Dodgers present youth 'Steroid Awareness Day'

As noted yesterday, youth Steroid Awareness Day, sponsored by the Taylor Hooton Foundation showed up on the Dodgers schedule for the third game of the Giant's-Dodgers series.  This story from the International Herald-Tribune says that kids be kids.  And those kids let it all hang out:

Eleven-year-old Danny Casas sat on the outfield grass at Dodger Stadium, listening to a team of experts tell him that steroids could make him violent, depressed, suicidal, ugly and bald.

When the lectures were over, and Danny was sufficiently terrified, he had one question for the featured speaker, Dodgers center fielder Juan Pierre:

"Do you think Barry Bonds took steroids?"

Kids, without all the political and economic baggage of the perverted jaded experienced adults who talk around the issue go for the zinger.  Lay it on the line brother: Did the man use steroids or not?

The 100 Little Leaguers at the Dodgers' steroids awareness clinic Thursday went silent. Pierre took two steps back, as if he were gauging a hot line drive.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm staying away from that one."

The answer, son, is that a mountain of evidence points not to just anabolic steroids, but HGH, clomid, insulin, and stimulants. But hey, we are not here to discuss the past.  We may as well keep deceiving these kids, they will grow up to see the world of (more) deceit and cheating and lying soon enough.

Pierre did not want to answer the question, but he had to know it was coming. The Dodgers happened to schedule their steroids awareness clinic for the day that Bonds finished up a three-game series at Dodger Stadium, one home run shy of the career record.

The Hooton family conducted the clinic; they have an agenda:

This clinic was originally scheduled for June 29, when the Dodgers played the San Diego Padres. But Don Hooton, who conducts the clinic around the country, had to push back the date. Hooton was on a conference call with the Dodgers when they decided to hold it Aug. 2.

During the call, Hooton remembers someone in the Dodgers' organization blurting out: "Do you realize who we're playing that night?"

First, the Dodgers had to clear the timing of the clinic with the San Francisco Giants. Then, the Dodgers had to deny reports that they purposefully planned the clinic for the Giants' series. Such is the nature of their brutal rivalry.

When the Little Leaguers walked into Dodger Stadium, a few of them gravitated toward left field, where Bonds plays. Hooton, on the other hand, looked toward the mound, where his cousin used to pitch.

Burt Hooton, Hooton's first cousin, was an All-Star pitcher for the Dodgers. Don Hooton's son Taylor was also a pitcher. When Taylor was 16, his junior varsity baseball coach in Plano, Texas, told him he had to become bigger in the off-season to make the varsity. At 17, Taylor wrapped a belt around his neck and hanged himself from his bedroom door. For months, he had been injecting himself with anabolic steroids.

Do the Hootons debate the Bonds issue?  Not usually:

A debate about Bonds is not usually part of the clinic. The program generally lasts two hours and includes four stations: nutrition, strength training, medical implications and hitting. Bill Mueller, the Dodgers' hitting coach, stood over a batting tee showing the smallest players that they, too, can hit scalding line drives.

So education may start developing kids thinking about the game, it's integrity, and the deleterious effects of using PEDs.  The message may be positive about hard work and success.  However...kids are honest:

Pierre wanted to leave the Little Leaguers with a clear and simple message: If they run enough and work enough, if they use a tee and keep a diet, they too can make the big leagues.

Danny Casas pondered that notion in the stadium parking lot after the clinic.

"I learned a lot," he said. "But I did want to know if Barry Bonds used steroids."

Links: Taylor Hooton's story
Taylor Hooton foundation

Comments

[p745]

Why didn't he ask the Dodgers about Guillermo Mota?

[TJ]

Because Mota failed a test? So doesn't everyone already know?

[GRG51]

1. Because Mota plays for the Mets,

2. Mota really isn't a threat to break Cy Young's lifetime wins or Trevor Hoffman's lifetime saves marks :-)

[zflynn]

Donald Hooton is full of sh+t. Steroids no more caused his son's suicide than Pop Tarts or the Three Stooges. The kid obviously suffered from a personality disorder, otherwise there'd be millions of steroid induced suicides a year in America. Donald is looking to alleviate his guilt for his failures, real and/or imagined, as a father. Easy to scapegoat steroids and even easier to blame athletes who've taken them. But it' would have done Mr. Hooton's soul a whole lot more good to have pulled his head out of his arse and looked in the mirror before he ran off to congress pointing fingers.