Journeys of Jack Tripper

On Monday, June 12th, Major League Baseball suspended Jason Grimsley 50 games for his role in a federal investigation involving human growth hormone (HGH).

The suspension of the already-unemployed Grimsley -- a folk hero of mine for his role in the Mission Impossible-style replacement of Albert "Joey" Belle's bat in 1999 -- precipitated a torrent of attention toward the substance now considered a bigger threat to fair play in professional sport than steroids, which, unlike HGH, can be detected in testing. Baseball's launched its own investigation into HGH abuse, and sports talk radio has latched onto the HGH debate as its primary topic of conversation.

Thing is, they're all about 20 years late into the conversation. This isn't a matter of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, it's more an issue of returning to the farm after it's been a Wal-Mart for a few decades.

In 1988, I was a ten-year-old fifth grader at St. Augustine Catholic School, a tiny K-8 institution in my hometown of Napoleon, Ohio. My father, coach of football, basketball, and tennis, also directed the NHS speech team, having been introduced to forensics in college and turning out to be quite successful at the activity. Eager to introduce me to competitive speech, he brought me to the high school one evening to observe practice. One of the young team members was a boy who was my first real role model, a St. Augustine alum named Matt Gunter. Matt would later go on to graduate from Notre Dame and find a successful career in accounting. Four years ahead of me in school, Matt exhibited academic and athletic leadership that I really wanted to emulate. That evening, though, Matt was a freshman practicing a persuasive speech he'd written about the abuse of a substance called human growth hormone. He presented anecdotes about people suffering from pituitary gland disorders that stunted their growth -- mentioning a diminuitive fifth grade classmate of mine named Melanie -- and how HGH was ending up in the hands of professional athletes instead of people like Melanie, who actually needed it.

The speech provided solutions on institutional and legislative levels, suggesting reform in the methods of manufacturing and distribution, and I was moved by the idea that public speaking could target a specific social problem and provide ways for the public to act on a solution.

That was 18 years ago, and we're just now bringing the HGH debate to a national level.

Why weren't we listening to people like Matt back then? Denial about the lengths to which athletes will go to enhance their abilties is one reason. The August 23, 1983 New York Times featured an article discussing the possibility of doping issues creeping into the upcoming 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. At the time, the USOC head of drug testing was a West German named Dr. Manifred Donike. Donike dismissed the value of HGH, explaining work to stop its proliferation would be useless, and future drug scandals were unlikely:

Dr. Donike said those days might be over. He said drug problems in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics should be minute. He dismissed claims for the effectiveness of HGH (human growth hormone), supposedly the newest wonder drug for athletes. ''Chances are small,'' he said, ''that's there's anything else out there.''

HGH was one of the first genetically-engineered substances, and the first to result from the Genentech organization, which enthusiastically promoted its synthesis at the cost of research into its possible abuse (April 18, 1984 Financial Times).

Genentech is now the world's leading biotech firm with a value of $82 billion.

In 1989, West German (forgive my consistent use of the term, I'm dealing with a bit of ostalgie today) magazine Stern published a report that Seoul Olympic tri-gold medalist Florence Griffith Joyner had received HGH from a fellow runner. Joyner laughed off the allegations.

The 1992 death of NFL star Lyle Alzado brought new attention to the debate. Alzado maintained his fatal brain tumor was due to his years of steroid abuse, though individuals familiar with Alzado's regimen have maintained he switched to HGH after the NFL's introduction of drug testing in 1987. As HGH directly affects the behavior of the pituitary gland, situated at the base of the brain, it's not a stretch to assume HGH might have been a contributor to his cancer.

Joyner herself died in 1998, having experienced a major brain seizure. Joyner retired from competition immediately after the '88 Olympics, and suffered major seizures starting in 1990 and continuing on until her death.

Did HGH kill Alzado and Joyner? Is it more than a "natural body substance" as suggested in a 1990 New England Journal of Health article? Are the side effects more severe than enlarged facial features and "gigantism"?

I'm not laying out those arguments here. What I am saying is that the current investigations being undertaken by Congress and Major League Baseball are laughable. HGH has been a problem in professional sports for more than 20 years, and it shouldn't have taken the search of a journeyman reliever's house to instigate the investigation of its abuse. It's time for sports organizations to confront their denial and for the public to ask why it's taken so phenomenally long to get to the bottom of the issue.

This has been #3 in a series of "30 in 30" essays.