Chicago Cubs: Tanner Griggs becomes another cautionary tale

The Cubs Tanner Griggs was one just another young player suspended for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. Teams used to hope their players wouldn’t stay out at the bars too long. How things have changed.

Don’t cheat. It should be that simple. I guess it depends on what you consider cheating, but Major League Baseball has made it clear on what it deems as such. The Chicago Cubs Tanner Griggs was suspended for 50 games after a positive test for amphetamines. He spent last season with Class-A Eugene after a promotion from rookie ball. Why would you work so hard to get to that point, just to risk it for what is essentially a caffeine high?

Griggs isn’t the first and he won’t be the last to suffer a suspension at the hands of poor judgement. But it beckons me to ask why? Why would you? And if you tell me you didn’t know, I call BS. I’m not a professional athlete, but I keep an eye on what I put in my body. If something is that questionable, I pass on it. Why are more professional ballplayers not doing the same?

Easy answer. Pressure to succeed. Everyone wants to be the next Kris Bryant. In order to do so, you have to get noticed. With so many talented players in the game today in farm systems, some simply try to cut corners to make that jump from nobody to the next big thing.

This isn’t to say that was the case with Griggs. He really may have made a poor decision and is left with the consequences of it. But the game of baseball is something to be honored. Many of us have played it on some level and have a certain respect for it. We may not have made it past high school ball, or college ball–but we worked our tails off to get better. And at some point we came to the conclusions that maybe the end was near as far as the game was concerned.

I say I would have given anything to play minor league baseball, but then I hear how little they make and I wonder if that would have been worth it. And for those who do–who find themselves toiling in anonymity–it becomes a little bit easier to make that choice to “cheat” instead of putting in the extra work to make things happen.

Next: Cubs acquire Brothers from Rockies

Baseball should be respected. While not everyone who cheats will get caught, it’s good to see the game doing its best to monitor itself to not have the issues that it had in the past–ones that Cubs’ fans are all too familiar with.