The difference between steroids and contact lenses is in the side effects. Contact lenses are generally considered to be safe although you do run higher risks of eye infection. Steroids on the other hand have some rather nasty side effects. In a competitive environment, the use of health damaging means to enhance performance puts pressure on all participants to do the same. I’m not sure how to reconcile that with something like football where the sport is inherently health damagin, but there you go.
Becuase then you pull your arms straight out of their sockets and bleed all over the place. Damn messy, I tell you. (You have seen the “All-Drug Olympics” SNL skit, right?)
Yeah, Tim, you correctly predicted my response. Being an NFL lineman is taking 20 years off your life. But even in baseball, when was the last time you had Tommy John surgery? Pitchers generally pitch until injuries render them ineffective. I like having cartilage in my elbow. Catchers(and NBA players) destroy their knees.
And while some steroids have nasty side effects, a lot of that can be avoided by proper supervision. Basically, even if there are side effects, Barry Bonds is an adult. The tradeoff of utility now for future utility is one he is completely qualified to make.
Anyway, most arguments against steroids don’t mention the side effects, just the performance enhancing part. Like how we’ll need to put an asterisk on certain records, etc.
Because unless you worked your ass off for it, it’s Cheating ™.
Why do people think Lance Armstrong so much? He’s made incredible sacrifices to get where he is.
Why did people like Nolan Ryan so much? He played with lots of injuries, played an obscene number of innings, and always looked like he was going to drop dead from the exertion.
Why did people like Barry Sanders so much? Because he made literally unbelievably moves - strictly by natural talent combined with discipline and sacrifice to bring out that talent.
People don’t like sports because they enjoy watching numbers go up, or seeing stuff move really fast. Professional sports are popular because they’re played by the most hardcore of the hardcore, those who’ve spent their entire lift honing their craft.
Steroids is more-or-less the equivalent of cutting in line in this framework.
Oh, and for contacts vs. steroids:
Contacts bring you up to the “normal” limits of human vision. Steroids push you past those limits.
Yeah yeah, I know, nutrition and weighlifting and all that, but note those actually involve discipline and pain and what not. Steroids don’t.
McCullough- Steroids are just the really good supplements. Creatine is, at it’s heart, just a very crappy TGH. Steroids aren’t the boogeyman of awesomeness Jay Marriotti seems to believe they are. They are on a continuum that starts at eating right and working out and goes right on through using more and more supplements and getting various surgeries.
Steroids just make working out more effective. Barry Bonds spends hours a day working out, he’s reputed to have by far the most rigorous training program in baseball. This isn’t taking myostatin blockers and letting your hormones turn you into Mighty Mouse while you sleep, this is just using the best science to improve your performance. It’s nearly impossible to draw a logical line between taking creatine, vitamins, supplements, etc. and Andro and other such substances.
LASIK can improve your vision above 20/20, by the way.
If people just liked effort, why does Manny Ramirez get paid more than David Eckstein? People like seeing things they can’t see anywhere else, and that’s because when you go to a major league baseball game you are seeing the absolute right end of the bell curve.
Just because I can’t point to the specific crossed line that outrages everyone and makes it laziness doesn’t mean there isn’t one; people seem to know where it is. And people obviously care about talent, too, but it has to be “real talent”, for lack of a better word.
I don’t personally really care that much, but hey.
Aren’t anabolic steroids illegal? Answering my own question:
The Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 19905 added anabolic steroids to the federal schedule of controlled substances, thereby criminalizing their non-medical use by those seeking muscle growth for athletic or cosmetic enhancement
(from: http://www.mesomorphosis.com/articles/collins/wrong-prescription.htm Dislaimer: The site is pro-steroid, and the article in question argues that steroids aren’t as harmful as we were led to believe when used properly and that their classification as illegal is absurd and in need of correction. I don’t know enough to have a stance on either side, I’m just pointing out that they ARE illegal for simple muscle building).
That’s a pretty clear line, Ben. It’s defined in federal law that using them to get stronger without medical reason is illegal, and if it’s federally illegal, I don’t think that calling it cheating in sport is a reach.
If you take the side of the article’s author/website, it’s a circular logic. Sports didn’t want steroids, they helped get them declared a controlled substance, it happened, so now steroids are banned in sports.
I think personally that I want athletes to earn their production. If Bonds wants to work his ass off and be a monster without resorting to illegal methods (if he took HGH before it was illegal, he’s technically okay), that’s fine (is he? I don’t know). I don’t think that people who don’t have the dedication or ability to play a sport at the highest level should be able to jab themselves with a needle full of illegal stuff and poof.
Why is it different then glasses or contacts? Because it is. Because everyone can get glasses or contacts. If you’re saying that it should be all or nothing, then they shouldn’t be allowed to wear knee braces or batting gloves or anything like that, right? What about sunglasses during sunny day games? Long sleeves in April and October? Should pitchers be able to use a rosin bag?
I guess it comes down to society, for me. We wear glasses or contacts in everyday life. It’d be fine for Chris Sabo or Eric Gagne to wear glasses if they were accountants, so why should it be less okay for them to do so on the field?
As for LASIK, I’d need to see some hard data that there’s a significant advantage to having 20/15 vision over 20/20 before I started worrying about players going out of their way to get super vision.
Oh, if Bonds used something that was illegal, I completely understand. But he is accused of using non-illegal(and non-even-against the rules) stuff like TGH and HGH, and people feel that to be unethical.
I’m pretty sure eyesight is a moderately valuable talent for hitters, given that they all wear contacts or have LASIK if they have bad vision, and I know players do eye exercises and such. Tony Gwynn, at his peak, had something insane like 20/5 vision, real fighter pilot level. But that’s really irrelevant. My point is that the sportswriter consensus on this issue has drawn a line that they could never justify rationally.
I think players should be allowed to use whatever legal means they can to improve their performance.
Well, people have accused Bonds of being on all kinds of stuff, because we can’t explain how his head has inflated along with his home run totals.
HGH is banned now (and I think THG is too), but we don’t know what (if anything) he was on (I think he’s less likely to be on anything now that MLB is testing, even if their system rots).
By the same token, if he wasn’t doing anything illegal at the time, why not come out and say “I was using <x>, but it was legal at the time. When it was <declared illegal>/<banned by MLB> I stopped taking it.”?
I don’t have a problem with players using legal means to help themselves, but I guess I consider taking advantage of new technology before it’s had a chance to be reviewed and declared legal/illegal is less kosher. In some cases it’s rushing to get in on it before it’s declared verboten (HGH), and in some cases, it can kill you (ephedrine).
Well, obviously, we have no idea what he’s on or was on. But among those who believe he is/was using, I believe most suspect he was dosing on designer cocktails like THG. I imagine the reason he hasn’t admitted is either A) He really wasn’t juicing or B) He knows there will be a public backlash if he admits to anything.
THG was made against the rules this past year. I dunno when HGH was banned.
Ephedra actually wasn’t that dangerous, either, though. America loves to overreact and we hate to prevent, it’s so annoying.