In the first installment of Ken Burns’ latest addendum to his epic documentary “Baseball”, there is a considerable discussion of baseball’s steroid problem, and its effect on the game, its image, and integrity. Washington Post sportswriter Thomas Boswell is one of those interviewed, and caused quite a few PBS watchers, including me, to drop their jaws when he volunteered this:
“There was another player now in the Hall of Fame who literally stood with me and mixed something and I said ‘What’s that?’ and he said ‘it’s a Jose Canseco milkshake.’ [ Note: Star outfielder Jose Canseco was widely believed to be a steroid user from early in his career, and he finally admitted it after retiring.] And that year that Hall of Famer hit more home runs than ever hit any other year. So it wasn’t just Canseco, and so one of the reasons that I thought that it was an important subject was that it was spreading. It was already spreading by 1988.”
Boswell, who knew exactly what the player meant by “Jose Canseco milkshake,” never reported the apparent use of steroids—illegal in 1988, as it is now— to the team, Major League Baseball, or the public. He had an obligation, as a reporter, to tell the public that baseball stars were cheating. He he had a duty, as member of the larger baseball community, to alert the game to a serious threat to the game’s integrity and take measures to see that action was taken. If he didn’t realize the significance of what he witnessed in 1988, he certainly came to realize it within a few years, as he saw sluggers like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds mutate themselves into muscle-bound home run machines. What possible justification can there be for only telling this story now. more than 20 years later? Was he holding on to the incident for a book? Was he protecting the player? Neither of those are his jobs, as a journalist. His duty is to let the public know what is happening in baseball, and if the players are cheating, if games are being altered by prohibited substances acquired illegally, that is something the fans…and the authorities…must know.
It is worse than that. Boswell knows that Mark McGwire and Raphael Palmeiro have been rejected by Hall of Fame voters because of the widespread belief that they used steroids. The controversy will continue when Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other presumptive performance enhancing drug-users come up for eligibility in the next few years. Yet Boswell, apparently, knew that a candidate who played in 1988 was a steroid cheat, and kept quiet about it, apparently allowing a steroid-user to be voted into the Hall without that factor being taken into consideration. That was unfair to voters, future candidates, and the fans. Maybe, at some point in the future, it will become the consensus that players from baseball’s steroid era should be honored whether they were proven users or not, but that is not the prevailing attitude now. If Tom Boswell knew that a steroid-user was going to be voted into the Hall under the false assumption that he was not a cheat, he was obligated to let the public, his colleagues who voted the honor, and Major League Baseball know about it too.
Finally, Boswell’s innuendo in Burns’ documentary was irresponsible and unfair to all the great players who have been admitted to the Hall of Fame since 1988. Because he didn’t name the player he waw, Boswell cast suspicion on all players, leading to published speculation about which Hall of Famer was a “juicer.” The baseball blog Weezen-ball, for example, listed its eight most likely candidates for Boswwell’s un-named cheat, including Tony Gwynn, Kirby Puckett, Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Cal Ripken, Jr., and Rickey Henderson. Most of those players—indeed, all but one of them—have exemplary reputations that have been free of even casual suggestions about steroid use. (If Ryne Sandberg or Cal Ripken used steroids, I’m Gloria DeHaven.) No more: they’ve all been sullied now. I don’t blame Wezen-ball at all; Boswell’s statement invited the inquiry.
The ethics verdict, then, is this: Boswell betrayed his journalistic duties by withholding important information from the public. He aided and abetted the spread of steroid use in baseball, when he could, and should, have sounded an early alarm. He allowed voters to put a cheat in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame when he knew they did not want to admit steroid users, thus assisting the deception of the voters, who were his sportswriting colleagues, degrading the Hall’s membership, and creating a precedent for admitting future P.E.D abusers. And he harmed the reputations of some of baseball’s greatest, and most honorable, players by refusing to name the player he saw drink the steroid milkshake.
I’m sure Boswell could have handled this more unethically, but I don’t know how.
I’m torn in whether he had an obligation to tell baseball at the time but I think he has write about and tell everyone.
He also now has an obligation to name the player. Its not fair to other players in the Hall that he doesn’t.
I use to not care if someone had taken steriods. My thinking was that it didn’t help you hit the ball. But after seeing how it changed the way Bonds hit tH ball I have changed my mind.
I come out to pretty much the same place, I think. But I admit—I’ve never trusted Boswell, who shades his facts all the time.
I know almost nothing about baseball, but when you listed Cal Ripken on that list, I thought, “If he used steroids, then what would he look like without them? Wasn’t he pretty skinny? And known most for attendance?”
And yeah, my father is dismayed that I’m discouraged with baseball (never liked it much anyway) because of this scandal. But what other reaction is reasonable in the light of such behavior?
If you’re Gloria DeHaven, I want to be Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.
On the other hand, if that conversation was off the record, journalistic ethics would prevent him from ever revealing the player’s name without his permission.
