Text 14572, 155 rader
Skriven 2005-08-12 22:10:12 av Alan Hess
Ärende: let 'em use steroids?
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This columnist thinks so.
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There Is No Joy in Juiceville. Why Not?
By Nick Gillespie    Published      08/11/2005 


Am I the only diehard baseball fan in America not particularly put out by the
ongoing baseball steroids scandal, now starring Baltimore Orioles slugger
Rafael Palmeiro? The well-regarded Raffy -- by the end of this season, he will
almost certainly join Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as only the third major
leaguer to have 3,000 hits and 600 home runs -- is coming off a 10-day
suspension for using steroids. That infraction may not only hurt his
relationship with his fans and teammates but also send his Hall of Fame chances
to the showers.

While a half-dozen lesser players have been caught violating Major League
Baseball's policy, Palmeiro is the first star to be nabbed. It hardly helps
matters that Palmeiro was fiercely insistent at congressional hearings in March
that he "never used steroids. Period." He's since downgraded such metaphysical
certitude by elaborating that he never had "intentionally" used steroids.

 

In the wake of Palmeiro's bust, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig
has called for "an even tougher" drug policy, claiming that the "very
integrity" of the national pastime is on the line.

 

There's no question that MLB, which banned steroids in 2002, has every right to
set and enforce whatever drug policy it wants. But it's also worth asking why
performance-enhancing drugs are such a bugaboo in the first place. After all,
they are simply one tool among many that top-level athletes use to gain and
maintain an edge. So why single them out for special opprobrium, especially
when it seems likely that no enforcement regime is likely to work fully (just
ask every other sport)? Better living through chemistry is as American as,
well, baseball. Most of the knee-jerk anti-steroid arguments -- that they
compromise competition, player safety, and historical records -- fall apart
faster than the Chicago Cubs in September.

 

The main argument against steroids and similar drugs is that they somehow screw
with the "natural" abilities of players and disrupt the "level playing field."
That is, they give "unfair" advantages to players willing to use them. That's
why Commissioner Selig frets over the "integrity" of baseball. Steroids, goes
this line of thought, turn an authentic competition into something less...real?
But if any of that is true, why not ban, say, weight training or off-season
workouts? Or special nutritional regimens that stop short of including certain
banned supplements? What should be done about Lasik and other interventions
that result in better than 20/20 vision? Or reconstructive surgeries that let
pitchers throw faster than before undergoing the knife (just ask Chicago Cubs'
hurler Kerry Wood)? All of these things muddy that wholly mythical level
playing field.

 

And if player equity is an issue, why not go after "fair" advantages? Why is it
OK that a biological crapshoot gives one ballplayer the 6'6" frame of, say, a
Dave Winfield and entombs another in the petit 5'5" body of a Freddie Patek?
The uncomfortable fact to purists is that ballplayers are no more "natural"
than the Astroturf -- or the painstakingly synthesized "natural," for that
matter -- of the ballparks in which they play. They are the result of years of
practice, exercise, and training, equipment, and coaching, none of which can be
considered "natural" in the normal sense of that word. The only "natural" ever
to play the game was Roy Hobbs, the eponymous protagonist of Bernard Malamud's
novel -- and even he had a magic bat for most of his career.

 

What about player safety? There's little doubt that, like most drugs, steroids
can be used responsibly. As Charles Yesalis, a Penn State epidemiologist and
steroid expert, has put it, "We know steroids can be used with a reasonable
measure of safety." Yesalis, author of The Steroids Game, also pooh-poohs
poorly documented tales of "'roid rage," noting, "What's perhaps just the
intensity that's common to many athletes gets perceived as steroid-linked
outbursts." In fact, if player safety is an issue, then it makes more sense to
make steroid use fully legal and above ground. Whether we're talking about
booze in the '20s or Dianabol in the locker rooms of today, prohibition creates
or intensifies all sorts of safety issues by stymieing the flow of information
and creating impediments to treatment. If steroids were used in the light of
day, players and owners alike would be far more likely to regulate their use in
their longer-term interests.

 

Have steroids affected baseball records, especially home run totals? Almost
certainly. But they are also only one factor among many, including today's
smaller ballparks and smaller strike zones, both of which make it easier for
the long-ball hitter. And as Sammy Sosa could tell you, the occasional corked
bat might help a bit, too.

 

Steroids have surely helped ballplayers and other athletes by increasing muscle
mass and helping the body recover from exertion more quickly. In Palmeiro's
case, his stats are suggestive. As a 25 year-old player, he popped a dinger
every 43 at-bats. A dozen years later, he parked one every 13 times he came to
the plate. Most intriguingly, his home run totals skyrocketed after human test
tube Jose Canseco became his teammate. Canseco has admitted using steroids and
turning other players onto them; he has claimed that up to 80 percent of
current ballplayers have used steroids. As the Sporting News' Dave Kindred has
written, Palmeiro "hit 95 home runs in his first seven season; after Canseco's
arrival, [he] hit 99 in three seasons."

 

But so what? Baseball records may not in fact be made to be broken -- will
anyone ever top Hack Wilson's 191 RBI? or Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting
streak? -- but they are always subject to specific historical contexts.

 

Surely it matters that Babe Ruth faced only the best white pitchers of his day.
Or that Ty Cobb spent a chunk of his career in the deadball era. Or that Ted
Williams coughed up his best years to fight in World War II and Korea. Or that
Hank Aaron played most of his career in a period in which parks and strikes
zones were pitcher friendly. The point is that baseball itself changes over
time and fans of the game will quickly put players in relevant contexts. Hence,
Kindred is probably right to note that, despite Palmeiro's massive offensive
totals, "no one will ever mistake [him] for Henry Aaron or Willie Mays." That's
not simply because of possible drug use -- Palmeiro has never been the team
leader or personality that Hammerin' Hank or the Say Hey Kid was. At the same
time, baseball's paying customers don't seem to mind shelling out for tickets
to watch possibly steroid-stoked players. "These are relatively good times for
baseball attendance," notes The New York Times.

 

To be sure, Rafael Palmeiro is a hypocrite when it comes to steroid use. If he
wants to play big league ball, he ought to stick to the rules he's agreed to
follow. But those rules -- which have always been arbitrary and have often been
pernicious -- shouldn't be mistaken for wisdom.

 

Depending on how many other marquee players test positive for banned
substances, MLB may well be better off embracing open drug use as a way of
intensifying competition.

 

Nick Gillespie is editor-in-chief of Reason, winner of the 2005 Western
Publications Association "Maggie" award for best political magazine.


Copyright + 2005 Tech Central Station - www.techcentralstation.com

     

     

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