Say it isn’t so, Roger: steroids and baseball
The news is out, and it’s only the tip of the major league steroid iceberg. Roger Clemens, former Red Sox star pitcher and turncoat on joining the archenemy Yankees, has been named by the forthcoming Mitchell report as one of many baseball players using anabolic steroids to enhance performance.
It’s no surprise. Rumors have been rampant for years about Clemens and many other baseball players. The report seems to be based mostly on the testimony of two trainers who were their major suppliers.
I remember Clemens well; he was the beefy hope of Red Sox fans back in the Bad Old Days when all they had was hope—and hope dashed, over and over. Clemens was especially frustrating because he was so very, very good during the season, and yet often seemed to choke just when it mattered most. And then, playing for the Yankees! And even more infuriating was that the business of failing to deliver when it mattered most didn’t seem to follow him when he put on the pinstripes.
I’ve written before of my love for baseball, a love that I seem to share with many literary types, although it’s a love that I’ve let lapse a bit since the Red Sox became winners. One of the many reasons I love baseball is that I like looking at the players, a better-than-average number of whom are better-than-average looking, and whose body types seem more normal than the almost freakishly tall basketball players and the thick-necked football behemoths, as well as being refreshingly unencumbered by the padding of football or those Michelin-man ice hockey outfits.
But anyone who has followed baseball over the years has noticed the bulking up of the average ballplayer. Joe DiMaggio was a strong man, but his relatively lean and graceful lines would seem almost an anomaly today.
For a long time the change in bodies was ascribed to better training, including the use of free weights, but rumor knew better. And the spectacle of Barry Bonds breaking the home run record only to be indicted 100 days later for lying to a grand jury about steroid use made most baseball fans—to whom such things as records, and record-breaking, are sacred—angry.
In the old days, players were no angels, but steroids weren’t available in their bag of tricks. My guess is that if they had been, many of them would have used them. To reach the pinnacle of a professional sport, a person has to be hotly competitive, almost to the point of megalomania. If there’s a tool to be had—illegal pine tar on the ball, for example—it will be tried, and the policers of the sport must be eternally vigilant to prevent it.
Once an illegal practice gets going, it draws more people into it because the argument is that they must join the others or lose their competitive edge. If the baseball snitches are to be believed, the use of steroids drew in an inordinate number of players.
What’s the objection to steroids? Like any cheating method, it takes away the level playing field and cheapens the sport. Of course, if it were legal and everyone had free access to the drugs, then the playing field would be level again—although not as compared to the olden days, and since baseball is so concerned with records, that could be a problem, too.
But baseball allows some progress and change, so the comparison to previous players can never be perfect. The real problem with steroids is that they are dangerous to the players’ health. Exactly how dangerous is unknown (I couldn’t find any statistics on how they affect life expectancy, for example), although the potentially dangerous side effects are clear:
Men may develop:
* Prominent breasts
* Baldness
* Shrunken testicles
* A higher voice
* Infertility
Women may develop:
* A deeper voice
* An enlarged clitoris
* Increased body hair
* Baldness
* Increased appetite
Both men and women might experience:
* Severe acne
* Liver abnormalities and tumors
* Increased low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol)
* Decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol)
* Aggressive behaviors, rage or violence
* Psychiatric disorders, such as depression
* Drug dependence
Strict libertarians would probably say the drugs should not be banned because players are big boys (in more ways than one), and should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to assume the risks involved. Others would say that such a policy would penalize those who don’t want to jeopardize life and health in order to get as strong as the person who is willing to assume that risk.
I tend to think something that seems that dangerous (and unnecessary) should be banned; the sport is perfectly fine without it, and is tainted by it. And anyway, the definition of “sport” is that you play by the rules; anything does not go, in the endless effort to win. So one could regard this as just another rule, like the edict against corking the bat and other sundry cheats.
Unfortunately, steroid use is rampant today, not only in professional sports, and not only among adults. It’s the most modern twist on the old temptation to cut corners to get that competitive edge. One inherent paradox in sport—and ballet, for that matter, which it somewhat resembles—is that many of those who enter it seriously are drawn to having fit and healthy bodies, and yet are simultaneously willing to compromise that fitness for their sport, for their art, and for the sake of short-term personal success.
