Say it ain’t so, Jose

Congress issued subpoenas this week to several Major League Baseball players, including Jason Giambi, Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling, to testify in regards to the recently revealed steroid-use scandal.

Congress has jurisdiction in this matter due to a quirk in the legal system; Major League Baseball is a rare exemption from our strict, century-old anti-trust laws. But the real reason, I believe, is that baseball, as an institution, is just too important for America to treat it like any other game, or any other business.

The game is one of the cornerstones of American culture; it represents, more than any other institution, the American dream. In a country born secular, baseball is our religion. It’s a game that is supposed to be unquestionably good, and cheating in baseball is a betrayal of faith of virtually equal magnitude to finding out the kindly old town priest is, in fact, a pedophile. If one sets aside the relative gravity of both offenses, what characterizes them is the loss of trust and faith.

Whereas there is no shortage of sports that are won by speed and strength alone, baseball is won by intelligence and craft as much as by muscle. The quick-witted and smart can compensate for what they lack and rise to the top of their game. In a nation of immigrants and poor, huddled masses, the message was received that disadvantages can be overcome, that there is a fair playing field where anyone can rise to the top. In a nation of racism and segregation, baseball was one of the first institutions to be color-blind. If you could do well, no matter who you are, you can succeed.

Isn’t this the universal America dream? Is it hard to understand then, why Americans react so viscerally when we’re told it’s untrue?

In 1919, baseball’s first and greatest scandal rocked the nation. The Chicago White Sox – forever onward known as the Black Sox – intentionally lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The nation was betrayed, and its sentiment was embodied by a heartbroken young boy who pleaded for star left fielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson to say it wasn’t so; he couldn’t.

This was a world that needed baseball. The progressive era had shown the American people that big business was conspiring to exploit them. A corrupt and vile government, only a few years away from the explosive Teapot-Dome scandal, had demonstrated that it could not be trusted, and the First World War, in all its terrible gloom, had disillusioned an entire generation.

This was a world filled with apparent and evil truths, and America much appreciated a diversion that reminded them again of the good in their country. As bad as things would get, baseball, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, would always be a pure and pleasant thing. As President William Howard Taft, eminent baseball fan and inventor of the 7th-inning stretch, once succinctly stated, “The game of baseball is a clean, straight game.” There were so very few.

The world today is not so different. Trust in business and government – two iconic American institutions – is dubious at best, as well it should be. But baseball is a game that works against this. In a cruel world, sunshine and the smell of cut grass, and the crack (or unfortunate ping) of ball and bat can still be overpowering. But Americans know when it doesn’t ring true.

The New York Yankees, a venerable and extremely talented team, are widely despised in baseball, not because they play badly, but because they use their massive payroll against other poorer teams. An unfair characterization of the Yankees, but nevertheless one which is certainly present, is that they entice whatever player they want, from whatever team, with an irresistibly enormous paycheck.

There is nothing wrong, per se, about this, but it’s simply not the way the game is played, and America’s omni-present Yankee-hatred is a testament to that.

Steroids are an even bigger sin. If the game is good because the smart and wily can overcome the strong, steroids destroy that. No longer will there be a “Natural,” a rough, ungroomed talent from the heartland that can compete with the best of them. Instead, this natural becomes a gigantic hulk with a ruined body.

As baseball plods a heavy, chemically-enhanced foot into the 21st century, it is up to the fans to stop it. Ban the steroid-users; expunge their records. Make baseball, once again, a clean straight game. There are so very few.

Daniel Mezzanotte is the views editor of the “Tulane Hullabaloo.” Comments may be sent to dmezzano@tulane.edu.