For 30 years, the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan has been conducting an annual survey on drug use among high school seniors. In its 2004 survey, which included 49,474 students at 406 different schools across the country, 3.4% of the respondents said they had used steroids at least once.

Don Hooton of Plano, Texas, doesn’t believe that number.

“Eleven, 12% of high-school juniors and seniors in my part of the country either are now or have been juicing,” he says, referencing studies by the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, which estimates that 6-11% of high school males have used steroids. “Kids tell me that in my part of the country, when you go to a Friday night football game, there under the lights, one third of the boys are juicing.”

In July 2003, Hooton’s 17-year-old son Taylor, a pitcher on his high-school baseball team, hanged himself. Steroids were found in his bedroom, and the medical examiner found steroids – but no other illicit substances – in his body. Hooton believes that steroid use led to his son’s suicide. At the urging of, among others, Dr. Gary Wadler of New York University, Hooton set up the Taylor Hooton Foundation to publicize the effects steroid use can have on young athletes.

“We’ve been contacted by 20 to two dozen families that have lost kids,” he says. “There are more.”

Hooton will be testifying before Congress on March 17 as part of the the House Committee on Government Reform’s hearing on baseball and steroids. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Tom Davis, and its ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman, made a splash last week by announcing that they had invited Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas, and Curt Schilling to testify. Thus far, only Canseco and Thomas have agreed to appear, and the committee is expected to subpoena the remaining players today.

Other invitees include four baseball executives, among them Commissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr; three doctors, and Denise and Ray Garibaldi, whose son Rob, a former player for the USC Trojans, shot himself in 2002 – due, they believe, to problems stemming from steroid abuse.

The inclusion of Hooton and the Garibaldis, which the committee announced yesterday, is one clue as to what to expect from the March 17 hearing. The choice of medical experts, which was also disclosed to the public yesterday, is another. One, Dr. Wadler, helped draft the World Anti-Doping Code. The other two, Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Dr. Kirk Brower of the University of Michigan, are addiction specialists.

On one side, then, will be players like Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, who have, despite rampant innuendo, denied using steroids – and on the other will be doctors testifying about the addictive properties of steroids and parents testifying about how steroids tore their families apart.

This looks for all the world like a bit of political theatre. It’s hard to imagine what reason the committee could have for calling ballplayers to testify. The most likely outcome is that those players who have denied steroid use will reiterate their denials, which will be treated derisively by the public.

What effect this outcome could have on the broader problem of steroids in baseball is beyond any reckoning. One certain outcome is that the spectacle of it all – the swearings-in, the drama of the subpoenas, the hot lights of the camera, the screaming headlines about teenage suicide – will, whatever the ballplayers say, make them look like liars.

As for the doctors, one, Dr. Wadler, is a credible steroids expert – and he’s also associated with the World Anti-Doping Agency, to which the U.S. government contributes more than any other government. Given this connection, it’s fair to say, without questioning Dr. Wadler’s integrity, that there is at least the appearance of a conflict of interest here.

The other two doctors have backgrounds in addiction, which is among the least important issues raised by steroids. In fact, little evidence exists that steroids are addictive. To an observer of the steroid scandal, it is more than a little odd that Dr. Brower, who runs a drug rehabilitation center, will be testifying rather than an acknowledged steroids expert like Dr. Charles Yesalis of Penn State University. (Calls for comment on these matters to spokesmen for Reps. Davis and Waxman were not returned.)

And then there will be the bereaved parents. Don Hooton is the victim of a tragedy and he is sincere in drawing attention to a real problem – no one wants high school ballplayers using steroids. He’s also capable of saying things like, “There’s only one way to know if you’ve got a steroid problem – and that’s to test.” Ask him if all high school athletes should be forced to take drug tests, and he’ll say, “Absolutely.”

Add it all up: Ballplayers put in a situation where they will look bad no matter what they do; a doctor with a potentially conflicted agenda and two more with specialties of questionable relevance, and grieving parents offering disturbing solutions to a problem not nearly so widespread as they claim. This looks less like an impartial inquiry into a broad social problem than a puppet show meant to point to preordained conclusions.