Roger Clemens (allegedly) cheated his fellow competitors, and negatively and dangerously influenced teenagers.
Sports ethics are interesting and complicated.
In a recreational game, one clearly should self-administer the game fairly.
In an umpired game, if you missed a tag on a runner who was nevertheless called out: should you inform the umpire the runner should have been called safe?
In an umpired game, if it is proper to influence an umpire into thinking you did tag a runner whom you actually did not not tag: the slippery slope has begun, and where does it end? Is it proper to use steroids if you can do so and be undetected?
One of my sports heroes was Magic Johnson. He used to leap into defenders, then sputter and stagger and pretend he had gotten fouled, even when he had not gotten fouled. If Magic had not been so effective at attracting unjustified referees calls in his favor, he would’ve been a less effective player, and the Lakers would have been a less effective team.
What would a young athlete, closely watching Magic Johnson’s performances, take away as an ethical lesson?
It’s a tough question. I do not know the answer. Magic was a professional athlete, playing in a refereed game, for money. But, even if Magic’s actions were completely ethical (and I think they might have been): where does the slippery slope end?
My doctor snorted at the practice of “juicing”. But, he said, it meant that lots of them would be able to afford a penile implant.
It used to be said that Tony Mandarich of U-Mich wouldn’t take a shower with his teammates.
Don’t know that it’s true but it would fit with the stories of juicing.
One of the many reasons I love baseball is that I like looking at the players, a better-than-average number of whom are better-than-average looking
Oh yes.
The sad thing is that steroids don’t actually do much for the qualities that make one a good ball player- they can make you bigger and somewhat stronger (mostly, they just make you bigger), but they can’t make you faster or more accurate in pitching or judging a pitch well enough to turn it into a homer.
They’re wrecking themselves and tarnishing their sport for… little more than a superstition that juicing will make them better athletes.
As LabRat said, most of these substances will do nothing for actual strength. Only Anabolic Steroids will actually do anything for actual strength (although the gains are marginal at most, and mainly just add bulk). Andro and HGH improve muscle repair and recovery times, which helps with the wear and tear of the season and age (not strength), but it’s much less of a big deal than most make it to be. Anyways, the golden age of anabolic steroids was back in the 60’s and 70’s. Honestly, amphetimine use is a bigger deal for me than the PED’s.
Neo:
“Roger Clemens, former Red Sox star pitcher and turncoat on joining the archenemy Yankees, has been named by the forthcoming Mitchell report as one of many baseball players using anabolic steroids to enhance performance.”
Sad but inevitable that Clemens would turn down this path once he had turned his back on all who have loved and sustained him. No doubt Clemens was only a step away from illicit dog fighting and methamphetamine usage if it were’nt for George Mitchell’s pert-near divine intervention.
Now, let us go and punish him for his transgressions.
A libertarian would say that athletes have the right to chose, team management has a right to chose, leagues have a right to chose, and consumers (the spectators and fans) have a right to chose.
I don’t know how well it went on because I quit paying attention to professional body building but when I did, there was a parallel drug-free competitive sphere. Choosing that would be voluntary but drug tests mandatory for those who chose it.
So it’s perfectly libertarian if, say, the league voted to be drug-free and enforced the policy, or if individual teams made that choice, or if fans made their wishes clear that they didn’t approve of unhealthy enhancements… or if they did… or if some did and some didn’t and “natural baseball” diverged from “enhanced baseball”… which sends my mind winging off to surgical enhancements and what-not. (Someone or other with a prosthetic was banned from food races because the springiness of the running “foot” was an unfair advantage.)
“food races”…. suppose it’s my bedtime yet? *foot*… sigh.
I think what I like best about baseball is that you can see the players’ faces. No face masks, no helmets, and a game that moves slowly enough that you can watch expressions and enter into the players’ emotional lives. It adds so much to the novelistic quality of the sport.
