Tarnished image?

J's World, by Jeremiah Bartz

Within the last few days reports have surfaced stating former Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player award winners Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi have admitted the use of performance enhancing substances in front of a grand jury.

Bonds, arguably the greatest player of his generation and possibly the future home run king of baseball, said he unknowingly used performance enhancing drugs -- steroids -- during the 2003 season, and Giambi admitted he was well aware of his steroid use.

This comes as little surprise to most baseball fans, but could come as a great detriment to the game.

Bonds and Giambi walked through a door which had hardly been cracked, in their admission. The duo may have confirmed the suspicion of the rampant use of steroids in baseball. With their admission, Bonds could be sacrificing a golden legacy, while Giambi have could called for his last days in Yankee pinstripes and bid good-bye to an 80 million dollar contract.

After hearing that Bonds and Giambi have each admitted guilt, I feel that I too must come forward. Yes, I, Jeremiah Bartz, Frontiersman sports editor extrordinaire, have too used performance enhancing substances. I Jeremiah Bartz, three-time winner of the Frontiersman most valuable sports writer award, consumed products to enhance my performance with this fine publication.

I began my use unknowingly, but gradually noticed signs -- changes in both my performance and behavior. From August and October, in the magical sports writing year of 2003, I noticed a rapid increase in my typing speeds. My words per minute jumped from a respectable 77 words per minute, to an astounding 179 words per minute. I was completing 10 inch stories faster than some were writing cutlines. I suddenly was the sports writers answer to Jerry Lee Lewis -- although rumors that I once married my teenage cousin are completely false. I began producing bylines at an alarming rate, even raising rumors that I had cloned myself in order to attend more local sporting events. I began to get to two, three and four events per night, often without the use of my truck. I began to move with an odd quickness and the speed of my speech increased so dramatically, I took a job on the side as an auctioneer. The sports section continued to grow and grow. My spelling even improved.

I would survive with little sleep, able to cover events late into the night and arrive early the next morning at the Frontiersman office to hit a deadline. I was awake for 86 straight hours in Nome for the Iditarod, watching the first 12 mushers cross the finish line.

I continued to think, this may not be natural. Either I evolved into the world's finest not-so lean, but mean sportswriting machine, or something else was playing a role in my performance.

Then actual proof began to surface. I saw strange materials in the trash can next to my desk -- containers I did not recognize. Then one morning, when I decided to come in a few hours early I saw something, almost unbelievable -- my writing strength and journalism conditioning coach was adding a liquid to my Diet Mountain Dew. He was doctoring my Diet Dew with Red Bull. The combination must be the explanation. This is why I can now write a 2,000 word hockey story in under 20 minutes. This is why I sometimes uncontrollably shake at my desk. This is why I built a small condominium in just a matter of days.

My normal routine was to drink about four Diet Dews in the morning. Excessive for some, possibly, but that Diet Dew goodness helped me stay the delightful person that everyone has grown to love. But my Diet Dew had been laced with Red Bull, making it a potent combination.

Caffeine addiction is a growing problem in the business of journalism and even when our managing editor Frank Ameduri made moves to help curb the caffeine addiction various reporters in his newsroom were facing, I took it upon myself to keep this secret as hidden as possible. I would chug Red Bulls, with a Diet Dew chaser, in the mornings before I stepped into the office, knowing that my writing coach had already doctored the Dews I had left the night before. I would duck into the office coat closet long enough to slam a Red Bull, followed by a Dew. The combination proved to increase the shaking, sleepless nights, and not to mention the number of times I had to visit the ole porcelain think tank, but my production continued to skyrocket. As I closed in on the coveted record for bylines in a month, held by Rindi White, Ameduri instituted a caffeine free policy in the newsroom, only allowing the consumption of skinny decaf lattes and Diet Ginger Ale. Ameduri also mandated random blood pressure tests and pupil monitoring. I acquired the testing schedule and would drink gallons of cranberry juice the night before to clean out my system, and wear sunglasses to keep Ameduri from seeing my Red Bulled pupils.

I did break White's prior mark of 86 bylines in a month, recording 104 bylines in March of 2004. But soon after the honorary dinner and presentation of the plaque commemorating my record-run in March, I began to realize these performance enhancing substances may tarnish my image as the world's finest not-so lean, but mean sports writing machine. Soon after I stopped using the vicious Diet Dew/Red Bull mix, returning to just a Diet Dew or two in the morning -- just for taste of course. My production dropped, my speech has returned to normal, my speling has gotten progressively worse and I can no longer push my truck down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, but I am off the juice.

Will this tarnish my image? Can the use of performance enhancing substances tarnish the image of a person once thought of as superman in their game?

It is something for the general public to decide and only time will predict whether Bonds' 700 home runs or his steroid use will survive the test of time. And whether our readers remember that record run in March, or the Diet Dew scandal, one may never know.

Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz is in the third step of his 12-step program, drinking a lot of water, and regularly attends Red Bull Addicts Anonymous.