| | It came a huge shock for us to discover that 40 percent, or 50 percent,
or 91 percent of major league baseball players are using steroids to either
enhance muscle mass, speed up healing or hit baseballs off the faces of the
ushers in Section 39,448.
We always suspected that baseball was the one pure sport left, the one
where players respected their bodies as the temples they are.
Well, OK, as the portable beer receptacles they are.
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We know that steroids used in the doses many athletes use them are
dangerous to kidney, liver and reproductive functions. We also know that they
enhance athletic performance. So the deal is clear -- shave your
forty-something safety margin for an extra second, an extra foot or an extra
RBI. ” |
Still, the New York Times report that ballplayers dose up as eagerly as
athletes in any other pursuit tells us mostly what we already knew -- that
athletes will do anything, to anything, to lengthen, enhance or change their
career prospects. It quantifies the fact, and even may extend people's
knowledge of the subject, but it is not a surprise.
But you know what it does? You know what the just completed
Pharmacological Olympic Games does? It nudges us toward the central question
of drugs and sports, the one people prefer not to address.
Namely, should we simply open the medicine cabinet to every athlete who
wants it, and let them reap the whirlwind later?
It's the ultimate libertarian conundrum. Can someone do something that
is plainly bad for them just because he or she wants to?
We know that steroids used in the doses many athletes use them are
dangerous to kidney, liver and reproductive functions. We also know that they
enhance athletic performance. So the deal is clear -- shave your
forty-something safety margin for an extra second, an extra foot or an extra
RBI.
But is it our place to make that decision, or is it the athlete's? If
someone wants to put his or her face in the ceiling fan, is it our place to
say no?
It isn't that simple a question, for the following reasons:
Use is quite prevalent in most of your muscle-dependent sports (which is
everything but chess, if you must know), and growing rather than
diminishing.
Detection is always three steps behind, although the Olympics testing
program cut that distance to 2¾ steps.
Most players already know the dangers, and those who do so anyway know
those dangers.
And the answers aren't that simple, either, for the following reasons:
Almost no athletes refuse to compete in an event because a competitor might
be cheating. There may be bitching, but there aren't withdrawals.
Usage is global. It isn't like the good old Communist days, when the
Russians and East Germans were dominating the chemical fields, and it was
easy to demonize them for their Stalinist tendencies.
Enforcement is tepid or nonexistent.
If truth be told, the only compelling reason to continue the ban on
drug-enhanced athletes is the effect on kids, who would bulk up like Costco
palettes if they thought it might make them look or play bigger.
That message, though, is already blurred by the cartoonish professional
wrestling world, as well as the evidence that athletes cheat the drug rules
persistently, and with willful intent. Kids know that a 30-inch neck, 26-inch
bicep and nine-inch waist aren't normal, and require a lot of chemical
enhancement. A lot of them prefer not to be normal -- as if you didn't
already know that.
So we're still stuck. If drugs are bad, shouldn't we ban them? Sure,
except we're still stuck, because if people are adults, shouldn't they be
left to their own devices even if it means that their brains will swell up,
explode and ruin the drapes?
And don't get all weird about athletes who don't cheat as opposed to
those who do. If the numbers given in the Times story are accurate beyond the
anecdotal guesses, and if the Olympics is as much a test-tube parade as we've
been led to believe, the non-cheaters and cheaters compete in equal measure ... at the very least.
And if the drugs issue ties you in the knots it should, sports is at
another one of those crossroads that keeps Bob Ley, Bryant Gumbel and other
jock ethicists busy. We may be on the verge of redefining cheating as an
on-field-only matter, lowering the bar so that our favorites and our future
favorites can still gleefully perform for our amusement.
What is more troubling, we may have already decided without knowing
it.
On the other hand, do you really think the Rams should be laying 17
points again this week?
Ray Ratto, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Report: Steroids used extensively in majors
ESPN analysis: Steroid use rampant
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