Baseball's image tainted by drugs 

Source: Getty ImagesAlex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees

The long-term status of Major League Baseball could be jeopardised by the spate of steroids revelations plaguing the game, former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent said Thursday.

Monday's admission of doping by Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez made front page news across the United States and on Thursday Miguel Tejada of the Astros pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his knowledge of other baseball players using steroids.

"I think it's death by a thousand cuts," Vincent told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Florida home.

"The more of this that goes on the less romantic I become about the players. I become cynical. I don't like cheats.

"The risk is that fans like me will start to perceive this like professional wrestling. Like it's entertainment, not a sport and when it crosses from sport to entertainment it's on its way to a very bad result."

Vincent, who preceded reigning chief Bud Selig as commissioner, said baseball occupied a special place in the US sports landscape that made its fans feel betrayed when players misbehave.

"I think baseball fans have a very romantic view of their game. They think of it as a respite from all the ugliness in the normal world, and now we are finding out there's a lot of ugliness in baseball," said Vincent, 70, who dealt with the Pete Rose gambling case and other drug problems during his regime.

Vincent said Rodriguez "is obviously going to get pilloried" and that baseball fans reacted more personally to lapses in integrity than in other US team sports.

"There's a certain childish quality to the baseball fan. It's very much a family activity. Almost all of us come to baseball through a mother or a father," he said.

Monsters' game

"Baseball... has a certain romantic aspect to it. Football is all violence, it's all smashing. It's a sport of giants. Baseball is a kids' game and football is a monsters' game. Little people can play baseball. Women can play baseball.

"We don't want people cheating. We want them to be a combination of Greg Maddux and Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays. Young people dashing around... and blowing bubble gum bubbles."

Vincent, who resigned in 1992 after three years as commissioner over lack of support from owners unhappy with how he settled a 1990 labor dispute with players, said steroids were just coming into the game in his time.

"Our ignorance about steroids was total," he said.

"I was still dealing with throwing (pitcher) Steve Howe out for seven cocaine violations and having the union say they wanted him reinstated, and they got him reinstated through a stupid arbitrator.

"There were tiny little whiffs of smoke about steroids in my day. We were stupid about it. We thought that steroids was a football problem, about bulking up."

Vincent said he was at fault for not identifying the problem sooner but said the issue goes way beyond baseball.

"This is a national and an international athletic problem in that chemists can give track stars and bicyclists and baseball players drugs that can improve their performance.

"The economic motivation and temptation to use those drugs is enormous."

"The chemists are too good, they can find drugs that don't show up in the tests.

"It's a national problem, a problem for Congress. It's a problem for parents of kids in high school."