THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: News came out Thursday that the names of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were on the list of 104 Major League Baseball players who tested positive in a 2003 test for performance-enhancing drugs. While the names of baseball players continue to leak out and those caught are held up for scorn and derision, it seems that NFL players caught using banned substances receive much less criticism. Do you believe that is the case, and if so, why?

JOE STRAUSS
It’s absolutely the case. The NFL reigns supreme in its relationship with and control of media. The hypocrisy of the Shawne Merriman example versus anything within baseball is striking. The guy tests positive, receives the requisite wrist slap and returns to get the third most votes for NFL Defensive Player of the Year. The perception is that NFL media are along for the ride, much as MLB media stand accused of during the 90’s. Why doesn’t the NFL require at least the same testing threshold as MLB? It’s not meant as a rhetorical question. Why does the NFL as an institution so tightly limit access to its players? It’s a fascinating question no one seems interested in answering.

JIM THOMAS
Many of the same media members who are railing against Ramirez and Ortiz were the same ones fawning over Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire 10 years ago. There is less romanticizing and moralizing in football. In football, you test positive, you get suspended, you do your time, and you get on with it. For all the talk about steroids in baseball, how many big name players actually have been suspended? In addition, the biggest stars in football — quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers — don’t necessarily play positions where steroids might help performance. You don’t need to be a mass of muscle to throw a football (See: Joe Montana), make a defensive lineman miss (See: Barry Sanders), or get separation from a defensive back (See: Isaac Bruce).

RICK HUMMEL
A very interesting question and one which baffles me. All I can surmise is that baseball has a much longer tradition than pro football and individual statistics and records mean so much more for fans in baseball than in pro football. But, it is interesting that a four-game drug suspension in football is treated like a hamstring pull while a similar penalty in baseball is treated like a major felony has been committed.

DERRICK GOOLD
Much less criticism? Less criticism and coverage is only the start. Mark McGwire, for example, cannot crack 25 percent on the Hall of Fame ballot because he is suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs due to his famously uncomfortable appearance before Congress and because a report in The New York Daily News linked him to possession of PEDs. There’s no positive test to hang the vote on. By contrast, San Diego linebacker Shawne Merriman was suspended for four games for a positive test in 2006. There was proof. There was punishment. He missed four games. And he still finished third that season for the voting for the Defensive Player of the Year. Merriman was part of the promotion campaign for Madden ’09. Think Alex Rodriguez will be the face on Topps baseball cards next season? Those are anecdotal examples of what has become a confounding part of our sports culture. Steroids are a societal problem, not a baseball problem. Yet, steroid news gravitates toward baseball. Perhaps it’s because the NFL is the gladiator sport, the physical, rough-and-tumble show. Perhaps it’s baseball’s roots, its devotion to its history, the value it places on its numbers. Perhaps it’s the culture of the sport, of the coverage, of the fanbase. Or, perhaps the NFL is on deck, awaiting its turn to face the heat.

BILL COATS
That does seem to be the case, although the situation with the Carolina Panthers a few years ago caused a pretty good stir. I’m not sure why football is less criticized. Maybe because it’s a much more physical sport played by much bigger people who must spend many, many hours in the weight room to be able to perform in their game. Less suspicion because of that, perhaps?

JEFF GORDON
Excellent question. Performance-enhancing drugs play a big role in sports. It has been a massive issue in Olympic sports like track and field and weightlifting. It has been a massive issue in cycling. It has been on the football scene forever, from high schools on up. And yet revelations of steroid/HGH in baseball causes outrage — as if Our National Pastime is supposed to be above it all. Fans act like the Hall of Fame is some sacred place when, in fact, it is loaded with scoundrels. I guess baseball is the most romantic of all the major sports and that stirs feelings of betrayal. It shouldn’t. Ballplayers push boundaries in competition, just as all athletes do.

LUKE THOMPSON
Unfortunately, I think this is true, due to the way we perceive the two sports. Even though football is more popular, baseball remains America’s pastime, with a much more sacred history. Old records matter more, and we tend to relate better to our favorite players because they’re out there for 162 games for everyone to see. Meanwhile, football players seem less like everyday people, maybe because they only play 16 games and they’re all wearing helmets and pads that make them look even larger than they actually are. That makes it a lot easier to look the other way when these freakish athletes are caught with steroids or the average weight of offensive linemen increases by ridiculously unhealthy amounts in a fairly short period of time.