As for the Mitchell Report, I guess I must be a libertarian. I am no fan of dangerous drug use or of cheating, and as the parent of young athletes, I certainly wish that pro athletes would model healthy strength rather than dangerous risk-taking for short-term gain. Still — it bothers me that the Mitchell Report wrecks the reputations of the named players forever, yet most of it is based on hearsay, none of them have had a real chance to defend themselves, and how do you prove a negative, anyway? And it bothers me even more that which players were named and which weren’t depends more on the happenstance of which ones happened to work with a couple of trainers than on true “guilt” or “innocence.” Everyone seems to agree that many, many more players could have been named, but happened to get away with it because they bought elsewhere. In other words, it’s not REALLY about figuring out who’s clean and who isn’t, across the sport. It’s really about finding a few players to slap into the public pillory so that the leaders of the sport can make a big noise about how “ethical” they are, and everyone can pretend that something real has been done. And also about finding one more way to tear down a few heroes. Bah humbug, says I.
I did mean to add, though, that I love the idea of food races. Now THAT would be a sport where “juicing” would have true meaning!
“A libertarian would say that athletes have the right to chose, team management has a right to chose, leagues have a right to chose, and consumers (the spectators and fans) have a right to chose.”
Unfortunately, this is a situation where the “right to chose” means you get a choice between juicing and getting fired and replaced with a player who juices. “We don’t require you to mess yourself up with steroids, but it is the only way you’ll get to keep your job.” Situations like this provide yet more examples why libertarianism must be balanced with regulation.
Robert DeNiro starred in a movie with Wesley Snipes about baseball and fans. It was called “The Fan”, for some reason.
DeNiro’s character was obsessed with Snipes’ character’s chances at an MLB record. So much so that he knifed the other guy who had a shot.
At one point, DeNiro’s character called in to a sports talk show. Honestly, he sounded no different than the jillions of others who call in to sports talk shows. Why the announcer picked up on him as being a nutcase is beyond me.
I see guys in the breakroom with their heads in the sports section as if they’re cramming for a final.
Sports are fun, if you play them, or to watch if have played them.
This mania for sports is beyond me. There’s so much money that abuse is guaranteed. What the hell difference does it make?
The only thing I can think of is that rooting for a team is low-risk. The fun of winning, if quantified, might max out at, say, ten. But losing is only say, a negative five. So, all in all, everybody nets out ahead.
Still, BFD, say I.
I have a distant relative who was pitching AAA ball until his shoulder gave out. That was despite what was known as the Tommy John surgery where a tendon is taken from someplace and put into the shoulder for extra durability. I’m glad–and perhaps he is–that he is no longer facing the choice of juice or lose.
tatter, my post was all about regulation and having it and the right of many different groups to regulate… just not the government.
Unless I’m sorely mistaken, what happens now isn’t that owners tell players they have to use steroids. If it were that straightforward and honest the situation I described would be more probable. It’s regulated NOW isn’t it? Steroids are illegal NOW aren’t they?
So how can it be that regulation would solve the problem.
Players are told, “You can’t take steroids” but they know that others do take them and they need to compete, but if they get caught they get destroyed so there is no honest choosing, there is no honest “natural baseball” for which players and fans and owners can chose “with their feet” or “enhanced baseball” where players publicly use enhancements and players and fans and owners can prefer if they chose.
I think that’s what probably happened to natural bodybuilding. In order to have it, there needed to be a public and honest acknowledgment that the “other” competitions were dominated by *illegal* drugs. And who’s going to do that?
A much younger DeNiro was also was the co-star of “Beat the Drum Slowly,” about a so-so catcher soon to die and the players, coaches and managers who responded to him all within the context of the “game” and what it meant. This newest sports corruption is a long way from Heaven in Iowa, Shoeless Joe and “Field of Dreams.” The fist of justice, although liargely misplaced, cam down hard on Shoeless Joe and the Blacksox for even the appearance of corruption. Babe Ruth was fined for overdoing hotdogs and beer and Hank Aaron was a real hero. The use of drugs to get beefier is a s corrupt as Pete Rose’s gambling. The players should be banned from the sport–Shoeless Joe was tossed for life for $250. Their records are meaningless unless compared to other drug filled bodies and are meaningless in the world of “normal” atheletes.
