Why We Cheat: Baseball’s Drug Violators Suggest Reasons

It’s been almost a hundred years since baseball first confronted the issue of cheating.  Then, it was when a number of players on the Chicago White Sox took money to “throw” the World Series.  The Black Sox Scandal, as it came to be called, led to an iron-clad rule that banished anyone who ever cheated by gambling (or by being involved in gambling) on games.  That rule was violated a quarter of a century ago by Pete Rose, who, while managing the Cincinnati Reds, placed bets on games, including games his own team was playing.  Rose, despite holding the record for the most hits in a career, has been denied what would otherwise be his rightful place in the Hall of Fame as a result of his life-long banishment from the game.

No one has been accused of cheating by actually trying to lose a game since the Black Sox Scandal, and no allegations of betting on games have surfaced since the Rose case.  Instead, in the 1990s ball players started using drugs to improve their performances.  These performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) can have a direct effect on performance (as is the case with steroids that increase muscle size) or an indirect effect (as with testosterone that promotes healing and lessens recovery time).  PEDs were in wide-spread use for years before the owners and players finally agreed to try to control the use of the drugs.

The “era of PEDs” was marked by record-breaking performances (especially with respect to power hitting), with players who had previously been relatively weak hitters suddenly socking home runs at a rate that would have made Babe Ruth proud.  Finally, in 2003, the owners and the players’ union agreed to ban the substances, with a progression of suspensions (50 games for a first offense, 100 for a second, and a life-time ban for a third) instituted as deterrents.

The problem, however, didn’t go away.  Players still cheated by using whatever they thought might slip through the random testing undetected.  It now appears that many were “getting away” with this form of cheating, as the Biogenesis scandal has revealed.  In the immediate aftermath of the announcement of the suspensions of 13 players this week, many in the game were vowing to “clean it up” once and for all.

And, to be sure, that would be nice.  The game, as any fan will tell you, is marvelously constructed to match the best offense a team can muster against the best defense its opposing team can fashion.  And when all the players are doing the best they can, without the benefit of drug-enhanced performance, the results are often magical, be they 2 to 1 pitchers’ duels, 10 to 9 slugfests, or extra-innings nail-biters with every pitch and every play potentially determining the winning and losing sides.

This latest round of suspensions might indeed put an end to the cheating that has plagued the sport, but I tend to doubt that it will.  Cheating, like lying, seems to be part of the human condition.  Or maybe the better way to say it would be that the impetus to cheat and lie appears to be endemic in the human species.

If I’m correct, and I think I am, ballplayers will continue to seek ways to improve their odds against other players.  Of course, many, if not most, will try to do so within the existing rules of the game.  But whenever the opportunity/temptation presents itself, there will be ball players who will try to gain an advantage over the other guys.

Isn’t the same true in all walks of life?  In business, the profit motive creates the impetus to “bend the rules,” with some bending leading to major scandals and with some actions resulting in serious losses for the victims of the cheating.  And even if the culture of a corporation honors the letter and the spirit of the regulations it is required to follow, there will be individuals within that corporation who, for their own personal benefit (i.e., to get promotions or to enhance their careers), will cheat and then, if necessary, lie about their cheating.

Closer to home, which of us hasn’t “fudged” on a tax return or called in sick when we just wanted a day off or, in my case, claimed to be older so as to get a senior discount when we wouldn’t really be entitled to it for another six months?

Aren’t all of these instances, minor discretions though they may be, a form of cheating?

So it must be for the ballplayers who get so consumed with the competitive nature of their careers that they succumb to the temptations that PEDs present.  Hey, there are only so many major league jobs (750, to be exact).  And it only takes a couple of excellent seasons to get a contract that will provide for all your material needs for the rest of your life.  To be a top minor league prospect, looking at that potential windfall if you can just get one of those 750 jobs, would be a far greater temptation than the four dollars an almost 65-year-old can save at the local movie theater.

And once in the majors, a batter who has to face the likes of Clayton Kershaw or Justin Verlander might just think that a little boost in performance could make the difference between a piddling three million dollar salary and a multi-year 100 million dollar deal.

This week, after the suspensions were announced, some of the suspended players’ team-mates were trying to make excuses for the colleagues.  (To their credit, other team-mates expressed disappointment, if not outrage.)  Several called the use of PEDs “mistakes,” as if to suggest the kind of thing that could happen to anyone.

In a way, they were right.  Cheating is something that anyone can engage in, always, at the time, for what seem like “good” reasons.  But to call them “mistakes” is also very wrong.

Mistakes are things that happen without intent or design.  To cheat is to make a conscious decision, one that all of us are susceptible of making.