pro Bowl); in hockey no one cares at all (eg. Theodore). It makes me feel sympathy for guys like Bonds, as hard as that is to stomach, because the hostility targeted towards him seems out of proportion.

In the end our society rewards business and athletic winners with ridiculous riches and then acts shocked when many cheat to gain those prizes. That we reward these few individuals so handsomely is to me obscene, that we act shocked when we find out many of the "winners" are in fact cheats; seems to me naive.

[M.J.]

Perhaps there would be more of an interest or a fan base if there were more exposure such as more televised games or more availability of other media. Why can't there be outside the Toronto area at least ONE radio station that could carry the games instead of lowering their signal part way through? Or why not at least ONE radio station with a live internet broadcast link granted permission to broadcast the games through the internet?

As for Troy Glaus and the steroid bit, if it were true it was too long ago to matter now, as far as I'm concerned.

[chris]

Actually Damien, Paul Godfrey has commented on the Glaus situation, saying that he doesn't put any stock into a report that uses unnamed sources for their information. Plus he criticizes the media for "creating" this story, basically questioning their honesty.

So, in conclusion, Godfrey calls reporters liars for saying Troy Glaus received shipments of steroids, yet backs up his boy wonder JP Ricciardi one hundred percent after he smugly lied to the media and public about the actual severity of BJ Ryan's arm.

One word to describe Paul Godfrey: WEASEL!

[Richard Nelson]

Hey, Damien: Good piece, so what follows is just a quibble.

You wrote about "when baseball ... got around to making [steroids] illegal". Steroids - their use or possession without a prescription - were already a violation of state & federal law in the U.S. and Canada. Violating a federal drugs statute is surely enough to warrant punishment "for the good of the game".

Cheers!