ESPN.com – MLB – Kreidler: Got juice?
I’ve got to agree with Kreidler that this is just the tip of a substantial story that isn’t going to go away, ever. And certainly most all of us would prefer that everybody played on the up and up and nobody cheated (especially those we admire) and we could simply revel in the pure athleticism and smarts of all the best performers.
But it has never been that way and it will never be that way, and to raise holy hell about the immorality of it all seems to me to miss the point.
Athletes are special. They achieve the way they do because they work hard, but also because their bodies generate more aggressive muscular athletic hormones and who knows what else that helps them excel.
To excel even more some athletes exercise, take in good nutrition, avoid bad habits. Some take vitamin supplements. All of which helps them build bigger muscles and do other things that help. To outlaw performance enhancing drugs you have to draw a line, and then you have to make sure that line cannot be crossed by any hypothetical drug or activity (think of the process of drawing blood out of the system, pumping it full of oxygen and then returning it to the athlete’s system, aka blood doping).
No one has figured out how to do it, yet.
And they may not. If this up and coming scandal has legs it will be because Bonds and Giambi and others took this designer steroid that actually undermines the chemicals in tests that look for steroids. And if you think that’s the last possible innovation you’re sadly mistaken.
The only way to effectively police the use of performance enhancers is to measure and release each athlete’s “stats,” their blood chemistry, regularly. Maybe we should even limit the amount of each component they’re allowed to have. This is the technique used in women’s sports now, for testosterone, which is naturally produced in women’s bodies. But if the athlete has too high a ratio she is banned.
The same could be said for testosterone and whatever other chemicals are deemed to make great male athletes great. This will help level the playing field, and could eliminate some freaks who are naturally juiced, but it would be fair. It might also lead to a great leveling, so that consistent good performance on the field could accurately be attributed to heretofore intangibles like heart and gameness, rather than having more muscles and roid rage.
All I know is that whining about the moral breakdown that steroids are causing is just plain silly. Competition makes competitive people do everything they can to win, and if there’s a way to beat the rules you can be sure someone will. We can either categorize players by their chemical makeup, or we can refuse to spend money on the corrupt athletes and the corrupt sporting leagues that exploit them.
But what happens when we find out that many artists used drugs to derange and rearrange their senses before painting their masterpieces? Eek.