Baseball and Politics: Congress Investigates Use of Steroids and Other Performance-Enhancing Drugs (Again)

The propriety of Congress investigating professional sports was a focus of critics of the House Government Reform Committee's hearings into Roger Clemens' alleged use of steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH). This is the second round of Congressional investigations into the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs. During the last investigation into steroid abuse, held in March 2005, a Rasmussen Reports poll revealed that only a tiny minority of respondents, 22%, felt that Congress has any business injecting itself into the affairs of baseball.

The fallout from the 2005 hearings led baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to task former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a member of the board of directors of the Boston Red Sox, with investigating the use and abuse of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. The product of that investigation, contained in what is called "The Mitchell Report," revealed wide spread abuse of such substances as steroids and HGH. Of the current and former major league players named as abusers in the report, none was bigger than the pitcher Roger Clemens, who was a sure-fire bet to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer until his name was besmirched by the report. (Barry Bonds also was named in the report, but his drug woes had long been known.)

Clemens, the winningest pitcher in baseball history in the past 40 years, is widely recognized as the greatest pitcher of his generation. His legacy is now in doubt, since the evidence of The Mitchell Report seems to indicate that Clemens' career was given a boost by illegal substances. When Clemens left the Boston Red Sox after the 1996 season, he was characterized as being in the "twilight of his career" by then-Boston Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette. After winning 192 games for the Red Sox and three Cy Young Awards as the best pitcher in the American League, Clemens moved on to the Toronto Blue Jays were he promptly won his fourth and fifth Cy Youngs. It was in Toronto that Roger Clemens first hooked up with Brian McNamee, who was a Blue Jays trainer.