Suicide Squeeze: Taylor Hooton, Rob Garibaldi, and the Fight against Teenage Steroid Abuse

by William C. Kashatus

Overview

Appearance- and performance-enhancing drugs—specifically, anabolic steroids (APEDs)—provide a tempting competitive advantage for amateur baseball players. But this shortcut can exact a fatal cost on talented athletes. In his urgent book Suicide Squeeze, William Kashatus chronicles the experiences of Taylor Hooton and Rob Garibaldi, two promising high school baseball players who abused APEDs in the hopes of attracting professional scouts and Division I recruiters. However, as a result of their steroid abuse, they ended up taking their own lives.

In Suicide Squeeze—named for the high-risk play in baseball to steal home—Kashatus identifies the symptoms and dangers of steroid use among teens. Using archival research and interviews with the Hooton and Garibaldi families, he explores the lives and deaths of these two troubled young men, the impact of their suicides on MLB, and the ongoing fight against adolescent APED use by their parents.

A passionate appeal to prevent additional senseless deaths by athletes, Suicide Squeeze is an important contribution to debates on youth and sports and on public policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439914380
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	01/23/2017
Edition description:	1
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

William C. Kashatus is a historian, longtime educator, and amateur baseball coach. He is the author of several books on baseball including Jackie and Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball's Color Line.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

List of Abbreviations xv

1 Confronting Baseball's Fallen Heroes 1

2 For Love of the Game and Sons 16

3 "You Need to Get Bigger" 40

4 "Mom, Come Look at My Guns!" 61

5 "It's Just a Big Lie!" 73

6 "Only God Can Hold Me Now" 88

7 USC's Baseball "Family" 111

8 Fighting Back 132

9 Losing a Son, Rebuilding a Family 152

Afterword 175

Acknowledgments 183

Taylor Hooton Foundation 187

Notes 189

Selected Bibliography 223

Index 225