Being a Tiger, Eating like Big Mac

Doug Glanville: Lessons from the Times

I know it is hard to see what has happened to some of our most famous athletes in the last couple of months. As if the drug investigation into baseball (Mitchell Report) didn’t expose enough about the greed, insecurity, and rampant drug culture in baseball, now we are looking at athletes that broke records or are knocking on record doors and wondering why their lives are such a mess.

Mark McGwire admitted to taking steroids at various times during his career, including the year that resulted in his breaking of the single-season homerun record. He genuinely seemed tormented by making this admission, one that most of us knew was eventually going to come, but even after hearing the news, all I thought was that this was another question mark about the legitimacy of baseball.

It goes back to the same idea. What are you willing to do to be the best? How far will you go to be a legend? Is it worth any price?

Well, I hope you have limits and boundaries that have been shaped by what you value in your life. Things that you will not compromise no matter what the promise. That is what it means to “stand for something.” This “something” is what you would never give up.

Yet everyone has different lines in the sand as to where to draw that wall. But no matter where your line is, once you give in to temptation and peer pressure to use steroids, it is hard to go back. Once you pop that first magic pill, it becomes part of you and you will now wonder who you would be without it. Now McGwire cannot separate the man on the juice and the man off the juice and that is a bad place to be.

Then we have Tiger Woods. Undoubtedly a force of nature and the greatest golfer on the circuit. He is dancing right up to legendary records set by Jack Nicklaus as a young man. So what happened? His “off the field” choices derailed him indefinitely. Is there lesson here?

There no doubt is a lesson. I still remember my days in high school and I understand how difficult it was to find your social life. You could be shy, you could be a late bloomer, you could be busy with other activities, you could just be scared. It is OK. I also remembered how nervous I was when I asked Christine Saunders to the prom. I barely could speak after she said yes. It is hard in high school.

So imagine you make it to the next level in baseball. Your confidence rises, you can now talk to all of those young ladies that used to scare you half to death. So you keep going, trying for a little cuter, trying to impress your teammates, trying to “one-up” yourself. But will you have the discipline to stop? Will you even want to stop as you keep going until you end up like Tiger Woods or many other pro athletes that have unlimited access to women all over the place. Maybe it sounds fun as a young man in high school. But it is important to pay attention to what has happened to Tiger Woods. It is important to separate ego from learning yourself and other people. Ego keeps score, measures conquests, compares to things that don’t really matter. Ego comes and goes, just like his career came and went in the blink of an eye. If you are rising in the world of baseball, congratulations, but make sure you keep a foot on the ground because there will be a lot of people telling you things and pumping you up, including in your new social circle, but they disappear when the music stops, leaving you solo. Just like Tiger is right now.

But there is always someone around in your life who is stable, who has your back, no matter what happens. Focus on them, listen to them, and stay close. It will help you when the attention gets addictive, the type of attention you may not have gotten in high school and are enjoying for the first time.

Opportunity will always be there socially, but the window for being a pro baseball players will not and even when you take advantage of it, it doesn’t last that long. I saw too many players fall apart from chasing the night life before they fulfilled the dream. The night life is just an illusion, people in that circle come and go, but will baseball be there?

McGwire, Woods, A-Rod, whoever. It matters how you do things on and off of the field. Treat people with respect no matter if you are hitting .400 or .200. Try and do an honest job, so you get honest results. Accept setbacks and struggles, it is how you grow. Have fun, but be smart about it. You can party from time to time and still get your rest.

Now that it is out, was it all worth it for McGwire and Tiger? Breaking a record by any means necessary or tallying up yet another woman is not a broken record at all, nor a score worth keeping. All you end up with is a broken soul and an empty scoreboard.



Doug Glanville joined the Baseball Factory as a Special Consultant at the end of 2007. Glanville attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Systems Science and Engineering. Glanville was drafted 12th overall by the Chicago Cubs in the 1991 amateur draft. Glanville played nine seasons in the Majors, getting his break with the Cubs. He also spent six seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and a portion of the 2003 season with the Texas Rangers. In 1999, Glanville batted .325 with 204 hits, 101 runs, six homeruns, 73 runs batted in and 34 stolen bases. He led the league in singles with 149 that year. To review other articles from Doug Glanville, including his New York Times column, please click here.

Mixed Emotions

Jason Budden: Un-Common Sense?

As things have unfolded regarding Alex Rodriguez’s admitted use of steroids, I’ve had a hard time forming a solid opinion on the situation. There are so many different aspects involved and my thoughts have been pouring out:

• First off, it frustrates me that spring training is right around the corner and this is the only story we are going to hear about for the next four weeks (maybe even the next four months or years).

• How did this leak? The players were assured by Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association that this was an anonymous test, never to be shared with the public, or anyone for that matter. It was to be completed as a survey, to find out just how bad steroids really were in the game of baseball. In a lot of ways, this test led to many positives in regards to a new testing policy, stricter punishment and overall accountability within baseball. Do you think players would have been willing to be tested, if they knew the results could be made public?

• Now that the information has leaked, why just A-Rod? Why not the other 103 players on that list? As a nation, we love to build up our superstars, but we enjoy pulling them back down even more.

• Will the players ever trust the union again? Will they ever trust the owners again? Who can they trust but themselves? The next time a labor dispute comes around, how can we expect an agreement to be reached? Can anyone in baseball truly be taken at their word?

• I can’t decide if I like the nickname A-Fraud or A-Roid better. I think I’m leaning towards A-Roid.

• Former teammate of A-Rod with the Texas Rangers and current Baseball Factory Consultant, Doug Glanville may have written the best point of view I’ve seen so far on this topic.

• Part of me is proud of A-Rod for owning up and admitting that he let down the game of baseball. He isn’t hiding like Mark McGwire. He isn’t shifting the blame like Roger Clemens or pointing his finger adamantly like Rafael Palmeiro. He didn’t admit to something, while really admitting to nothing like Jason Giambi. He isn’t going to purge himself in court and have to fight it out like Barry Bonds. He apologized. He took all of the blame. Does that free him from guilt? Absolutely not, but it does make him more human, and it does make America more likely to forgive him.

• Was Barry Bonds somehow behind this information leaking? It sure takes a lot of the press and overall pressure off of his trial. He is now story number two in the steroid world that is baseball. (I don’t think this is a possibility, but it is fun to imagine Barry sitting in a dark room, masking his voice as he makes an anonymous call to Selena Roberts)

• Where does the league go from here? If McGwire, Clemens and Bonds weren’t the rock bottom points of the Steroid Era, then this has to be, so there’s only one way to go.

I’m sure that there will be more that will come out of this story. It wouldn’t surprise me if the names of the 103 other players on that list were released. As much as I wish it would just go away, I hope that there is some good that can come from this and that baseball can move forward on a clean path that properly represents that game.

Only time will tell.


Jason Budden is the Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Baseball Factory. Jason joined the Baseball Factory in 1997 while still a junior in high school. After going through the Baseball Factory's college recruiting program he was placed at Johns Hopkins University where he played two years of college baseball before graduating with a degree in Economics. After working part-time at the Factory throughout college, Jason joined the team as a full-time employee in January 2002 when he was promoted to Director of Marketing. He currently oversees all marketing projects and sponsorship opportunities at Baseball Factory. He is also in charge of development and marketing for Baseball University, the leader in online baseball education and a division of Baseball Factory.