The "Rights" of Spring

The "Rights" of Spring 
March 11, 2005 
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

I always eagerly anticipate the end of February and the beginning of March, not for the finicky weather but because of spring training. Though having been to Florida only once, I knew the map of Florida according to where each major league baseball team trained. When I was young, this meant to take out my mitt and rub it up with neats foot oil in preparation for the youth leagues in my town. I avidly scanned the details of who was traded, who was injured, and who was sent to the minor leagues. Since being from New York, I also followed the Yankees; that meant, going to Richmond! When Ralph Kiner, announcer for the Mets, would yell, "It's going, going, gone," or Werner Wolf, sportscaster for CBS in NY would say, "Let's look at the tape - that's out of here!" you knew that that home run was exceptional. When Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris had the duel in challenging Babe Ruth's record of sixty home runs in 156 games, and Maris did it in 61, everyone else was far, far behind. Now home runs are nearly a dime a dozen. How did " America's Game" of bunts, singles and doubles, with occasional home runs turn into men of gargantuan proportions hitting balls to meteoric distances? It isn't the diet. It isn't the exercise machines. It is steroids. 

I chose this subject because of several reasons. Not being in the medical field, to learn more, I "googled" "steriods+baseball" and received a fascinating education. I learned both that steroids can be very beneficial to reduce inflammation and other disease symptoms. Steroid inhalers, very common these days, reduce deaths from asthma, and injections are used in treating painful joints and ligaments. A most informative source is at www.globalchange.com/steroids.htm. There I also learned that anabolic steroids stimulate muscle growth. If you remember the Archie comics, it would take that scrawny kid and turn him into a giant! The article indicated that taking steroids with exercise results in exaggerated muscle growth. And that is why baseball players, who once were lanky and thin bulked up so much and doubled, tripled and quadrupled their home run output. And in doing so, they corrupted the game, fraudulently created their records, and placed before us and our children the image of success, gained immorally, unethically and illegally. The message is: that is the way to get a World Series Ring, or become the Most Valuable Player, or win the Home Run Derby. That is the way to get "the big bucks." That is their bottom line. Ours is the faith that proclaimed the rule of laws, moral behavior, and ethical living as the true bottom line. 

I chose this subject because, while I am not sure that it deserves to be on a "best seller list," a former player Jose Canseco has released a book entitled "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big." He "outs" other players who he says in injected with steroids, and dramatically boosted their home run totals. They players used steroids despite the fact that steroid use can do dramatically horrible things to the body. It must be used under doctor's supervisions, in specific ways, for specific duration. Otherwise it harms the immune system. It can cause liver tumors and cancer, jaundice, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, kidney cancer and trembling. And surveys suggest that nearly 3% of high school students use steroids. In our silence we are saying to ourselves and our children, if your bottom line is "winning at all costs" then taking enhancing drugs of any kind is okay, even if illegal. It is okay even if it harms your body, even if later and not now. It is okay to sacrifice your life, your health on the altar of "success." It is okay to mar and destroy your God-given body, the shell sanctified by the presence of our soul, which is holy. If the cost of winning is destroying yourself, then okay! Our Judaism, our faith, our values says: No, it's not. 

I chose this subject because baseball management would rather sweep this under the rug. They are in a business. That is abundantly clear in Richmond in connection with the Braves attempt to tempt and tantalize the city to wipe out a significant part of Shockoe Bottom for a stadium that will only be used about seventy days a year out of 365. Baseball teams sell image. They want to appear larger than life; without blemishes; without warts. That way we will buy, by the millions and billions of dollars, the image. 

I chose this subject because we have large numbers of our children who are receiving terrible messages of what is right and what is wrong, from baseball to Martha Stewart. We, all of us, are commanded by God, for ourselves and for them, to distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong, and chose the right and the good in order to lead healthy, positive and constructive lives. 

I chose this subject because the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed major league baseball representatives; to tell the truth about what has happened in the baseball teams and what they did or did not do concerning the use of steroids. And these leaders of baseball, who have received congressional dispensation to run this sport as a monopoly, refuse to come and tell the truth. Tongue in cheek I suggest that maybe they ought to put the replicas of the Ten Commandments in the locker rooms and box seats and recite daily the commandment: "Thou shalt not lie," which has a corresponding mitzvah to tell the truth. But that is next week's sermon. 

What are the messages learned from this? Do what is wrong first, and cover it up afterwards, and then stonewall and lie after that? Fairness, justice, rules, truth and honesty are just words in a dictionary that have no place in the real world? That if you are big enough, powerful enough, wealthy enough, you can do whatever you want? Is this what we believe? Is this how we believe the world should operate? Is this what we teach our children now, about life, about ethics, about morality? They should play their sports or any other form of competition because it is all about winning, at any cost, and not about maximizing their potential - period, not about the facing of challenges, that it is about the end and not about the journey? Is this the kind of adults we want them to be? Is the kind of adults we are? Judaism teaches: "Shtika k'ho-da-ah dah may - Silence is like agreement." If we are silent among ourselves, if we are silent and do not discuss this with our children, they we give more that tacit agreement that this is okay, this is right, this is the way to act, as a child, as a teenager, as an adult. Our Judaism, our faith, our tradition says: No. It's not. 

I read the business section of the newspaper in addition to the front page, the sports and crossword puzzles. It is indisputable that the world is ever more competitive. But at what price do we sell our souls? What kind of society do we want to make? In what kind of world do we want our children to grow up? What kind of adults do we want them to be? What kind of human beings do we want to be? 

This sermon is about baseball. 
This sermon is not about baseball. 


Shabbat Shalom.