I think this is just wrong wrong wrong. Welch likes baseball, so he's all ostrich-y about this, as if baseball was some golden, essential, magical part of the ether like oxygen, surrounding us by the affection of a provident Almighty.

I never cared much for baseball... Nothing against it, just didn't love it any more than football or basketball or any of the other sports that I didn't pay attention too, either. But in childhood, for boys especially, we're not permitted to take a pass until something better comes into view, auto racing or scuba or what-have-you. Sports fans talk about these players as heroes... Virtuous and gifted people whose courageous lives are instructive.

Steroids show that it's all a lie. It's not about personal dedication or enthusiasm or even the luck of being blessed with a good throwing arm... It's about chemistry. It's about how well your doctor studied arithmetic in grade school, and the nuance by which he applies chemistry insights to your blood stream, and how hard you're willing to work as you hide your deception. There's just not any reason to admire these people. (Not sure there EVER was, but certainly not now.) Having drug abuse accepted as standard practice serves only to exclude the impoverished and third-world players from the major-league sports. These guys are SHITTING on the Cinderella daydreams that fuel their own success.

There's no corner of fame more pathetic than years-late, entrenched-in-shame confessions of drug abuse from a Mark McGuire or a Marion Jones. And please–please-please: When these fuckers start showing up in the cancer ward, do not bring me their tears.

I'm with you on this, Crid.

Hold your horses. What happened to the "Better Living Through Chemistry" theory (or sentiment or what you want to call it) that I've seen written here before?

Or am I making a bogus comparison?

Jason, a chemical imbalance in the brain which impeads cognitave fuction is in no way comparable to an aging has been wanting to show up his succsessors over the natrual loss of his skill in PLAYING A GAME due to getting older.

If we alow steroids why not a little heroin to dul the ache of a piching arm? Hrll why not just replace the pitcherss arm ith a bionic one? Or better yet replace all the players with machines?

Sports is supposeed to be about people competeing againts each other in a contest of NATURAL skill.

I think I agree with you about idea of steroids in competitive sports and natural skill, lujlp, but it's interesting that you mention baseball pitchers with bionic arms. There was a pitcher for the Dodgers, etc. named Tommy John who was famous for having a surgery performed on his arm which allowed him to compete until he was 42 years old.

I think that's a fantastic advancement in medicine. To hear some tell it, there's an analogy between the Tommy John surgery and growth hormones; that is, growth hormones beneficial to muscle healing in damaged arms and legs.

In my opinion, the best example for athletes to *not* use steroid tricks, is the 1972 Olympic 5000m race. Steve Prefontaine ran his guts out and didn't even place in the top three. Even though he didn't place, he inspired a whole generation of distance runners. (And there are rumors that the gold medal winner was using blood boosting to improve his performance.)

This will not be a very focused comment.
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There is an odd conflict where drug-enhanced performance is bad, but other forms of performance enhancement are OK. Tommy John's ligament replacement surgery, which was experimental and whose doctors did not anticipate enabling him to pitch again, actually improved his game. It's now a routine procedure for people who have damaged that particular ligament, with a high degree of success. Pitchers who have it done often have new pop on their pitches as the replacement ligament is stronger than the original. Many baseball players and golfers (Tiger Woods) have had LASIK to improve their vision to better than 20/20. Some ballplayers wear contacts that enhance their vision beyond normal. This is also OK. But drugs are not. I would not argue that we should remove prohibitions against performance-enhancing drugs, but there are always going to be grey areas as medical science advances.

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So many cyclists get busted for doping, despite their sophisticated doctor-enabled drug cycles and blood flushing, that I have long assumed that all cyclists dope, or at least all who are in the sport's upper echelon. Including many people's hero Lance Armstrong. If one trains fanatically and competes against others who train just as fanatically and have chemically increased numbers of white blood cells and HGH to assist recovery from workouts, and excessive testosterone to build muscle, that person loses. These people are insanely competitive, so I can see why the pressure to dope would be intense.
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I enjoy a variety of sports, both as a participant and a fan. As a fan, it's fascinating to watch strategy and skill and toughness and luck play out at full-tilt speed. As an athlete, it's enjoyable to learn about the limits of what my body can do, and going fast is fun. Physicality is a big part of being a person, and sports are one way to experience that.

But I'm with Crid that I'm not sure that excellence on the court or field makes one a hero or one's life especially worthy of emulation.

P.S. - I love that the piece linked above used Game theory to explain Landis' behavior. I find game theory fascinating; it's a great tool for describing how people make decisions in a wide array of situations.

Cyclists actually should do everything they can to strengthen anti-doping rules. There was a time when several died because of too high hemocrit (sp?) levels.

Correct me if I'm wrong...I don't follow the sport, but wasn't the only thing Lance Armstrong was proven to have done was hypoxic training. (Something which is perfectly legal)

> I'm not sure that excellence on the court or field
> makes one a hero or one's life especially
> worthy of emulation.

It certainly doesn't if drugs are what make the difference between you and lesser performers.

There a two separate offenses here:

1. First, the steroid-ified athlete is, no matter how many winks and nudges we grant him, affirming the he's better than others: That by his own discretion, effort, or merely good fortune, he's bringing a higher standard of achievement of the playing field which the fan has purchased a ticket to observe. He's saying he's earned the ticket money (or trophies or endorsements), while other players haven't.

But who knows? The whole point of sports is to compete and be rated on a linear scale, without qualifications or asterisks. Who knows how many people reading this blog comment would have done as well if we'd taken a big regimen of drugs? I bet Eric is a serious-ass base-stealer, and I bet Number Six could sky over your skull to slam-dunk before you even missed the sunshine.

2. Steroids remove from contention the impoverished and socially unconnected. There are poor people who, in pursue athletic success, eschew (a.) junk food, (b.) distracting & incompetent relationships, (c.) lives of crime (illicit drugs etc.). Those people are even willing to sacrifice all the conventional paths to success –books and the library–in order to spend time in the gym. Welch and James are ready to throw those people overboard... Even though though their simplistic adoration –perhaps especially from poor people– is a size-huge part of what makes athletic success financially lucrative for the ones with trophies.

...And they do so with a bunch of bullshit rhetoric from the 1939 World's Fair about the Golden Tomorrow when everyone lives in eternal youth because of science.

Frogwash. Balderdash. Horseshit.

In other weird news, Microsoft Bing is the default search engine on Google Chrome when installed with Google Earth on the Fourth of July, 2010.

I suppose this is just a way of keep the the Federal Trade Commission out of the lobby in Mountain View...

But I hope it works.