The 2005 Congressional Hearings on Steroids in :

One Former Congressman’s View

Interviewer: Charlie Ausbrook Interviewee: The Honorable Tom Davis Instructor: Mr. Whitman February 17, 2015

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Table of Contents

Statement of Purpose 3

Interviewee Release Form 4

Interviewer Release Form 5

Biography 6-7

“Steroids in Baseball: The 2005 Congressional Hearings” 8-17

Interview Transcription 18-36

Interview Analysis 37-41

Works Consulted 42-46

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Statement of Purpose

This oral history project examines the issue of steroids in baseball through the view of former congressman Tom Davis, the Chairman of the House Oversight and

Government Reform Committee during the 2005 hearings before the Committee. This oral history gives us a primary source that is not in traditional sources and helps us view the Congressional Hearings in 2005. This interview and his personal report from Tom

Davis shows the role of government in controlling steroids in baseball.

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Tom Davis Biography

Former Congressman Tom Davis, currently with Deloitte Consulting, was born on

January 5th, 1949, in Minot, North Dakota. He lived there for three years and then grew up in Northern . A single mom with modest means raised him. He earned a scholarship to attend Amherst College. During his college years, Congressman Davis interned in the Nixon White House. Tom Davis graduated from the University of Virginia

Law School. Between 1979 and 1991, Mr. Davis was an elected member of the Fairfax

County Board of Supervisors and served as Chair of the County Board of Supervisors. In

1995, he ran against Democratic incumbent congresswoman Leslie Byrne and won, making him a representative in the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia.

In 2003, Tom Davis became the Chairman of the House Oversight and

Government Reform Committee, which was the committee that investigated steroid use in . Every year, Tom would go and see Henry Waxman, his ranking Democratic member, and see what was of importance to work on. Waxman suggested working on drug use in sports. Tom Davis said the types of things that are Ausbrook 7 suggested when he meets with Henry Waxman do not usually amount to anything. The topic of steroids was different because it was a health issue.

Tom Davis served seven terms in Congress and pushed more than 100 bills into law. He became the first freshman in 50 years to be appointed chairman of a subcommittee, the District of Columbia Subcommittee. He was widely recognized as a skilled legislator, an honest broker, and a political mastermind, by his colleagues. He is known for his exhaustive knowledge of political minutia, able to explain to members of

Congress the electoral history of their own districts.

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Steroids In Baseball: The 2005 Congressional Hearings

Curt Shilling, a pitcher speaking during a 2005 Congressional hearing on steroid use in Major League Baseball (“MLB”) said, “Steroids is cheating, and winning without honor is not winning” ("Steroid Use in Baseball: Players"). He was a pitcher on the Red Sox who faced the and , who many thought used steroids countless times. Curt Shilling says something very interesting because he was playing with and against players cheating.

Steroids are, according to the Free Dictionary, “any of several fat-soluble organic compounds having as a basis 17 carbon atoms in four rings; many have important physiological effects” (The Free Dictionary). Steroids have been around for such a long time that the first recording of using performance-enhancing drugs came at the original

Olympic Games. These original Olympic Games started in 776 BCE. The Greeks, in search of strength, also “drank wine potions and ate animals hearts and testicles”

("Historical Timeline - Drug Use in Sports - ProCon.org"). In the late 19th century,

French cyclists used steroids and French lacrosse players drank wine and coca leaves to fight fatigue and hunger. Therefore, in order to understand the perspective of someone who participated in the Major League Baseball steroid use hearings in 2005, it is important to first examine steroid use and knowledge of steroids in Major League

Baseball clubhouses and the government's role.

In 1928, the federation for track and field became the first international sporting federation to ban steroids for athletes. In February 1968, the IOC instituted its first doping controls at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France and again at the Ausbrook 9

Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City later that year. On November 24, 1988,

President Ronald Reagan signed an act outlawing non-medical steroid sales. “The law adds penalties for crimes involving minors and the sale of drugs within one hundred feet of schools, to address concerns about high school students using steroids” (Anti Drug

Abuse Act). On June 7, 1991, then Major League Baseball Commissioner, Fay Vincent, sent a memo to all of the teams that stated: "The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players or personnel is strictly prohibited...” ("Historical Timeline - Drug Use in Sports - ProCon.org"). This was the beginning of MLB trying to rid the sport of steroids.

Major League Baseball had a steroid “era”1 which tainted baseball’s reputation.

Mark McGwire was a big part of this era. In 1998, McGwire admits he used a steroid precursor, after a jar of it was found in his locker. During that season, McGwire hit a

Major League Baseball record, 70 home runs. We now know he was able to do that because performance-enhancing drugs were illegal in baseball but there was no enforcement.

Then, MLB acknowledged the steroid problem and implemented the first random drug testing program in the minor leagues. This did not do much to help rid baseball of steroids.

In 2002, a new policy was established in the major leagues, but no one was ever punished. This policy was put in to gauge the use of steroids. In 2003, Steve Bechler, a

Baltimore Orioles pitcher, died from heat exhaustion at . However, a

1 The steroid era occurred between the late 1980’s and the 2000’s. In 1994, Major League Baseball lost most of its fans because of the strike. However, fans came back with the amount of home runs hit. Ausbrook 10 performance-enhancing drug was found in his system, and medical personnel believed that that was the primary cause of his death. After this incident, drug testing began in

MLB spring training camps.

