THE TATIS SCANDAL: FROM CORNFIELDS TO CLOSTEBOL IN 24 HOURS

Baseball didn’t make just another PED bust — MLB snared the young face of the game, a day after the Field of Dreams showcase, and we’re left to ask whether the sport is doomed to perpetual pain

     Wait, didn’t the Griffeys just emerge from the tall stalks to play catch? Weren’t we reminded that baseball still can be a spiritual elixir, a corn-meets-Costner fantasy, even as a $10-billion-a-year corporate blob? Wasn’t there talk of more games at other Fields of Dreams, such as Rickwood Field in Alabama, in a tribute to the Negro Leagues?

     “People on the side of the road waving hello, wishing us luck. Who are we? We’re just fortunate, lucky to be here,” said Joey Votto, who thought he’d seen it all in his 16 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. “It means a lot to me. Very, very memorable.”

     “You just feel like a kid again,” said Drew Smyly, who gazed at the 7,823 fans in Dyersville while pitching five shutout innings for the Chicago Cubs. “You’re in the middle of Iowa playing a baseball game. It’s awesome.”

     “There aren’t many cornfields like this in Japan,’’ cracked Seiya Suzuki, the Cubs’ rookie import, who also hasn’t seen many creepy holograms in his homeland like the one Fox created for a singing Harry Caray.

     Fun, right?

     Baseball as religion, correct?

     Not 24 hours later, the usual garbage truck arrived with its load of toxic waste, invading our warm-and-fuzzy glow with a predictable reality dump. There is no staying power, of course, when it comes to baseball and fairy tales. Remember when Fernando Tatis Jr. crashed the scene three years ago, all dreads and rambling energy, prepared to inject Gen Z sizzle into a stale, dawdling, demographics-challenged slog? Remember last year, when the San DIego Padres handed him a 14-year, $340-million deal only weeks after his 22nd birthday? Remember when we called Tatis the face of the game as marketing campaigns were built around him?

     Today, he is the backside of the industry’s latest scandal. Just when Major League Baseball was starting to push performance-enhancing drugs into its sordid past, here comes a beanball to the head of commissioner Rob Manfred, a plaintive warning that steroids never went away and never will. Unlike the juicers who stole our trust in the 1990s and 2000s —  Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and the rest — at least Tatis is too young in his career to have amassed monster numbers that sully history. But the staggering fact remains that he still has 13 years and $335 million left. Are we looking at the biggest bust in the history of sports? Last week, the Padres were widely commended for outbidding the megamarket Los Angeles Dodgers from their middle-market corner and acquiring Juan Soto, a player even more talented than Tatis. Suddenly, chairman Peter Seidler and the mad doctor who spends outrageous payroll sums, general manager A.J. Preller, are sick to their stomachs.

     Isn’t this Exhibit A of why franchises should not lock up young stars for double-digit years and astronomical sums? Didn’t the Padres consider his immaturity? First, Tatis was foolish enough to drive a motorcycle during the 99-day labor lockout, undergoing surgery for a broken left wrist that has kept him sidelined all season. Now, only days before he was set to return and join Soto and Manny Machado in a playoff push, Tatis is in the MLB suspension bin for 80 games, without pay, after testing positive for Clostebol. He won’t return until next season, as a national pariah.

     Worse, he is taking a page from the Bonds deception handbook, claming he unknowingly took the PED and calling his positive test the result of a “mistake.” Sure, go ahead and exacerbate your shame, kid. Clostebol is banned by MLB. It’s banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. It has scandalized the Olympics. Please don’t play dumb.

     “It turns out that I inadvertently took a medication to treat ringworm that contained Clostebol," Tatis said in a statement. “I should have used the resources available to me in order to ensure that no banned substances were in what I took. I failed to do so.”

     Ringworm? He used an anabolic steroid to treat, what, athlete’s foot? As excuses go, it’s more insulting than the proverbial dog eating the homework. He’s the third major-leaguer, joining Freddy Galvis and Dee Gordon, who’ve been suspended for using Clostebol. This is no fluke.

     “I want to apologize to Peter, A.J., the entire Padres organization, my teammates, Major League Baseball, and fans everywhere for my mistake,” he said. “I have no excuse for my error, and I would never do anything to cheat or disrespect this game I love. I have taken countless drug tests throughout my professional career, including on March 29, 2022, all of which have returned negative results until this test.

     “I am completely devastated. There is nowhere else in the world I would rather be than on the field competing with my teammates. After initially appealing the suspension, I have realized that my mistake was the cause of this result, and for that reason I have decided to start serving my suspension immediately. I look forward to rejoining my teammates on the field in 2023.”

     He’d better prepare himself for an uncomfortable winter. Who signs a $340 million contract and becomes a screw-up? Preller is devastated, perhaps wondering how long he’ll have a job.  “That’s his story,” he said of Tatis. “I think the biggest thing is, there is a drug policy in place. He failed the drug screen. It’s the player’s responsibility to make sure that he’s in compliance. He wasn’t.”

     His bosses know he’s guilty. Give them credit for not playing his con game. “I think what we need to get to is a point in time where we trust,” Preller said. “Over the course of the last six or seven months I think that's been something that we haven't really been able to have. That’s going to be something that we’re going to have plenty of conversation and time to talk to Fernando about. That’s something that clearly, if we’re going to have a partnership and a real relationship, we’re going to have to make sure that that’s strong.

     “He's somebody that from the organization's standpoint we've invested time and money into. When he's on the field, he's a difference maker. You have to learn from the situations. We were hoping that from the offseason to now that there would be some maturity, and obviously with the news today, it's more of a pattern and it's something that we've got to dig a bit more into. ... I'm sure he's very disappointed. But at the end of the day, it's one thing to say it. You've got to start showing by your actions.”

     Soto and Machado are trying to support Tatis in the clubhouse. Good luck. “Very disappointed,” pitcher Mike Clevinger said. “The second time we’ve been disappointed with him. You hope he grows up and learns from this and learns it’s about more than just him.”

     We are left to wonder, I suppose, how many other major-leaguers are using PEDs. The doubt cloud arrives as Aaron Judge, with 49 games left, sits at 46 home runs for the season. As I wrote recently, I have no reason to think he’s a juicer and, thus, will have every reason to anoint Judge as the Authentic Single-Season Homer King if surpasses the totals of two Yankees legends, the 61 of Roger Maris and 60 of Babe Ruth. Nothing could retrieve baseball’s lost integrity more than 62 or more bombs from a clean Judge. That way, we ignore — because Manfred refuses to completely erase — the tainted first six spots on the all-time list. Those would be: Bonds, 73; McGwire, 70; Sosa, 66; McGwire, 65; Sosa, 64; and Sosa, 63.

     But now, Judge will face questions from the jury. Until now, he has been asked only about 62 in the scope of an American League pennant as the Yankees steer through a wobbly period. “It’d be great if it happened,” he said of the record. “It’ll be something that’s pretty cool, but I think having a ring on my finger at the end of the year would be even better.”

     It’s the story line we should be discussing: Judge pursuing history as the Yankees and Mets chase a New York-New York World Series.

     Nah. That would be too rich, too good. Baseball always has to suffer, but this time, the pain could extend deep into the next decade if Tatis doesn’t grow up. “He’s a young kid. He’s going to learn his lessons or whatnot,” Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove said. “But ultimately, I think you got to start showing a little bit of remorse and you got to start showing us that you’re committed and you want to be here.”

     Build it and they will come?

     Or, distribute it and they will cheat.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.