My apologies to those rare few who still look in on DV. This was my farewell post there, and I thought that it might have a little more resonance on "our" side of the 49.
[font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" size="4"]If it's about steroids, be prepared for lots of asterisks[/font]
From McGwire on down. Like it or not, steroids have been part of the sport (on both sides of the plate) for the past 20 years. Just because androstenedione was not a banned substance, anyone who has spent time around a person on andro knows that it is as potent a performance enhancer as it is a mood disruptor.
[font style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" size="4"]What about "greenies"?[/font]
People say that steroids may let you pitch or hit the ball harder, but that they don't help you actually hit the ball in the first place. However, amphetamines are medically proven to not only increase alertness, but to sharpen a player's perception of moving objects and quicken reaction times. "Greenies" have been a staple of baseball clubhouses since the 50s. Major League Baseball instituted an amphetamine testing policy only this year. Are we going to go back and ask the likes of Hank Aaron, Pete Rose and Carl Yastrzemski whether any of their record-setting hits occurred while under the influence of amphetamines?
[font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" size="4"]What "level playing field"?[/font]
The most famous "asterisk" in baseball statistics was placed next to Roger Maris' single-season HR record because major league baseball seasons were longer than in Babe Ruth's day. The removal of the asterisk was an acknowledgement of the fact that records will never be based on a "level playing field".
Since the institution of the Designated Hitter in 1973, accomplished hitters have been able to extend their careers beyond what they would have been had they been required to punish their bodies playing defence, allowing them more career ABs than players from a previous era.
There was the "dead ball era", the "juiced ball era", smaller leagues with less travel, less sophisticated medical techniques that made for more career-ending injuries.
Outstripping all these examples of "tilting" the "field", of course, was segregation. Some of the greatest players the game has seen were never allowed into the major leagues because of their race. Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby and Babe Ruth never faced Satchel Paige or Slim Gibson. Josh Gibson is estimated to have hit over 900 home runs, though statistics from the Negro Leagues are incomplete. "I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron," Hall of Famer Monte Irvin once said. "They were tremendous players, but they were no Josh Gibson."
[font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127); font-weight: bold;" size="4"]Just how clean are other major sports?[/font]
Oakland Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski, who last year in a civil suit was ordered to pay US$415,000 to his teammate Marcus Williams after a brutal attack during a team practice, is implicated in the same investigation of BALCO, the Bay Area lab alleged to have supplied Bonds with "designer steroids".
Have performance-enhancing substances been behind other incidents in professional sports? In 2002 a professional trainer in Vancouver remarked to me that the "clusters" of what he called "boneheaded penalties" that Todd Bertuzzi was subject to committing bore an interesting resemblance to the on/off cycling of steroid use. Donald Brashear's violent off-ice tangles made the news after getting whacked by Marty McSorley in February 2000. Link Gaetz achieved a Lyle Alzedo-like reputation for his on- and off-ice misadventures. Increased size and strength are only one benefit of steroid use. Decreased recovery time is an advantage that can be especially valuable during the grueling NHL schedule, especially with current trends toward a faster game. The NHL only started testing for steroids during the 2005-06 season.
Ephedrine-type stimulants are not covered by the NHL's testing policy. It always cracks me up to see post-game interviews in training rooms full of third- and fourth-liners "de-spinning" themselves on rows of stationary bikes.
[font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127); font-weight: bold;" size="4"]Is it because Bonds "looks like" Satan?[/font]
It doesn't help that Barry Bonds is, by media accounts, a thoroughly disagreeable personality. Not incidentally, his late father, Bobby Bonds, was not reputed to be particularly pleasant to the media during his career in baseball. But I find it striking that Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa are taking so much heat for "cheating", while admitted steroid users Mark McGwire (also not a particularly "touchy-feely" guy), Jason Giambi and the late Ken Caminiti are largely overlooked.
Could it be for the same reason that Darryl Strawberry's drug problems won more attention than those of Caminiti and Steve Howe? Or the reason that Grant Fuhr was pilloried for using cocaine at the same time that rampant drug use by his teammates was reported in the mainstream press? Or that it took a phenomenal performance in the 1971 World Series and his subsequent tragic death in a plane crash for Roberto Clemente's achievements to be recognised outside of Pittsburgh?
[font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127); font-weight: bold;" size="4"]The real context[/font]
While everyone yammers on about the purity of "sports", when it comes to high-level professional sports leagues economic reality dictates that the commodity being presented to the general public is not sport, but ENTERTAINMENT. Whatever is going to sell tickets and bring revenues to the teams, broadcast and print media, and the advertising circus surrounding the teams and individual athletes is paramount.
In which case, how do performance-enhancing drugs differ from those used by entertainers? Plastic surgery, pain-killers, stimulants and diet drugs are in widespread use by actors, musicians, models, and all other manner of entertainment (and broadcast journalism!) professionals--but these are all accepted as "part of the business".
For every parent who says, "My son is an athlete, and I don't want him to be enticed into using steroids by Barry Bonds", how many say, "My daughter is studying acting, and I don't want her to become anorexic like Mary-Kate Olsen"?
Instead of singling out Bonds, perhaps one ought to consider the bigger picture.