In 2004, drug testing of major leaguers began, which required that the players be tested during the season. Later that year, “The Chronicle prints portions of leaked grand jury testimony given by the Giants' and the Yankees' Jason

Giambi. Giambi reportedly admits injecting himself with steroids and Bonds reportedly says he unwittingly may have allowed his former trainer to rub cream that had a steroid base on his legs” (Lindan and Cherry). We have real evidence of these certain players who did steroids; however, baseball still did not crack down enough. For the 2004 season, MLB and the players association strengthened the drug testing program. The program was stiffened with a 10-day suspension for the first positive test, 30 days for the second, 60 days for the third, and one year for the fourth; all without pay. The first major leaguer to test positive was Tampa Bay Ray’s Alex Sanchez, who was then suspended for ten days. Later, Raphael Palmiero tested positive for steroids even after his well known finger wagging, denying use of steroids, at Congress. He was also suspended for ten days.

Moving baseball into action, the House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform suggested baseball create an even stiffer policy. Baseball listened, and penalties for steroid use were strengthened to suspensions of 50 games for the first time, 100 games for a second and a lifetime ban for a third. This stiffer, stricter policy is still in place today, which gives players cause to fear being caught with using steroids.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the House of Representatives has broad jurisdiction over many issues. The committee has Ausbrook 11 jurisdiction over public records, personnel, general management, and procurement. The

Committee may at any time conduct investigations of any matter without regard to the explicit jurisdiction of another standing committee. This means that even if another committee could have acted on steroid use, the Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform could investigate any way. The findings and recommendations of the committee in this kind of investigation are made available to any other committee having control over the matter involved.

Major League Baseball revised their steroid policy many times. Until 2002, there was no policy besides the fact that they were illegal drugs. Major League Baseball had no procedure for testing or enforcing the ban. In 2002, players and owners agreed to a program of steroid testing in 2003. They agreed that if five percent or more of the test results were positive, mandatory testing and penalties would be put in place for 2004.

Commissioner announced after the 2003 season that five to seven percent of the test results were positive. This testing triggered the new policy in 2004; each player was tested once a year during the season. Under the policy in 2004, when a player tested positive for the first time, he was required to go through treatment. Then for a second positive test in 2004, he would be suspended for 15 days, under the rule. After a fifth positive test, he would be suspended for up to a year.

Because of this new policy, players began to realize baseball was serious about suspensions, and no one tested positive more than once. So no one was suspended. In baseball, all suspensions occur without pay. According to one article, “Baseball agrees to a new policy. Banned substances include steroids, steroid precursors, designer steroids, masking agents and ” (Dillon). This report showed that baseball seemed to be Ausbrook 12 trying to get steroids out of baseball, and set up a process to do that. They tried to make it harder to cheat, but there were still some weaknesses.

In 2005, before the investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform, Major League Baseball announced a tougher policy. The new policy had a single unannounced mandatory test for each player during the season. As well, baseball announced it would test randomly selected players, and test those players an unlimited number of times. Baseball added testing during the offseason. This test was at a randomized time. These policies were a little tougher with slightly tougher penalties.

For a first positive test, players could be suspended for up to ten days. On the second positive test, a player could be suspended for up to 30 days. Also, after a third positive test, a player could be suspended for up to 60 days. Even harsher, a fourth positive test would result in a year suspension.

However, after the Committee’s hearings and investigations, MLB Commissioner

Bud Selig realized this policy was not good enough. In 2005, after hearings and investigations, the steroid policy that was created is still in place now. A first positive test under the new policy suspends a player for 50 games and 100 games for a second suspension. Also, if you are tested positive for a third time, you will be suspended from baseball forever. “Steroid testing is done with a process called gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, which can detect in urine the chemical signatures of the components of steroids” (Arangure). This tells us how players are tested and what can be a component to know whether there are steroids. The Committee pushed Major League Baseball and

Commissioner Selig to agree to harsher penalties. Ausbrook 13

During the investigation of steroid use, Congress heard from commissioners of all sports, and they voiced the number one concern is the use of steroids in younger people. The Committee’s first hearing included a witness, Denise Garibaldi of Petaluma,

Calif., mother of a college player who used steroids and committed suicide in 2002.

During the hearing on steroids in 2005 she said, "There's no doubt in our minds that steroids killed our son. Ultimately we do blame Rob for his use. ... However, with his sports heroes as examples, and Major League Baseball's blind eye, Rob's decision was a product of erroneous information and promises" (Livingstone). This mother was scared because she knew the real risk that all parents should know. Steroids can kill a loved one who wants to be just like the star baseball player, and the stars in Major League Baseball used steroids. Like this boy, lives are being altered and even lost because of performance enhancing drugs that have made it to the high school students.

A survey was done of the Washington DC area. In this survey students came forward and told the truth. They mentioned that performance-enhancing drugs are openly used in public and private high schools. Although many student athletes think that steroids are a way of cheating, and they know the risks, some are still using steroids for the short-term benefit or success. A football and baseball player from Virginia agreed and went on to say that, “It gives an unfair advantage to players and takes opportunities away from players who are trying to make it on their own accord" (Livingstone). This is an example of a student athlete that wants all of us to do the right thing.

During the Congressional hearing, after these instances were explained, Major

League Baseball players realized that this was a serious issue. They did not know that high school and college student athletes and younger people looked up to them and Ausbrook 14 imitated them by taking steroids. We see this when , a player who is believed to have done steroids at the same time as Mark McGwire, Sosa said, “It really shocked (me) and breaks my heart. The quicker we can resolve this problem, which is bad for kids (the better)” (Livingstone). The parents had to come up and tell the players which in turn got the players thinking they should not have done steroids.

