Congressional committee tough on Mark McGwire, baseball during steroid hearings

WASHINGTON - An American icon teetered on his pedestal Thursday as retired baseball slugger Mark McGwire repeatedly refused to answer questions from Congress about his use of steroids.

Major league baseball also took a beating at Thursday's hearing as members of the House Committee on Governmental Reform derided the sport's steroids policy as insufficient and ordered the game to clean up its act. Some members suggested that there should be a national ban on steroid use in all sports at all levels of competition--from high school to the pros.

"There is a cloud over the game," said committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va. "Maybe we are late to the game in recognizing it. Maybe we are partly to blame in implicitly and wrongly sending the message that baseball's anti-trust exemption is also a public accountability exemption."

McGwire, who brought baseball back to national popularity in 1998 with a record-setting, 70 home-run season, told the committee during its hearing that he was willing to become an anti-steroids spokesman and would direct his nonprofit foundation to focus on the issue.

But when asked if he thought using steroids was cheating, McGwire said, "That's not for me to determine." Asked how he knew steroids were harmful, McGwire said: "I've accepted my attorney's advice not to comment on this issue." Asked how he got to the point in 1998 where he was using the now-illegal steroid androstenedione, McGwire said: "I'm not here to talk about the past."

Several committee members expressed frustration with McGwire's responses.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., wondered how Watergate would have turned out if the Nixon administration hadn't wanted to talk about the past. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said McGwire's remarks were entering "the theater of the absurd."

"Unless we learn from the past . . . this will be a futile endeavor," Lantos said.

The subpoenaed players who testified promised to use their influence to rid the game of steroid use and to work to prevent teenagers from using performance-enhancing drugs.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and Chicago White Sox player Frank Thomas announced that they were joining Davis and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, in starting Zero Tolerance, an anti-steroids education effort.

Elliot Pellman, major league baseball's medical adviser, pledged that he'd work to close a loophole in the system that lets players undergoing steroids tests be alone for an hour while providing a urine sample.

Gary Wadler, a steroids expert at New York University, testified that athletes could use that hour to mask their usage. Wadler works with the International Olympics Commission to devise and implement that organization's drug policy.

Pellman also said he'd resign if players who tested positive weren't publicly identified. Committee members expressed concern that loopholes in baseball's policy sometimes allow players who test positive to remain unknown.

Other players who testified provided little drama.

All conceded that the game had a problem with steroids. But none would name names. Retired player Jose Canseco, who recently wrote a book alleging widespread steroid use in baseball, said he would have liked to give the committee specifics but couldn't because he hadn't been granted immunity.

Several committee members and medical experts who testified said baseball should adopt tighter standards, such as the one used by the Olympics. The Olympics tests for many more drugs than baseball's does, and it calls for a two-year suspension for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second offense.

Several of the subpoenaed players said they would support that tougher policy, even as they said the current policy--testing of a limited number of drugs with a 10-game suspension for a first offense--should be given time to work.

"I would play under any kind of deal that would clean up our sport and make it a level playing field for everyone," said Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles, who said he never used steroids.

The most emotional testimony came from the families of two young athletes who'd taken steroids to be competitive and who later committed suicide. Their testimony brought into sharp relief statistics that show there are 500,000 teen athletes using steroids.

Both sets of parents acknowledged many factors that drove their children to use steroids, but both also said that among them was the example of professional athletes.

"With his sports heroes as examples and major league baseball's blind eye, Rob's decision was a product of erroneous information and promises," said Denise Garibaldi, the mother of a promising University of Southern California baseball player who committed suicide in 2002 after years of steroid abuse. "In his mind, he did what baseball players like Canseco has done, and McGwire and (Barry) Bonds are believed to have done."

Davis made clear that the hearing was just the beginning of the committee's investigation and said it was ultimately up to major league baseball and the players' union to make changes.

But Congress has one enormous hammer in its arsenal to force baseball to do that: the exemption for federal anti-trust law that's the foundation for major league baseball's economic success and which the Supreme Court has said Congress could eliminate.

Several committee members alluded to the exemption in their criticisms of baseball.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., a Hall of Fame pitcher, testified at the hearing, saying: "If baseball fails to fix this scandal, there are a lot of things we can do to get their attention. By amending the labor laws, by repealing the outdated anti-trust exemption that baseball alone enjoys, and shining the spotlight of public scrutiny."