I am more than slightly troubled by the public release of the Mitchell Report. It appears to be based largely on claims, even hearsay, by a few minions in supporting roles-trainers et al. It reminds me more than a little of the Duke lacrosse malignant misadministration of justice. The ballplayers named are deemed guilty, as the lacrosse team was, by most of today’s posters because they were named as guilty by Mitchell. So they must be guilty, right? Like the lacrosse players, the ballplayers are all “rich, priviledged (maybe not all white, though) guys”. But due process, where is that? How can they prove their innocence, given they might, just might, be innocent?
Beware of schadenfreude.
Tom is correct in part, but the fact is that the issue is also an internal to baseball matter with rules of conduct that have been violated. The sport is entiteld to hold players responsible for their actions separate from a public legal proceeding. It is no different from any other profession that polices itself and its practioners. In a court of law, where many of these people may end up because they may have lied to public officials under oath or taken illegal drugs punishable by law, rules of evidence and presumption of innocence would prevail. It is unfortunate; baseball is America’s game and has been such for perhaps 120 years. The game has been abused and damaged in a way not seen since the Blacksox episode and much, much more than the Pete Rose episode harmed the sport. The only reaction that is appropriate will be a fierce banning of players and removal of records by these drug tainted individuals.
Justin: “As LabRat said, most of these substances will do nothing for actual strength. Only Anabolic Steroids will actually do anything for actual strength (although the gains are marginal at most, and mainly just add bulk). Andro and HGH improve muscle repair and recovery times, which helps with the wear and tear of the season and age (not strength), but it’s much less of a big deal than most make it to be.”
Uh, if you’re a decent hitter, but you’re leaving a dozen balls on the warning track a season, don’t you think that ‘marginal’ strength increase will matter? What about those 18 balls that went just foul that might have gone fair with just the slightest improvement of bat speed? Oh yeah, it matters. What you consider ‘marginal’ is huge at the top levels of competitive sports. Think how hundredths or even thousandths of a second matter in many sport- same thing. That’s not even taking into account how the faster repair and recovery will increase output as you play injured less- that will make for serious strength increases, as well as speed and even focus and rhythm.
What I notice about the Mitchell Report is the rush to non-judgment. People in the street, sportscasters, talk show hosts, other ballplayers are falling all over themselves to say that the report is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. My question: so what? This isn’t a court of law; that’s not the standard. There are hundreds of ballplayers who didn’t get named in the report. Some got missed, like the coward Mark McGwire and his partner in 1997, Sammy Sosa, but many more, probably most, didn’t get missed because they didn’t use steroids. I think the mere fact of being named, that these ballplayers put themselves in a position to be named is sufficient to doubt their denials. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, in other words.
But everybody seems to be in the mode of “I won’t believe it if it isn’t proven (and there’s no proof I’ll ever accept!).” Wow. Way to make a stand. Remember, baseball is private, despite its anti-trust exemption and the quasi-governmental nature of most stadia. It’s made up of 30 or so private businesses. The only due process the owners have to follow is the collective bargaining agreement, not federal law, at least when it comes to banning players or doling out suspensions.
So it’s okay to think the players that were named may have actually used steroids. And it’s okay to have an opinion about that, even if it’s negative regarding the players. Many problems in this country come from an unwillingness to judge (or be judged), an unwillingness to expect standards of behavior, not just from athletes but from anyone.
That said, I agree with Richard Aubrey. I don’t care anymore. Team allegiance belongs in high school. I can’t root for a bunch of guys who aren’t from my state and have difficulty following the law. I’m just a spectator now.
Pingback:Ted
It’s sad that some people / athletes find the need to resort to drugs / steroids, even though they are aware of the possible risks and potential consequences.
Yes, using steroids may give one an edge, but one has to consider the long-term effects, which, in my opinion are just NOT worth it.
Plus, it’s completely unnecessary because there are ways to build muscles naturally without the use of steroids or harmful supplements!