During the 2005 hearing on steroids in baseball held by the House Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform, Raphael Palmiero may have lied about not using steroids. He defiantly denied reports that he had used steroids; however, Palmiero was suspended for ten days for using just a month after the hearing. He is one of only four players to get 3,000 hits and more than 500 home runs, but does not know how steroids got into his system. Emphatically pointing a finger toward legislators as he spoke,

Palmeiro testified, "I have never used steroids. Period." Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a committee member said by telephone. "At the hearing, out of all the players, I got the sense that Mr. Palmeiro's testimony was the most passionate and convincing. This latest evidence certainly doesn't help Mr. Palmeiro's case. We've given baseball and the union a chance to straighten itself out. … Maybe it's time for Congress to step in" (Arangure Jr.).

There were many people who believed that Palmiero was telling the truth.

He was the most convincing out of all players who testified. However, “If the test detected the breakdown products of the steroid called , there is virtually no doubt that Palmeiro used a banned substance,” said Gary Wadler, a steroid expert at New

York University (Arangure Jr.). This quote depicts the ease of catching the players who are cheating. "Whether or not it was accidental, you're kind of disappointed in the guy, too. It's depressing," said the team official. "The doctors and the trainers have been Ausbrook 15 harping on this stuff all year. There was no one in that clubhouse who was uneducated about what you should or shouldn't be putting into your body. Even worse, in Jose

Canseco’s book, , Canseco claimed to have injected Palmiero with steroids

(Arangure Jr.).

In a 1998 article by Associated Press writer , McGwire confessed to taking , an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product that had already been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the NFL, and the IOC. At the time, however, Major League Baseball did not prohibit use of the substance, and it was not federally classified as an in the United States until 2004 (Wilstein).

Even though Wilstein tried to say that McGwire was doing something illegal, no other reporter wanted to listen.

During his testimony, McGwire declined to answer questions under oath when he appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In response to most of the questions McGwire would reply, “I do not want to talk about the past” (McGwire). This was not helpful to the committee and others who are wondering what they should think about McGwire.

In 2005, wrote Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big. He admitted to using anabolic steroids with Jorge Delgado,

Damaso Moreno, and Manuel Collado. Canseco also claimed that up to 85% of major league players took steroids, a figure disputed by many in the game. In the book, Canseco specifically identified former teammates Mark McGwire, , ,

Iván Rodríguez, and Juan González as fellow steroid users and admitted that he injected them. (Juiced) Most of the players named in the book denied steroid use. Canseco hoped Ausbrook 16 that Juiced would educate families and tell about what happens in clubhouses. As well,

Canseco bringing this issue to light helped Congress investigate baseball. In my interview with Congressman Tom Davis, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform, he remembered an interview with Canseco. Tom Davis remembered a certain part, “He just said the owners knew, he said they’re paying me millions of dollars, you don’t think they know who my girlfriend is and what my habits are. He said they ignored it because we were hitting homeruns” (Davis). This quote shows that even the players knew what was happening and that nothing was stopping them.

During the hearing, Canseco was very adamant about the fact that there were definitely players using steroids. He stated that he believed that using steroids is cheating, and also cheats whoever uses them because you end up not being able to play the game you love ("Steroid Use in Baseball: Players"). Canseco believed also that his book had to be written for baseball to look in the mirror and change itself.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform helped baseball rid the game of steroids and players who used steroids. One of the first people to actually serve time for his role in distributing steroids to major league players was Kirk

Radomski, a former trainer for the . Before spending time in jail for his actions, Radomski was a key witness in the which was an investigation set up by Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to uncover as much as possible about players that have been linked to steroid use in the major leagues.

In this investigation, Radomski was a key witness and helped the investigation a lot. In Radomski’s book, Bases Loaded, he took the reader inside what it was like helping Ausbrook 17 the Mitchell Report and also went through all of the players he was connected to and described his relationship with them (Radomski). Radomski hurt the game of baseball by providing steroids to players but in the end he was a major part in helping to clean up the game of baseball and restoring it to what it used to be.

In the end, it is impossible to judge the superstars of the steroid era in the same way that other greats have been evaluated as they are in a special situation, and the Hall of Fame voters cannot judge them in the same way. After Congress brought this issue to light in the hearings and investigations, Major League Baseball and Bud Selig was pushed to build a stiffer policy. Steroids were known in the clubhouse, and Major League

Baseball cleaned it up themselves to save the high school athletes that look up to Major

League players. There is pressure on players because they are looked up to, and they are being paid to make fans happy. Possibly, without the 1994 Major League Baseball strike, steroid use would not have been as rampant because Canseco, McGwire, and Palmiero used steroids to bring back fans. Because they brought fans back, MLB looked away.

Since the Congressional hearings occurred, it made baseball control steroid use; baseball may not have done anything without the government getting involved.

The pressure on athletes to produce is immense because the public or high school student athletes see them as role models. When someone sees their role model do anything, they will want to emulate that. The Major League Baseball and Bud Selig looked away from steroids, which people should look down on them as well. The individual players are blamed the most for using steroids, but the MLB should be blamed somewhat for allowing it.

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Interview Transcription Interviewee/Narrator: Tom Davis Interviewer: Charlie Ausbrook Location: Tom Davis’ office Downtown DC Date: December 18,2014 The interview was reviewed and edited by Charlie Ausbrook

Charlie Ausbrook: Hello, This is Charlie Ausbrook and I am interviewing Tom Davis on the topic of Steroids in Baseball Congressional hearings in 2005 as part of the

American Century Oral History Project. The interview took place on December 18th,

2014 at Mr. Davis’s office located in Washington, DC. This interview was recorded using an IPhone.

