Via TD Thornton
While horse racing was consumed last week by headlines related to the federal doping conspiracy trial and the Bob Baffert exclusion hearings at the behest of the New York Racing Association (NYRA), the sport baseball is also embroiled in its own ongoing performance enhancement drug (PED) saga.
Last Tuesday, retired skater David Ortiz was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of qualifying, while Barry Bonds (home track record holder) all time and one season) and Roger Clemens (one of the most dominant pitchers in major league history) both were denied entry due to lack of votes in their 10th and final years theirs on the ballot.
The baseball controversy has raged for years against the backdrop of the “steroid era” that spanned from the late 1980s to around 2010, in which a number of players stood out with overwhelming statistical results. adults suspected or positive for the use of PED.
While Ortiz reported a dirty test in 2003, union officials later attributed his one-time bad test (for a substance that has never been publicly disclosed) to be a false positive. With a clean record and Hall-worthy stats, Ortiz passed the vote on his first try. But Bonds and Clemens – both of whom have never tested positive, nor been disciplined for their use of PEDs – do not cut back despite overwhelmingly overwhelming paper-based credentials.
Baseball’s Hall of Fame is unique from other sports in that it has a provision stating that honorees “will be selected on the basis of ability to play, morale, their athleticism, their personalities, their contributions to the teams they’ve played on, and baseball in general.”
Part of the “characterization” of that requirement is why Bonds and Clemens were unable to secure 75% of the required voting block. Just like the supposed prolific juice makers Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, who also gave wildly misleading numbers in the 1990s, they were all denied entry because of perceived spills. spread that they cheated and tampered with their sport.
The obvious (and admittedly not-so) related to this is that perhaps baseball should be more like our sport – we introduce Celebrities (at least people) while they still works in the game.
Only after honoring coaches and racers with a lifetime of achievement do racing managers and associations sometimes have to make the uncomfortable decision about whether such honorees are allowed to participate. participate in the day-to-day operations of the Thoroughbred race.
But Ortiz’s vote could signal another subtle change in the baseball’s Hall of Fame vote. As years and decades pass, it is more likely that future voters will decide that players from the PED era have not committed a specific doping offense because they were caught up in the moment where the entire game was played. considered contaminated. Blaming circumstances always gets easier with time.
However, as John Feinstein’s Washington Post last week, “A Hall of Fame – in any sport – is supposed to be about what is good in that game. It goes beyond the numbers. If you insist that Bonds and Clemens should be included for their performance, fine. The Hall should then create a ‘Steroid Wing’ and recognize people with great stats that we know have taken steroids, even if they’ve never tested positive. “
Racing too, in the long run will have to make similar decisions.
In fact, you can see some short-term ramifications of the NYRA’s attempt to deport Baffert and the edict issued by Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI) issued, banning Baffert interns from running for office in the next two GI Kentucky Derbies will be more clearly in the spotlight.
In the NYRA’s case, it’s kind of a Pandora’s Box of a vicious circle. Now that Baffert has been established as a basis for exclusion, who is next? We already know that coach Marcus Vitali is scheduled for a similar “away” hearing in March. And the NYRA just announced last week that coach Wayne Potts could be on deck.
It doesn’t take more than a quick scouring social media or chatting with the tough ones to find the growing list of alleged wrongdoers, all of whom fit the stereotype, “They’re trying to get rid of Baffert, but so what -and so?”
So where does it end? Can we expect the NYRA to charge and then hold comprehensive, weeklong hearings related to adverse conduct on an ongoing basis from here on out? The costs can be staggering, both in terms of actual legal costs for the NYRA, plus the public relations price of the never-ending negative headlines that become entrenched at the top of the news cycle.
Again, another school of thought holds that this coach-style house cleaning is long past its shelf life and is exactly what the NYRA needs to do as a safeguard.
As for CDI’s banning Baffert from the Derby, it’s also fair to question how the decision will affect the image of America’s most iconic horse race in the long run.
Currently, Baffert is coaching two undefeated Derby contenders, the alleged divisional champion and ‘TDN Rising Star’ (Corniche), plus GIII Southwest S. winner Newgrange (Violence). As is customary, the seven-time Derby champion may have another pony or two set to climax before the first Saturday in May.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about How could the CDI ban be counterproductive? by making Baffert’s exclusion the unwanted focus of the 2022 Derby. Now let’s widen the lens even further: How would you think history would portray “the two most exciting minutes in sport” When does the ink dry about what could one day be called the “Dirty Derby” era that begins in 2019?
We already have a good idea of what the first part of that rough draft will look like. It starts with Maximum securitythe athlete demanding a one-time $16,000, relentlessly ahead of his peers to win the 2019 Derby, only to be disqualified for a controversial race interference call that caused controversy for many months.
A year later, in 2020, we learned that Maximum securityJason Servis’s trainer was arrested in a nationwide drug raid for horses, and feds allegedly made him wiretap discussions about Max’s doping regime in the frame. Time includes the first dark horse to cross the rope in that 2019 Derby.
Then 2021 brings us another unlikely Derby winner in Medina Spirit, a pony that was so unannounced in the sales round that he once lowered the price for an outrageous $1,000. . However, Baffert honed him to such a high level that he was on the field in the first leg of the Triple Crown.
This time, the pleasant aura of ragged riches lasted only a week until it was revealed that Medina Spirit had tested positive for too much betamethasone, a violation that has yet to be discovered by the authorities. the state regulator in Kentucky (although it sparked a number of famous federal lawsuits, the CDI’s no-Bob stance, and the NYRA’s attempt to remove Baffert).
So if the 2022 and 2023 Derbies saga ends with the exclusion of Baffert’s cadets, what do you think might happen if CDI decides to take action against the coaches accused of being toxic? Other harms of the top ponies?
If it turns out Baffert isn’t the only conditioner to say he’s unwelcome under the Twin Spiers, the sport could soon face a tough calculation involving years in which a large number of Other qualifying horse stars are not allowed to participate in the Derby.
There probably won’t be enough asterisks if the annual beating of disabled ponies becomes an exercise of exclusion involving human handlers being deemed unworthy of a Derby.
Similar to baseball’s steroid era, Thoroughbred racing will eventually have to grasp how the present presents itself in the future.
Is the current timeframe seen as an overreact witch hunt? Or will it eventually be defined as the era when the industry begins to clean up its act to improve sport?
The truth tends not to favor one extreme or the other, so the undefined answer to that question could very well lie somewhere in the middle of ambiguity.
