Beyond the sheer entertainment value of watching athletes and commissioners and union bosses squirm under the bright lights, there has been an oft- stated reason for the congressional hearings looking into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
When the latest group of sports executives is trotted out tomorrow before a legislative panel, be sure to count the number of times kids or high school athletes are invoked as the rationale for probing steroid consumption.
The theory goes that by exposing this conduct among big-time athletes, it will become less attractive to the younger, impressionable set. Nice theory, but in the real world, where these kids live, platitudes and pronouncements from the hot-air crowd in Washington have no bearing.
And besides, there is little hard evidence beyond the anecdotal horror stories that have been repeated in these hearings that steroid usage is up in high schools.
If congressmen, such as Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, are serious about protecting the health and safety of high school athletes, perhaps the focus should be taken off steroids and placed on practical issues, such as improving poor field and gym conditions, employing trainers and making physical exams more extensive.
Cummings has especially taken hold of the steroid issue and attempted to relate it to youth and high school athletics, when there's very little, if any, evidence, that kids who play sports in his district, which cuts a wide swath through Baltimore City, western Baltimore County and Howard County, are affected.
The cost of steroids is prohibitive for the overwhelming majority of high school athletes in Cummings' district, as coaches and administrators will tell you.
You could count on one hand the number of high school athletes in Baltimore City, Baltimore County or Howard County who have been caught using steroids in recent years.
Yet Cummings is taking a victory lap for adding the head of another high-profile athlete to his mantel. You'll recall that the congressman famously and pointedly questioned Mark McGwire at those St. Patrick's Day hearings nearly three years ago.
Just two weeks ago, Cummings applied the third degree to Roger Clemens, saying that though the seven-time Cy Young Award winner was one of his heroes, he found Clemens' denials hard to believe.
Now, Cummings has grabbed an athlete with local ties, Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts, and recruited him to talk to high school students about the ills of steroids.
That's all well and good, but the high school athletes of the 7th District could probably better use the contributions of Roberts or of Orioles owner Peter Angelos to step up to the plate and donate money and resources to city high school baseball diamonds, many of which need massive upgrades just to get to a deplorable stage.
And it's not just the baseball facilities that need attention. For instance, the gym at Southside Academy is dimly lit, and it looked as if tumbleweeds were about to roll through by the City football-soccer field in late October.
Granted, first-class facilities seem like icing on the cake in a city school district so bereft of essentials for kids to manage the regular school day, much less extra- curriculars. Even with that said, we have an obligation to ensure that our athletes are as safe and healthy as possible. To that end, there are matters far more important to these kids than steroids.
Take trainers, for example. While every Howard County school has a trainer on duty, only a smattering of Baltimore County schools and none in the city have them. This is just a guess, but if catching steroid users is such a priority, one way to help would be to have a trained medical professional on hand regularly to look for warning signs.
And Congress, including Cummings, can certainly lend a hand to help athletes get the kind of physical exam that can catch pre-existing conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the muscle wall that restricts the heart's ability to pump blood.
Just last week, Shannon Veal, a Louisiana high school junior, collapsed and died during her basketball game. She was later diagnosed with HCM, which wasn't caught during her physical because most of them don't include expensive echocardiograms, something the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee should have some interest in.
In case you're wondering, that's the committee Cummings sits on.
milton.kent@baltsun.com