CA: So what was it like growing up in North Dakota and then Virginia…

Tom Davis: ... I grew up mostly in northern Virginia only lived in North Dakota three years, and a pretty normal life, my mom brought up five kids. Raised us, basically by a single mother. She worked as a waitress at the old key bridge Marriott Restaurant and had as many as five paper routes at a time, so I always had a work ethic. It was a great place growing up at the time Arlington, and I had politics in my blood. In junior high school, I became a page in the US senate so I went to the Capitol Page School for all four years of high school. Amherst gave me full scholarship so I went there. Then after the army went to law school it was a pretty normal life but I lived and breathed politics. I worked in the

Nixon White House in my summers and then when I graduated from college and then when I got out of the army I went and worked for Nixon’s real committee, so I had politics in my blood. Ausbrook 19

CA: What was, I guess, working all the time, what was that like? Just around the house?

TD: What do you mean?

TD: It was busy. I shared a room with brothers. I shared a room with my sister at one point when we didn’t have a big house in my family. When I got a full school

[scholarship] I paid rent to my mother during high school so she could keep the house and when I got a scholarship to Amherst it was great news to me. My mom lost my rent and to sell the house. And moved into an apartment. When I came back from college, I slept on a neighbor’s couch in an apartment across the parking lot because she didn’t have any room for me and the apartment she had three other kids there. And that’s where

I spent my summers and while I worked at the White House and stuff. In that sense in wasn’t normal it was good roof over my head and a loving mother.

CA: Can you explain why you moved, if you remember, from North Dakota to Virginia?

TD: It was my dad’s job. My dad was a college professor and he was in North Dakota and my mom was in North Dakota the day I was born I would wish I was born in

Virginia but I wanted to be with my mother the day I was born and she happened to be in north Dakota for three years. I had two brothers brought up there. My dad was a college professor but he was an alcoholic so he couldn’t hold jobs and so he went from there to

Texas and Nebraska and then moved here and then he, my mom and dad were divorced and remarried each other four times. My father spent two tours in the state prison for Ausbrook 20 alcohol related offenses so he was basically absent from my life but my mother was very strong and gave us good values. I mean I’ve never touched alcohol, never drank in my life. It’s a good decision for me; I don’t know what my previous position would have been or anything else and I have survived 65 years without it.

CA: What was it like not really having that father figure?

TD: I wouldn’t know what it would have been like otherwise but I don’t feel like I was deprived or anything. You know my mom taught me to be pretty independent. I am not very good around the house to this day. I am not good with carpentry and those things.

My wife does all the repairs around the house. I was good with studying and I loved sports, and I had a good disposition but there’s some things that fathers teach kids I guess that I never got taught and a lot of it has to do with the man things around the house and fix a car. I was never good at that stuff so I focused on being good at a few things and I focused on that. So I don’t know what it would have been like otherwise. It would have been normal. I don’t feel deprived at all, I felt I had a good a really good childhood; it gave a lot of independence. You know my mom when she died, my mother died in 2004 and she came down here to die from

Delaware and she left an estate of two and a half million dollars, which is pretty good for a waitress. She saved money and invested wisely and stuff and lived frugally and she said

I wanted to leave you kids something because I couldn’t give you anything when I was growing up and I said mom you let me live my dreams, there’s nothing else you could have given me. You gave me _____ and the opportunity and how many rich kids don’t Ausbrook 21 get that. So my mom was a saint in that way, you know the rest you have to do yourself. I worry sometimes I did too much for my kids. My kids all went to elite schools, and I got a lawyer, a doctor, and an mba, but I’m not sure they have the same drive that I had because it s just been a little too easy for them.

CA: Did you have a relationship with your siblings? [5:00]

TD: Yeah, we still talk a lot. I lost one, a brother died. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly close. We call and pick up on a dime so I went out and visited my bother in Chicago; this summer, and went to a Cub’s game. I have a brother in and I went out there when we get together so it’s a good relationship. It’s a functional family. It’s not dysfunctional?

CA: How’d you really get interested in politics?

TD: My grandfather had been elected State Attorney General of Nebraska when he was

25 years old just out of Harvard law school. We moved here when Eisenhower got elected because he came with the Eisenhower administration. We stayed and he went back to Nebraska but he was involved in politics and it was just for me like a fish in water. I just loved it from day one, and it was something that excited me and once I read something about it I couldn’t read enough. I would read the footnotes and everything else. You know I hope everybody finds some passion or did whatever they are good at.

And to this day my intellectual interest is still really strong but I felt I served my time and Ausbrook 22 it was just time frankly to make money. You don’t make any money in politics and I didn’t have a lot of money and you know got to do something at some point just to have a life for the next ten years. My life was in the state senate and the state house before that and then the governor’s cabinet and I just said lets just have a life.

CA: Why did you end up running for elected office in 1995?

TD: Well I had been elected county board in 1979. I always wanted to run and I waited until I was 29 so I said this is something I always wanted to do. I was naturally shy, I was not an extrovert but I just went out and started ringing doors and learned a lot working on other campaigns with things that went wrong and fortunately I had a great volunteer campaign chairman in Dorothy Norpel n-o-p-e-l. We put together an organization. I just hit it right, I worked it hard and had good advice and kept getting elected to county board got elected chairman of the county board in 1991 beating a Democratic incumbent. That’s our equivalent of mayor (? in Fairfax county?). Then in 94 decided to run for congress against a Democratic incumbent, but at each stage I was ready for the next race and had a nice strategy and you know we just outworked the other side.

