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Show by Jim Murray Murray nim jpontt You don't punish a guy who's fighting a crime Baseball, as a business, continues to slay me. Consider what it has traditionally been conditioned to call "color." To baseball, color historically has meant a whiskey-swilling, whiskey-swilling, people-hating performer about whom poems are written, songs are sung. Color is getting sloshed in a bar and half-killing a bar patron during a drunken argument. Color is the erratic behavior of a sick individual who may or may not be in the throes of addiction. Color is smashing up a locker-room urinal with a baseball bat. The episodes that evoke some of baseball's fondest recollections were tinged by a haze of alcohol. Grover Cleveland Alexander staggering stag-gering out of the bullpen in the 1926 World Series, stumbling through a red-eye warmup with the world's most monumental hangover and then proceeding to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded. The story is never told without a chuckle on the lips and a tear in the heart. Good old Alex ! Who hasn't heard the anecdotes about Paul Waner coming up to bat and seeing two balls and trying to pick out the one that was real and smashing it down the left-field line? He was a card, that Waner! Think what he would have done sober! Ty Cobb's temper was legendary. He led the league in hate, too. That it was fueled in late life by alcohol argues that it may have been so early on. Still, it was part of the mystique of the game. Who was the most beloved character who ever played the game any game? Babe Ruth, that's who. A real-life cartoon character with that big belly, that booming laugh, those booming homers. Where do you think that big belly came from? Hot dogs and soda pop? That's what they told the kids in those boys' comic books. I mean, why trifle with the dreams of dirty-faced little boys? That belly came from bootleg booze and bathtub beer. You didn't read that till he was dead. Mickey Mantle admits he might have set even greater records if he had taken care of himself. Mickey has never had any trouble with honesty. Baseball has. The record shows that baseball never fined, suspended, barred or otherwise disciplined any of these worthies for what must have been by any yardstick an addiction. If anything, it glorified it. . The record shows that none of these heroes ever turned himself in publicly, admitted he had a problem, took treatment and fought to rehabilitate himself. Their behavior never modified appreciably. But now it's 1983 and baseball still has its icons of Ruth, Waner, Cobb, Grover Alexander, Hack Wilson, and they name leagues and streets after them and tell stories about them far into the night. And, along comes this kid with a million-dollar fastball and the unwavering control that only the great ones have, he has an earned-run average in the point-zero range, he was Rookie of the Year, he got the outs that won the World Series and pennant for the Dodgers in 1981 and, with him in the bullpen, when you went into the 9th inning with a lead, you could put it in the bank. So now it's a new age and the drug of choice is not bathtub gin but powdered poison. Like the other, it's illegal but available, socially acceptable to some, profitable and habit-forming. habit-forming. And expensive. Just the ticket for a 25-year-old kid with the world at his feet. Except Steve Howe didn't embrace his habit. He writhed in it and fought to get free. He knew it wasn't funny. He committed himself twice at great public embarrassment and humiliation. . And now baseball wants to punish him. For what? For coming forward and trying to cure himself, rid himself of this curse? Would baseball be better pleased if he continued to be a closet hophead, if he came to the ballpark in questionable condition to play? Would they , then tell affectionate storjes about him, would his exploits while under the influence go into the lore of baseball, the romance of the game? Steve Howe is the victim in this crime. The fact that he's, also the perpetrator is beside the point. There is, of course, no such thing as a "victimless"! crime. That's like a "motiveless" murder. It doesn't exist. Steve Howe broke the law. But so did Babe Ruth. Grover Alexander. Steve Howe Is coming to the aid of the victim in this crime. Himself. The addict could have said to hell with the man, the game, the team, the family, the world. Most of them do. Some of the storied heroes of the grand old game, in a sense, did. Steve Howe didn't. - Punishment is not an outmoded theory. There are offenses It is needed for. It is hard to see why baseball is calling on its outraged morality at this late date for a man who is essentially fighting crime and struggling to remove one more addict from our streets. 1983 Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate |