Tatis Jr.'s absence highlights baseball's ever-growing capacity for self-sabotage

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. earned an 80-game suspension last week after testing positive for a steroid called Clostebol, and he says he flunked the drug test because of the ointment he used to treat ringworm.

As performance-enhancing drug excuses go, it beats Shelby Houlihan's tainted burrito defence. Meat from roided-up hogs doesn't permeate the food supply, and the odds that an authentic food truck will mistake it for beef are beyond remote. At least Clostebol does actually show up in skin creams, so maybe Tatis Jr. isn't hustling us on that front.

Still, common sense says using any medication whose name ends in "ol" or "one" without securing a therapeutic use exemption first is essentially volunteering for a drug ban. If somebody even offers you Pepto Bismol, call the team doctor first. Better safe than suspended.

But if Tatis Jr. made smart decisions, he'd already be back in San Diego. Instead he was in San Antonio, four games into a minor-league rehab assignment, testing out the wrist he broke in an off-season motorcycle crash. We know there were multiple crashes, because when a reporter asked Tatis Jr. when the accident happened, one of baseball's brightest young stars replied with his own question.

"Which one?"

One aspect of that context is that Major League Baseball has an aging audience, and is thirsty for ways to grow it. It's a 20th-century relic trying to keep pace in the social media era, and players like Tatis Jr. — young, flashy, confident, and very, very, very good — are crucial to that goal. Tatis Jr.'s OPS (.975 in 2021) speaks to his overall dominance at the plate, while his homer totals (42 in 2021) demonstrate raw power. And the third-base stutter step during every home run trot? That frill targets people who consume baseball via highlights, and positions Tatis Jr. to bridge the gap between MLB's current fan base and the TikTok generation.

Now, he faces another long idle stretch, while the sport keeps stepping on rakes, Sideshow Bob style, smacked in the face by avoidable problems. If baseball is America's pastime, baseball's pastime is self-sabotage.

For his part, Tatis Jr. issued a public explanation tinged with apology.

"I am completely devastated," he said in a statement released last Friday. "There is nowhere else in the world I would rather be than on the field competing with my teammates."

His father, Fernando Sr., himself a former major leaguer, understood that the suspension would cause aftershocks.

"This is a catastrophe," Tatis Sr. told ESPN. "Not just for Jr., but for all of baseball. There are millions of fans who are gonna stop watching baseball now."

Naturally, the Padres, who are positioned for a playoff berth, are heavily invested in Tatis Jr.'s health. Last year they signed him to a 14-year, $340-million US contract.

So no, sports fans didn't dump baseball en masse in response to the positive test. But the extended absence of a young superstar gives the audience yet another reason to ignore a sport that's been bleeding viewers for years.