CA: What were your goals as a congressman? [10:00]

TD: I think my goal was first to just do a really good job so that I could get re-elected but after a while it became just trying to deliver for the region trying to deliver for the district and make a difference in peoples lives. I had over a hundred bills that (? ______?). In Ausbrook 23 the district DC college access act that allowed DC students to pay in state tuitions at out of state colleges, I was chief sponsor of that bill. I got money for the Woodrow Wilson

Bridge so they could refinance and widen that. I closed the Morgan prison in northern

Virginia. I wrote the DC Control Board act that got the city of Washington from under their unfunded pension liabilities. So you know I was a prolific legislator who knew how to work across parties to get things done. I enjoy it. I really thought that making a difference is what its all about, I thought every day anybody can hold my seat am I doing a better job than the next guy. That was my goal, to make sure I was unique in what I was doing not just anybody who held the office could get done and so I worked really hard so that was my whole focus.

CA: In the end, do you think you did do a good job?

TD: I did, the voters seem to also because there were not many districts that were more democratic that a republican won. That’s kind of your report card in politics, that may not be the best report card but it’s a report card where the voters decide whether they kept you and they kept me by wide margins every time never had a close race.

CA: Can you describe your level of interest in sports, in particularly baseball?

TD: I loved baseball, I went to my first baseball game in 1956 with the Washington senators. I saw Mickey Mantle hit two home runs. The score 15-7, I actually looked up the box score a couple of years ago, there’s a website for that. I was avid about baseball Ausbrook 24 until baseball moved from Washington, I had all the baseball cards and followed it and watched the game and I’d keep score on a lined pad and just make my own score sheet and listen to the game on the radio. I was just enamored with baseball. I played , and I was an all star and I played in the all star game with a guy named

Clayton Kirby who became a major leaguer, but I’ll tell you, when I got appointed page I had to give up baseball, I never quit being a fan, but I quit playing actively. I was good, I wasn’t great. I did get to play in the congressional baseball games. I had a five-year hitting streak. To tell you how good I was whenever the team got ahead by five runs they put me in (Laughs/ cough). But, I worked hard and I loved it.

CA: Were you interested in any other sports, or was it just baseball?

TD: I was captain of my high school basketball team. At the page school we only had a basketball. We didn’t have any other teams. I was captain of that. We were undefeated my last year. We had a weak schedule. I wasn’t that good. I was still the captain so I was the politician so I was the captain. I got 18 points in one game.

CA: How did you get involved with Congressional Hearings of Steroid use in baseball?

[15:00]

TD: What happened is Henry Waxman was my ranking Democratic member and Henry every year I’d go to him and say what’s important to you and he’d say like let’s impeach

Bush, lets do this, these are non starters. But they said let’s look at drug use in sports. I Ausbrook 25 was intrigued I said let’s talk about it so we put it aside and came back to it. His aid name Phil Schliero, s-c-h-l-i-e-r-o, is I believe how you spell it. Phil was interested in sports (? ______?) look at steroids and gave me smarticles on it and I said well lets get major league baseball in and talk about. And they came in to talk about it and they were very smug. They were like we are professional baseball, we know what’s going on, and we’ve got it under control. We asked for some documents we found out they told us some stuff that wasn’t true, so we decided to go ahead with the hearings. Very risky at the time, all sports writers they got free tickets from baseball to come down on these guys. This isn’t Congress’s job. We saw a lot of kids using steroids, they were hurting themselves, in some cases committing suicide and getting diseases, and if we wanted to stop this we needed to stop it right there. We needed to stop this there at major league level. That’s the only way you stop kids from emulating their heroes. So we held our famous hearings on it and the hearings made a difference. You look at how baseball handles it today versus ten years ago is a big difference. So we made a difference, but we got a lot of criticism when we started out, a lot of criticism.

CA: Considering all the other problems facing the country, why should Congress look into the use of steroids in sports?

TD: Well, because it’s a health issue. We have jurisdiction over public health and this clearly steroid use is illegal. Steroid use is illegal without a prescription. People were using this for non-prescription uses, they were getting hurt and it was becoming a health epidemic. I think we have every right at that point to come and look at it. We weren’t Ausbrook 26 legislating; we were doing something called oversight but we’re going investigate it. Like

I said, we got a lot of criticism but you don’t hear much criticism now for what we did, but going into that hearing there was a lot of criticism and we didn’t know how it was going to go. By the way, other committees refused to do it just because the push back had been so strong.

CA: Do you remember any of the specific criticism?

TD: Sure, George Will went after us. He is a commentator, [that] writes for The

[Washington] Post, he’s on, to this day people still criticize us. I asked George Will say

George was this so bad after all and he says it came out right for all the wrong reasons; you shouldn’t have done it. Some guys will never back off their positions on that. But, yeah a lot of criticism, they basically thought Congress had no right doing it.

CA: Were you aware of the steroid issue before the committees work?

TD: I was aware of it, but it wasn’t something I spent a lot of time thinking about. You see, after the baseball strike [1994], all these guys started to bulk up and hit homeruns.

Fans left baseball after the strike, they were kind of alienated, these rich guys going on strike. When they came back, they started hitting home runs and then the fans came back so everybody started to make money, fans came in the turnstiles. You don’t want to rock the boat. They didn’t want to touch it; they knew it wasn’t right but fans were coming back and no one cared until we looked at it. We got overwhelming support from fans; Ausbrook 27 fans don’t like people juiced up. A guy named Jose Canseco had originally brought this with a book called Juiced, and we interviewed him and he just said look the owners knew, he said they’re paying me millions of dollars, you don’t think they know who my girlfriend is and what my habits are. He said they ignored it because we were hitting homeruns. Him and Mark McGwire were called the “” in St. Louis, not in

St. Louis, in Oakland.

