NEWS & VIEWS

 

 

NEWS:  A noted track athlete was suspended when a performance-enhancing drug was found in her system. She blamed it on a burrito.

VIEWS: Ay, caramba!

Shelby Houlihan, who holds the American women’s records in the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs, last month was handed a four-year competitive ban when she tested positive for nandrolone, a hairy-chested steroid favored by weightlifters, after a December race. It eliminated her from contention for this year’s Olympics.

Houlihan reacted with dismay and made a list of everything she’d eaten during the week before the test. She said the likely culprit was a burrito she’d purchased at a food truck near her Beaverton, Oregon, home that might have contained pork raised in Mexico. Some Mexican meat producers are said to use steroids to beef up their animals.

Her contention, rejected by a sports court, caused many eyes to roll, but it had been tried before, and successfully. In 2015 Duane Brown, an offensive tackle for the Houston Texans of the National Football League, beat a 10-game league drugs rap when he produced restaurant receipts indicating he’d scarfed at least 10 hamburgers and two steaks during a pre-test trip to Mexico. Apparently, size counts in such matters.

Further, the burrito defense isn’t the most unlikely ever offered. In 2011 several members of the North Korean women’s national soccer team said their positive pre-Olympic tests stemmed from a native deer-musk remedy they’d taken after being struck by lightning.  American bicyclist Tyler Hamilton said his elevated testosterone level was due to his having absorbed a “vanished twin” into his body in utero.

American sprinter Dennis Mitchell claimed his 1998 ban stemmed from his having had sex with his wife four times the night before the positive drug test. “It was her birthday,” he explained. Another American sprinter, Lashawn Merritt, made an opposite claim, saying he’d taken a penis-enhancing product called ExtenZe just before his 2010 test. “Any penalty I have received will not overshadow the embarrassment and humiliation I feel,” he lamented.

NEWS: Major League Baseball announces a crackdown on pitchers’ use of sticky substances on baseballs.

VIEW: Get a grip!

               Finding itself in an era of pitcher domination, MLB last week instituted 10-game suspensions for pitchers found to be doctoring balls, and said it would actively enforce the ruling. The backdrop to the declaration is several years of declining batting averages and soaring strikeout rates. Not long ago a batting average of .230 and a 100-a-year strikeout pace gave position players tickets to the minors. Today such stats are, um, average.

               Another impetus for the move is the newish baseball stat of “spin rate”, which measures a delivery’s rotations and is much on the lips of the game’s TV and radio announcers. High spin rates allow pitches to better retain their velocity and “break” more sharply. Having a better grip on the ball helps with that. A lot.

               Doctored baseballs go back to the game’s earliest days, with enforcement against them waxing and waning over the years. One notable (and confessed) diamond physician, Gaylord Perry, played hide and seek with the umps over a 21-year career (1962-83) that resulted in 314 wins and a Hall of Fame berth. Apparently, today’s pitchers haven’t needed to be as creative as Perry in fashioning their potions; a browse of the internet reveals that commercial products with names like Spin It, Spider Tack and Gorilla Gold are readily available to stickum seekers.

               The first week of the ban created some interesting displays; Oakland A’s pitcher Sergio Romo dropped (and quickly raised) his pants when approached by umps for an on-the-mound inspection. The first pitcher to be ejected was the Seattle Mariners’ Hector Santiago, in a game last Sunday. He squawked loudly, claiming his only stick-aid was sweat mixed with legal resin.  Expect to hear that defense repeated in days to come amid much sturm und drang.

NEWS: Several pro-team athletes say “no” to covid vaccines.

               VIEWS: Just say “yes.”

               While our professional sports are joyfully kicking the traces of about a year and a half of restrictions caused by the covid virus, rearguard actions are being waged. Among the recalcitrant are Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward of the Chicago Cubs. Due to their stances and those of unnamed others, the Cubs say they are unable to reach the 85% vaxxed mark for all personnel MLB has set to allow teams to return all their activities to pre-covid “normals.” As of the last official pronouncement, eight of the majors’ 30 teams had fallen short.

               Rizzo and Heyward are veteran players and reputed clubhouse leaders of their team. Both said they weren’t anti-vax but want to “see more data” before receiving their jabs, although neither specified what that data might be. Their choices will sit heavily on their teammates, who must continue to observe masking and social-distancing protocols in their dugouts, weight and locker rooms and medical and training facilities until the 85% cutoff is met.

               Yeah, I know, not getting vaxxed has become a “freedom” issue with some, although that particular freedom amounts to a willingness to catch and pass on a potentially fatal illness that continues to spread. And yeah, big-time jocks have the same right of expression as the rest of us, whether or not we applaud what they say. But the prominence and wealth their positions command do, or should, carry with them greater-than-usual responsibility, making them role models even if they don’t wish it. They should ask themselves how they’d like to live in a world that follows their examples.