Scrutiny, stories make stars melt

Each member at a congressional committee hearing gets five minutes to listen to himself talk. California congressman Tom Lantos made the most of his time at the House Committee on Government Reform hearing on steroids in baseball.

First, Lantos laid out baseball commissioner Cadillac Bud Selig’s medical advisor, Dr. Elliott Pellman — who seemed clueless about the very steroid testing policy he supposedly offered advice on — so bad he nearly needed smelling salts to recover.

“I found your testimony pathetically unpersuasive,” Lantos said — an accurate portrayal.

Answering the critics who said Congress had no business holding hearings about steroids in baseball, Lantos said, “Baseball is not on the moon. It is subject to oversight.”

I’ll bet Dr. Pellman wished he was on the moon yesterday instead of getting roasted by Lantos and other committee members.

Lantos then put the hearing into the perspective its critics had failed to grasp: This was not about nailing superstar hides to the wall. It was about a national health issue facing parents with young children who are athletes. It was about baseball’s slow response to the steroid problem. It was about baseball’s failure to face up to its responsibility.

“When young men are dying … baby steps are not enough,” Lantos said.

The players — Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Curt Schilling and Jose Canseco — were the stars of the show.

But the hearings drew credibility from the parents of Rob Garibaldi and Taylor Hooton, two young men who committed suicide after steroid use.

Donald Hooton told how his son, a high school baseball player, took his own life 20 months ago after doing what major league players have done to get bigger and better: use steroids.

“This past spring, he would have been a starting pitcher on his varsity baseball team,” Hooton said. “During the fall of his junior year, his junior varsity coach told this 6-foot-3, 175-pound young man that he needed to get bigger to improve his chances of making varsity.

“Taylor resorted to using anabolic steroids as a short cut to reach his objective. I am convinced that Taylor’s secret use of anabolic steroids played a significant role in causing the severe depression that resulted in his suicide.”

Hooton told the players who followed him in the day-long hearing why they were there to testify, in the process silencing those who questioned the need for hearings.

“I am tired of hearing you tell us that kids should not look up to you as role models,” Hooton said. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, let me break the news to you: You are role models whether you like it or not. And parents across America should hold you accountable for behavior that inspires our kids to do things that put their health at risk and teaches them that the ethics we try to teach them at home somehow don’t apply to you.”

Raymond Garibaldi’s 24-year-old son, Rob, shot himself more than two years ago. Garibaldi said that while his son was responsible for his own actions, he was not blind to what he saw going on in the game he had hoped to play professionally.

Story Continues →