CA: So, you mention the book and Jose Canseco, why do think he came out? [20:00]

TD: I think he came out because he thought baseball treated him badly and to some extent might be settling the score with by telling tales. That may have been his motivation, but he was right, and made a little money on his book and did some other things. He was a wild and crazy guy but we looked at what he saying and weighed what he was saying and we thought what he was saying was worth investigating. So we called him, and he was one of our first witnesses.

CA: How did you decide who you were going to investigate?

TD: Well, we looked at players who had either been outed by someone, in other words someone said they were using or someone who was outspoken either for against steroids, and we invited them to our hearing. That’s how they got picked, we didn’t pick them out of the blue.

Ausbrook 28

CA: What were some of the main goals of the committee?

TD: I think the goal of the committee was to have baseball changed; change their stripes.

For the committee to come back and have baseball change their habits and enforce the law, and to make sure it didn’t happen again; I think we accomplished that.

CA: Why, so Barry Bonds is another player to have been know to use steroids…

TD: … We didn’t call Barry because he was under congressional investigation at the time, not congressional just investigation and we didn’t want to interfere with that federal investigation. He clearly used steroids. He was in the middle of breaking records and he had to ruin a bad story but the feds just didn’t want us to call him.

CA: What were the biggest challenges facing the committee?

TD: The challenges facing the committee?

CA: Yes

TD: The committee was fine, the members were fine with this. The members of the committee embraced what we were doing and supported us.

CA: How does the committee Ausbrook 29

TD: The chairman runs the committee. The chairman decides what to do. You control the gavel, you decide what the hearings are, and you decide what bills get passed. It’s very hard for individual members to play a role.

CA: What do you most recall from the testimonies of Palmiero, Canseco, McGwire,

Schilling, and Sosa? [25:00]

TD: Well, they’re all different. Palmiero denied using it, said I’m a baseball player and

I’ve never done it. Three months later he gets caught using illegal steroids. Sosa said he had never used illegal steroids but we have to remember that steroids were legal in the

Dominican Republic where he lived. Carefully crafted. We weren’t trying to put anyone in jail, we were just trying to change the game, and we had them on the defense from day one. Schilling had been outspoken against steroids, but when he got up to speak to us, he backed off a little bit saying I don’t know if it goes on or not even though he’d said in previous articles that it was rampant, I think because the players union got to him.

McGwire basically took the Fifth Amendment; McGwire basically said I don’t want to talk about the past, basically saying I took them in the past without saying it. Because if he says it, the statute of limitations on steroids hadn’t ended so he would have been subject to prosecution. So, he admitted that it was wrong and we needed to focus on it, and that’s what we did. He looked terrible in the eyes of the public, but he did what he had to do to protect his family because you know this was illegal and any prosecutor in Ausbrook 30 these towns particularly Miami and San Francisco where they had active investigations, if he had admitted it, they could have prosecuted him and there are those prosecutors who want to make a name for themselves by going after a famous person. Our intention was not to hurt Mark McGwire. Our intention was to change the game.

CA: Why did the committee focus solely on baseball?

TD: Well, we did investigate other places but baseball was the most rampant. We found out the NFL, players used it because they thought it healed them faster, some players used it to bulk up, you know, linemen used it to bulk up. So we did some investigations in these places but baseball was the lead for us and so that was our main focus. But, we looked at everything. We looked at wrestling, we didn’t do NASCAR, but the reality is we looked at everything, but the hearings were focused on baseball because that had gotten the most prominence and probably where the widest abuse took place.

CA: Here’s a picture from the hearing… [What comes to mind when you see this image from the hearings?]

TD: There’s McGwire, Palmiero, and Schilling. You want me to answer these questions?

CA: No, just the one above the picture. Ausbrook 31

TD: When I see this image from the hearing?

CA: What comes to mind?

TD: This reminds me of a very difficult time in baseball history. We have three of the biggest stars testifying before Congress. And basically they got outed. But I look at it this way: Do you drive?

CA: Not yet.

TD: You’ll find when you drive people speed sometimes and it’s not enforced, so maybe in a 30 mile per hour zone everybody’s going 40. They do it everyday because that’s what people do. Then, all of a sudden a police officer says we’re going to enforce this and somebody gets caught. Everybody is doing it but somebody gets caught and people start going 30 again. Mark McGwire was doing 40 in a 30 mile per hour zone.

Everybody was doing it, not literally everybody but it was rampant and he was the guy because of his prominence in the game and the number of home runs he hit and everything else gets caught. So, these were the guys who were speeding. Although

Schilling I’m pretty sure never did it. He was pretty outspoken against it.

CA: What are your thoughts about the records put up by steroid users? (30:00)

Ausbrook 32

TD: I think they should have asterisks next to them. Do you think Lance Armstrong should be the record holder? They took the records away from him. They cheated. They broke the law and that’s the only way they put up those records they did. Some players would have done fine without steroids. That’s the irony of it all. I think Bonds and

McGwire were good without steroids, it just made them better. But they were doing it because others were doing it, and they were catching on. It’s a vicious cycle.

CA: What is your opinion of the players on teams with steroid users but who weren’t using them?

TD: Well, I think they shouldn’t get caught up in the same way. They were under pressure to cheat and they didn’t. The tragedy here is that we will never know who did and who didn’t now.