Yes, but would have to be specifically designated so by the Mystery Juicer. The presumption must be that in the presence of a journalist, everything one says and does is ON the record—we call it “The McCrystal Principle.” This is unlike the presumption with a client in a lawyer’s presence, where the lawyer is bound by confidentiality unless the client specifically waives it.
In Boswell’s case, I also doubt that journalist ethics should have stopped him from reporting that he saw “a player” using steroids.
Never a fan of Tom Boswell, I am certain he didn’t take action at the time because he wanted to be (or think he was) an “insider” with the players. I don’t think that confidentiality attached to the player in question (as a “source”): just that he wanted to maintain what he thought were positive relationships with baseball players. Today he must reveal who that player was. He can’t make such a statement on video and expect to keep the name to himself, now that it is verboten to use steroids in baseball.
He didn’t need to make the statement. He could have just kept it to himself. To make the statement on tape for Ken Burns is simple grandstanding — inside knowledge about steroids in 1988 — and he can’t be allowed to get away with it. He has to come forward with the name.
The ignorance here blows me away.
For starters, steroids were not illegal in 1988. The anabolic steroids act of 1990 outlawed them.
By criticizing Boswell these critics hang a sign around their own necks reading “I have no credibility.” EVERYONE knew what was going on with steroids. Coaches, front office, ownership, they all knew. They didn’t care. Steroid use in MLB was an open secret. It’s widely believed one of the reasons owners forced Fay Vincent from the commissioner role was because he wanted to clean up the sport. If you believe all of these non-playing individuals who now claim they had no idea what was going on, you’re far too naive and clueless to be a journalist.
Nobody cared until Congress told them to care. Congress starting threatening baseball’s anti-trust exemption – that’s when action started.
Steroids were not controlled substances before the late 80′s, but were prescription-only, and using them for strength improvement was not a legitimate medical reason—their use was still cheating, and recognized as such. No player would admit to it—what was that, if “nobody cared”?
You are wrong about everybody knowing. Jose Canseco was widely suspected of using steroids during the this period, and received abuse from fans about it—your everybody didn’t include, for example, knowledgeable fans like me, who read everything available about the sport. Fay Vincent, who is not a liar, says he didn’t know, and I believe him. Your characterization of the period is admirably assertive, it just happens to be fanciful.
One small problem:
The whole premise of this article is wrong.
“[Jose Canseco] is the most conspicuous example of a player who has made himself great with steroids.”
– Thomas Boswell writing for the Washington Post in October 4, **1988**
And the irony is that at the time Boswell wrote that, he was lambasted by many people (including ABC commentator Reggie Jackson and other reporters covering the Redsox-A’s ALCS at the time) for reporting un-sourced allegations that amounted to character assassination.
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-10-06/sports/sp-4330_1_red-sox
Huh? The premise of the argument is that Boswell didn’t report the un-named player and the open use of steroids in the club house. Everyone knew that Canseco had used steroids—the issue was him using steroids in the clubhouse and ANOTHER player using them. Canseco never confirmed or denied his use, but every fan assumed it. But I assumed, for example, that he used steroids in the past, training, not while in the majors.
Thomas Boswell named Jose Canseco in October 1988 and called him the “most conspicuous example.”
He made it extremely clear to the public in 1988 that he felt that cheating by baseball stars was a serious problem.
Not only did he write about it, but he spent 2 full days (by his own account) giving interviews and firmly standing by his claims.
And for his efforts, he was widely doubted and heavily criticized at this time.
Meanwhile, Canseco adamantly and categorically denied ever using steroids. In an on-field interview with Reggie Jackson on national TV. I remember. I was watching.
Did you bother to read the LA Times article I linked to? Direct quote of Canseco:
“Actually, it hasn’t been that hard to handle. If I was guilty . . . but I’ve never done it. I’ve never been involved with steroids.”
What part of “the post was about the un-named player” don’t you understand? Why was Boswell only recently telling us that the steroid-using was spreading beyond Canseco in 1988? Why didn’t he name the name? Your article is irrelevant to the post.
What part of your demonstrably false claims above don’t you understand?
1) You argue that Canseco denied steroids use and yet that is demonstrably false.
2) In the article you argue that Boswell:
And yet I’ve demonstrated that he did EXACTLY that. And he didn’t just do it once, he stood by his claims repeatedly as he took heat for them. And for his efforts he was met with widespread skepticism, scorn, and criticism.
And instead of issuing a “mea culpa”, you’ve chosen to move the goalposts to something about naming more than just one person (I can’t find any reference to that benchmark in the original article).
Just as a matter of common sense: if Boswell wasn’t believed at the time about Canseco, how would more name-dropping have enhanced his credibility or helped bring more serious attention to the issue of steroids use in baseball?
Second sentence should say:
1) You argued that Canseco never denied steroids use and yet that is demonstrably false.