METS' DRUG OF CHOICE COULD BE MUCH WORSE

Excuse the casual tone, but here's what the Mets' reaction should've been
when they learned the drug in question was reefer: Whew!

When it comes to sports and athletes and potentially harmful indulgences,
this was barely a step up from a pouch of chewing tobacco.

Is marijuana illegal? Absolutely. Is anyone condoning anything here?
Absolutely not. But seriously now. The Mets sit at the bottom of the
National League East because they stink, not because they're stoned. If a
handful of Mets did get the munchies this year, they only built an appetite
for making errors. My hunch is that the rats still outnumber the roaches at
Shea Stadium.

"I went to school in the '60s and '70s," manager Bobby Valentine said. "I
think I could look in a guy's eyes and tell."

But it says something about the current culture when a Newsday report can
raise questions about the Mets and marijuana, and few people bothered to
inhale it. Yes, we have become that jaded a society.

It's probably because a joint doesn't carry much weight anymore on a rather
long sports pharmaceutical list, and that we assume a good number of
20-something ballplayers with money aren't spending it all on lap dances,
anyway.

Only the naive think the NHL, NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball are full of
Jack Armstrongs. Instead, there's a Cheech and a Chong and a Nate Newton on
every team. What did you expect? These are young men with the means and the
time to behave like young men. Just because they're athletes doesn't make
them any different from junior stockbrokers or Jimmy in the mailroom.

More than a few athletes believe marijuana is the last safe vice they have,
and that it won't jeopardize the bodies that earn them millions. That's why,
nearly every month it seems, some first-round pick is being pulled over and
a nickel bag comes tumbling out of his 500 Benz.

These are different times. Thirty years ago, maybe this would be a huge
scandal, worthy of a full-scale major-league investigation and the presence
of drug-sniffing dogs running through the clubhouse.

Today, it's like, what's the big deal? Mark McGwire's bottle of andro caused
a bigger outrage. Sadly, there are far more drugs, particularly the
performance-enhancing kind, that create more panic in pro sports than
reefer. Two will instantly get fans shaking their heads in disgust.

The use of steroids cheapens a player's accomplishments, threatens the
integrity of the game and draws anger from the purists. Cocaine harms the
user and gets everyone bemoaning the lack of role models.

When several Mets are linked to a little pot, what's the response? Jokes.

Athletes and fans aren't too concerned because the next time pot makes a
ballplayer drop dead will be the first. Steroids, on the other hand, stole
the life of Lyle Alzado when the NFL defensive lineman foolishly turned to
the drug in a bid to make a comeback. Ask Steve Courson, the former Steelers
lineman, about steroids. Same for Ken Caminiti, an MVP winner who confessed
this year about 'roids to Sports Illustrated. Nobody had a reason to make
steroids an issue back in their day. Now? Everyone who breaks records in
track and field is guilty until proven innocent. Anyone who undergoes
dramatic body reshaping must answer for it. Steroids almost make cocaine
seem secondary.

The 1986 Mets are far more suspicious than the 2002 Mets. We can safely
assume the '86 Mets weren't completely clean, but they somehow won a World
Series, anyway. At least two prominent members eventually confessed to
dabbling in cocaine. Given that Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were
among the best at their positions that year, we can reach only two
conclusions: They didn't snort while in-season, or if they were high and won
anyway, then reefer certainly didn't hurt their performance on the field.
You would have to doubt then that the Mets' dismal play this year can be
blamed on drugs.

Of course, there's the forgotten drug: alcohol. This is probably more
widespread than the others, and what's worse, it's condoned, if not
encouraged. Think of all the athletes and their beloved beer commercials.
How many incidents, especially ones involving a player and his
wife/woman/baby's mother, have been instigated by booze?

Understand that a vast number of athletes wouldn't dare risk their lucrative
careers on controlled substances. But today, those who do have more choices.
That's the difference between the modern athlete and the one who liquored
himself up years ago.

So maybe there were a number of users in the Mets' clubhouse this season.
But by comparison's sake, and luckily for the Mets, the drug in question
reflected the team itself: mostly harmless.