CA: So later on the Mitchell Report and then the Clemens hearings, what is your opinion on those?

TD: The Mitchell Report was very needed, it could have been more in depth. The players shut him down, so Mitchell did a great job without any help from the players by interviewing former players and coaches and trainers. And the other question you asked besides the Mitchell Report was?

CA: The Clemens Hearings Ausbrook 33

TD: Well Clemens clearly lied whether (? ___?) jury said no, but he had clearly used steroids, and he was foolish to call into question the Mitchell report. He chose to do that, and as a result of that he made a costly miscalculation because (? his reputation?) they got like 70 some people, and they just let it go. You keep your mouth shut and everyone forgets about it. But because the way it was handled he will be kept out of the hall of fame where he belonged otherwise. And I’m not sure how much it had to with his records, but he made that decision and I think he was a very decent guy. You see everyone using steroids, you want to keep up with the pack, this is what happens.

CA: I also have a quote. said this on the radio in an interview in 2010: “Now to answer your question about steroids, wouldn’t you like to ask how he feels about steroids? [35:00]

TD: … I talked to Pete Rose about steroids. We talked about that. In fact he wrote on something he gave me that he broke his record without using steroids. Baseball punished him, banished him from the game, kept him out of the Hall for betting on his own team.

So I always understood why the decision was made but I think Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall. He didn’t cheat, he made a stupid mistake afterwards and baseball in my opinion over reacted. Pete deserves his records, some of these guys don’t, but the tragedy is we will never know who cheated and who didn’t. But my suspicion is it was far more utilized than people would admit it. Ausbrook 34

CA: Or Babe Ruth how he feels about steroids? Or Hank Aaron, you could probably ask how he feels about steroids. Because those guys all lost records because of people who supposedly took steroids. So that’s a different deal right there. But I didn’t alter any statistics of baseball.”

CA: Why do you think baseball was so quick to act against Pete Rose but then when it comes to steroid use?

TD: Well, steroids were widespread and Pete Rose they were trying to make an example that gambling would not be tolerated. In steroid use it was being used widespread and it was creating revenue because people were coming in and out of the stands. So basically, it comes down to dollars and cents and I don’t think this is any different.

CA: For records that steroid users break

TD: I think if you can prove it, they need an asterisk.

CA: Do you think they should put underneath whose record it was?

TD: Well, I’ll leave that up to baseball. It ought to be noted. Don’t take away the homeruns that Bonds hit but you let everybody know that he didn’t get there alone, he got there with a little help from his friends. If someone wins an election by cheating, they don’t let him stay in office. It’s the same thing here. Ausbrook 35

CA: With Canseco’s book, some of the players denied what he said in his book, what do you think?

TD: Well, I think they all denied it at the time and I think his (? __+?) He was substantially . He wrote a book with that title, Vindicated but I think at the end of the day he was substantially correct.

CA: What do you see as the legacy of your committee?

TD: I think we cleaned up the game. It’s not perfect. We put a stigma around steroid users that it would not be tolerated in the future. We set a standard for future performance. We scared the heck out of all the other sports in terms of tolerating it. We didn’t do it, the fans did. The fans said what the heck are you doing. The marketplace wins in this. The fans basically said good job, we’re glad you cleaned it up. And that’s what we did.

CA: So you think that fans pushed you to do this? [40:00]

TD: The fans didn’t push us to do this, we did this on our own. But the fans at the end of the day they weighed in and said we did a good job. Not with everybody, nothing is ever unanimous in this business.

Ausbrook 36

CA: Is there anything that I missed that would help me better understand?

TD: No, I think that gives you a flavor for why we did it, the pressures we faced, a lot of opposition from professional sports and all their hangers on not to do this but we pushed through and changed the game. That’s the way I look at it. People have no idea the opposition we faced, even Congress like what are you doing I think this is stupid.

Baseball had a lot of allies. You give out free tickets and so they had a lot people coming after us. Having a partner like Henry Waxman who was tough and honest made it bipartisan, this wasn’t a Republican Democrat issue. (? Ask how many of those things happen anymore?) (Laughs)

CA: Thanks so much for allowing me to do this.

TD: No problem. Your dad was always a key guy in all this stuff on the general counsel.

Let me know how it works out.

Ausbrook 37

Analysis Paper

As historians, we analyze many different historical sources. A historian analyzes primary and secondary sources to see what they say about a certain time, event, or person. Oral historians create sources through recorded interviews. As a historian, I created a new primary source with my interview of former congressman Tom Davis on the topic of the steroids in Major League Baseball congressional hearings in 2005. By talking to someone with a first hand perspective on the issue, I learned more in the interview than a traditional historical source because it reinforced my research and deepened my knowledge from the perspective of someone who participated in the event.

History comes in many forms. The way we learn history is by what historians select and write about. Historians do their job by being selective with facts and objective by not allowing their bias to influence their interpretations. They bring different evidence and compose written accounts, which affects what we learn and how we use the information. Historian Barbara Tuchman believes that history “is emotion plus action recollected or, in the case of latter day historians, reflected on in tranquility after a close and honest examination of the records”(29). She is trying to say that historians need to put emotion in their work, and write about the event. Tuchman also believes that history takes place regardless of whether it is recorded. One trait that all historians have is bias, even when they may not realize it, but everyone knows it is there. In E.H. Carr’s words,

“The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: It is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context” (2). Historian Carr believes that everyone is biased in one way or another. An oral historian, Donald Ritchie, described oral history as, “a historical method that collects and preserves spoken memories through Ausbrook 38 recorded interviews” (7). Ritchie believes that oral history is much more personal, but understands the strengths and weaknesses of this.

