Indictment won't kill our buzz

Andrea Adelson | Sentinel Staff Writer
November 18, 2007

So Barry Bonds has been indicted for lying to a federal grand jury. Big deal.

This changes nothing, considering we already suspect the guy cheated his way to the home-run record by using performance-enhancing drugs. Now it is up to the courts to lay out the evidence against him so we can finally hear the truth..

Of course, Bonds is not the only one who allegedly cheated. More than 50 baseball players have been linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, and most have denied using them. More are expected to be identified when former U.S. senator George Mitchell releases his report on steroid use before the year ends.

Ultimately, we will greet that news the same way we met the Bonds announcement. We will not care. Another report revealing names? Yawn.

Don't believe me? Baseball has seen four straight years of attendance increases. Commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday that league revenue had reached $6.075 billion, saying, "We're on a great high here." Bonds was indicted a few hours later.

It is preposterous that baseball is enjoying unprecedented cash flow given its tainted game. None of that will change, even if Mitchell's report shows that Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and the entire Red Sox Nation are a bunch of cheaters.

"Life will go on," sports psychologist Richard Lustberg said. "We want to be entertained. People are willing to overlook this because they need the games for their own emotional needs. It's like smoking. You need the drug, so you overlook you're going to get cancer."

The NFL has seen its share of stars test positive for banned substances, and neither its popularity nor the popularity of the players has wavered. San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman served a four-game suspension last year but still ended up making the Pro Bowl. New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison served a four-game suspension to start this season.

Last year, Dr. James Shortt pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally prescribe steroids and human growth hormone to members of the Carolina Panthers. The news barely made a ripple.

Several studies have shown how we become immune to shocking stories. Kirk L. Wakefield, a sports marketing specialist at Baylor, explains the research this way: "If you show people a terrible story about murder and mayhem and then ask them about something that is wrong but not as bad as murder, then that story is not so bad.

"If you compare that second story after telling them about Mother Teresa, then it is terrible. Steroids are in the news every week, so when the Mitchell report comes out and says these people have done it, people say, 'What do you expect?' "

We are very forgiving, especially when it comes to our athletes. Look at the adulation Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield have gotten -- after being linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe Bonds would have been forgiven if he admitted he made a mistake.

"There are rationalizations out there that people can at least partially use to accept steroid use," said Matthew Bernthal, an associate professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina. "One is, the athletes are doing this to their own bodies; they're not hurting anybody else. The other one is simply the competitive ethic. It's just the way it is in sports. Everybody's doing it, and to be the best they can be, they have to do it."

Just last week, some baseball general managers meeting in Orlando said their free-agent plans would not change just because someone might be named in the Mitchell report. So if baseball is not going to take these findings seriously, why should the rest of us?

Oh, sure, it will be great fun to rubberneck when these dastardly players are named. But after we have paused to look, we will hit the gas and speed ahead to the next big story.

When baseball tabbed Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader, to investigate in the spring of 2006, it tried to do the right thing -- mainly because the league wanted people to believe it was serious about the issue of performance-enhancing drugs.

But since this so-called investigation started, names of cheaters slowly have leaked in various media reports, Bonds broke the home-run record and baseball is no closer to making us believe it really cares about its fans or the state of its game. If anything, we are so desensitized to the topic of athletes and steroid use that the upcoming report has been rendered meaningless.

What good will it do to see Bonds in jail and more names revealed in a perfunctory report? Players will keep cheating, and we will keep cheering.

Andrea Adelson can be reached at aadelson@orlandosentinel.com.