Michael James Jacobs is nothing but a guilty bystander, an unaffiliated offender. The world may see a scumbag who finally found himself one step behind instead of two steps ahead, but what of the dreamer from Hilltop High, the idealistic boy who strove for his American Dream in America’s game? Had he gone to the fields and swiped some fruit to feed his family, or returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with pocketed plunder from a palatial raid to give his two daughters the life he once had, he might be viewed as an honorable man doing what must be done for his family. But Mike Jacobs is not a fruit picker, not a soldier, but a baseball player. While we neglect the plight of the least fortunate among us and overlook the sacrifice of the nation’s bravest due to the politicking that put them in harm’s way, we canonize the ballplayer. In the cloudless vision of Americana, complete with Uncle Sam and grandma’s apple pie on the windowsill, the ballplayer is the white knight of the heartland, equal parts vigor and virtue. He is a figure straight out of the greatest desires of Norman Rockwell, David’s soul in the frame of Goliath. We expect them to be our heroes, to wake up every morning and piss righteous glory.
The sports writers of old had us trained to think this way, and they liked it. The craft becomes something much simpler to sell when the narrative is not a world of flawed men playing a child’s game and padding the pockets of men richer than you. No, a game of catch encapsulating the familial relation and the human condition is much neater. It will sell more papers. So when a man like Jacobs woke up and proved himself a man, a Goliath devoid of any David, the media acted swiftly and without scruples. He is a conniving lowlife wresting the American Dream from a noble man, a better man, a ballplayer. He is to be reviled, to be struck down into the gutter and left for dead. He is a cancer to the sport, a threat to the spirit of the game that must be excised, because anything that contradicts the eminent image of a brand that once read “whites only” is bad for baseball.
However, the sports fan has greatly evolved in the past decade, as we reach the anniversary of the historic 73 home run season of Barry Bonds, a statistical record regarded by baseball fans much in the same manner as they do a drunken accident, with the grace and garrulousness of the aftermath of a tequila-fueled night. Yes, mistakes were made, we feel like we want to vomit, just shut up about it and let us eat our brunch in peace. While sports fans have become too entrenched in their cynicism to abide by the choice narrative of the old sports writers, the admission that our athletes are fallible and might break the rules baseball’s founders have painstakingly crafted is not synonymous with a world in which performance enhancers should not cause outrage. Barry Bonds may have used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), but the public flagellation in the media he received is no doubt partially due to the fact that the man is a bit of a prick. Sportswriters did not have to make out Bonds to be a jackass; Bonds did it himself, repeatedly and well before the clear and the cream appeared in an affidavit from the US Anti-Doping Agency. As Bonds proved himself an ass with a figurative big head to go with his literal one, Roger Clemens did the same with his brashness and diva behavior. If the poster boys for the PED disease infecting baseball were so hated, who can be surprised that the men who lack the celebrity are simply lumped in as bad people as well? There is no rule of innocence until proven guilty in the court of public opinion, but doesn’t every at least deserve the benefit of the doubt?
That said, I know nothing of Mike Jacobs’ personal character. He may well be a pretty miserable person, Larry David’s soul in the frame of Goliath. What I do know is that he has received a raw deal. As the first player to test positive for human growth hormone, he deserves the 50-game suspension the letter of the law entails. The Colorado Rockies, since deeming that they do not want the headache of a journeyman first basemen with this public black eye, had every right to release him. But the issue at hand is that while HGH is illegal in the majors, it is only tested for in the minors. The decision was passed down in 2010 to begin the testing at lower levels of play and to work with the Players Union to allow for the blood test. While it is the union’s prerogative in collective bargaining to protect its members from blood tests if it so chooses, Major League Baseball is in the wrong to subject only some players to a different degree of testing. While Jacobs might have been using the same illegal drugs as some All-Stars, because he has lost his spot in The Show and is trying to battle his way back to a much more lucrative life for himself and his family, he is found out and kicked out. Meanwhile, any major leaguers on HGH continue to get off without even so much as a slap on the wrist, lighting up scoreboards and padding their own and the league’s paychecks in the process.
I do not mean to attack the illegality of HGH; it is Major League Baseball’s prerogative to punish HGH users for their performance enhancement. But it seems to me that Major League Baseball is fighting an untenable war by unequal means. If commissioner Bud Selig cannot combat the contagion of PEDs at all levels with like testing, then the ideal of the ballplayer cannot be saved. Even if he could, his war on drugs seems likely to end up like any other war on drugs: it is simply more profitable for pharmaceutical makers to improve the drugs than to improve the tests. As soon as baseball has HGH figured out, players will be two steps ahead again, skating by with a more potent supplement and a less identifiable masking agent. It may not be the most palatable answer, but even knowing he has broken the rules, perhaps Mike Jacobs belongs on a baseball diamond, regardless of the content of his character. Even if Jacobs darkens the black mark on the image of the American white knight with a bat and glove, baseball loses its entire allure as a national pastime if it defends rules at the expense of the integrity of the game.