Comparing what Ritchie had to say about oral history against what Tuchman and

Carr had to say about history in general, is what historians do a lot. Oral history gives different points of view. It allows history to be written from the bottom up perspective, which focuses on the general public, women, blue collar workers, community activists, and minorities. This also, allows the history of the general people to not be forgotten.

They can pass on what is important to them. Their account of the event makes us remember that it really happened to someone, who has a vivid memory. Another important aspect of oral history is that the interviewer can ask questions about specific things they want to know. Oral history is conducted face to face, which creates the authenticity of the event, both the interview and the time period. However, traditional history is often written from a top down view. The everyday, blue collar worker, minority, or woman, does not get their part of the story told. A history textbook tells us facts devoid of emotion. To learn about history, we need to converge both traditional and oral history sources.

My interview with former Congressman Tom Davis covered the topic of the

Congressional hearings in 2005 on the use of steroids in Major League Baseball (MLB).

Reported steroid use started in late 1980, and MLB totally ignored it. During the interview, Tom Davis talked about what had happened during the baseball strike in 1994, throughout the steroid era, and its effect on fans. For many years, a lot of baseball players were using steroids and Major League Baseball turned away from the issue. MLB turned away because the players were hitting home runs and bringing fans to the stadium every Ausbrook 39 day. The fans coming back was important because most of them had lost interest in the sport of baseball. The players and the owners were involved in a strike during the 1994 season, which dismayed the fans. Since MLB turned away from this issue after the strike, using steroids was unregulated and became rampant. When Tom Davis, who was the chairman of a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Henry Waxman, his Democratic ranking member, decided to investigate Major League Baseball, there was push back from MLB. Specifically, “They were like ‘we are professional baseball, we know what’s going on, and we’ve got it under control.’ We asked for some documents we found out they told us some stuff that wasn’t true, so we decided to go ahead with the hearing” (Davis 26). The effect on fans of the players using steroids, the players lying, and baseball players as role models were areas of special interest to Tom

Davis. He said,

Palmiero denied using it. Three months later he gets caught using illegal steroids. Sosa said he had never used illegal steroids… steroids were legal in the Dominican Republic where he lived. Carefully crafted. We weren’t trying to put anyone in jail, we were just trying to change the game, and we had them on the defense from day one. Schilling had been outspoken against steroids, but when he got up to speak to us, he backed off a little bit saying I don’t know if goes on or not even though he’d said in previous articles that it was rampant, I think because the players union got to him. McGwire basically took the Fifth Amendment; McGwire basically saying I took them in the past without saying it. He looked terrible in the eyes of the public, but he did what he had to do to protect his family. (Davis 31)

McGwire evading the question was acceptable to Tom Davis because to him the

Committee was not trying to hurt anyone. It was just trying to clean up the game. This was important to him because it seemed as though Congress was trying to hurt players, but that was not the goal. Ausbrook 40

The interview with Tom Davis can be placed within the context of the steroid era and hearings of 2005. During the interview, Tom Davis talked about what had happened during the baseball strike in 1994, throughout the steroid era, and its effect on fans. There are some things of importance that we can reinforce with the interview, from the context paper. First, from the contextual paper and evidence from research, we know that the

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform pushed MLB to change its weak policy: “The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggested baseball to create an even stiffer policy. This stiffer, stricter policy, 50 game suspension, then 100 game, then lifetime ban, is still in place today, which displays how players are scared to be suspended”(Arangure). These hearings really made a difference, and during the interview we got reinforcement of that fact, “You look at how baseball handles it today versus ten years ago is a big difference”(Davis 27). We see that these two sources, the research and interview, reinforce each other. In order for the Committee to investigate

MLB and players, there needed to be a health issue, and it needed to make players understand that there are high school student athletes using steroids because of them. In our interview, Tom Davis said,

It’s a health issue. We have jurisdiction over public health and this clearly steroid use is illegal… We saw a lot of kids using steroids, they were hurting themselves, in some cases committing suicide and getting diseases, and if we wanted to stop this we needed to stop it right there. That’s the only way you stop kids from emulating their heroes” (Davis 27).

It is very sad that the government would have to tell players that they are being emulated in this way, but this information corresponds with the research: “The Committee’s first hearing included a witness, Denise Garibaldi of Petaluma, Calif., mother of a college player who used steroids and committed suicide in 2002… Like this boy, lives are being Ausbrook 41 altered and even lost because of performance enhancing drugs that have made it to the high school students” (Livingstone). Because there are several examples of how the interview corresponds with traditional sources, it validates the interview more, and we know we can trust this source as being reliable.

When looking at the context of the Congressional hearings in 2005 on steroid use in baseball, my interview with Tom Davis reinforces traditional sources. The traditional sources do not always have the information on baseball, steroids, or sports in general. I believe that we should learn about sports in traditional historical ways because what happened in the sports world may have a direct correlation to events in public life we learn about. When an oral history interview places the experiences of an individual within the context of a historical period, it can help illuminate both the individual’s experience and the historical period. I believe my interview gave me more information than I could ever had known from traditional sources. Tom Davis, who was the chairman of the House

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, had a depth of insight into the event, not known from research. Through gathering information from my oral history, I gained a new personal perspective on the hearings and use of steroids. Although traditional sources are important to have background, and conduct the interview; oral histories add more to the topic and give you a more complete understanding of the historical period.

Ausbrook 42

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