Leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives made it clear this that they expected Major League Baseball (MLB) players to appear at an upcoming hearings on the use of steroids according to the San Francisco Chronicle reported March 14, 2006.
The U.S. House Government Reform Committee subpoenaed several MLB players including Curt Schilling, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Rafael Palmeiro. and baseball officials to appear at the hearing, but both the league and the Players Union leaders questioned Congress' ability to order the players to appear.
In response, angry Congressional leaders threatened to fine or even jail players who refused to appear. Further, also threatened to revoke baseball's coveted antitrust exemption if the league did not cooperate. Virginia Republican Committee Chair Tom Davis said he has the votes to hold the league and players in contempt of Congress if any of the players or union leaders refused to cooperate.
"These people are not above the law," Davis proclaimed. "They may fly in private planes and make millions of dollars and be on baseball cards, but a subpoena is exactly what it says it is. They have to appear."
Players attempting to gain advantages in every sport has been around since their inception. For example, in 1889, pitcher Pud Galvin became the first baseball player to be widely known for his 'illicit' use of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs). Galvin was a user and vocal proponent of the Brown-Séquard Elixir, a testosterone supplement derived from the testicles of live animals such as dogs and guinea pigs.
The book The Baseball Hall of Shame's Warped Record Book, written by Bruce Nash, Bob Smith, Allan Zullo, and Lola Tipton, includes an account of Babe Ruth administering to himself an injection of an extract from sheep testicles. The experimental concoction allegedly proved to be ineffective and even made Ruth very ill leading the New York Yankees to attribute his absence from the lineup to "a bellyache".
According to writer and baseball historian Zev Chafets, Mickey Mantle's fade during his 1961 home run race with Roger Maris was the indirect result of an attempt by Mantle to gain a substance-based edge, a claim which is unsubstantiated. Chafets alleges that Mantle was hampered by an abscess created by a botched injection of a chemical cocktail administered by a "quack" doctor, Max Jacobsen. According to Chafets, the injections routinely included steroids and amphetamines, among other substances.
In other words, regardless of the sport, from the beginning players have always attempted to gain an advantage by any mean necessary. The more interesting aspect of the hearing is congress' feeling that they needed to intervene on this issue in a major way, nearly overshadowing the already raging scandal that has kept players from attaining the coveted right to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
The efforts by congress concluded with the Mitchell Report, containing the names of many players who have, in response, claimed they had been falsely named. Other players were named in the media but were not included in the report, violating the players privacy and questioning the integrity of the investigation rite large.
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