Do you care that players use steriods?
Once again, baseball is in the midst of a steriods crisis. This time it's MLB's golden boy, who carried with him (on his artificially broad shoulders) all the hopes of home run redemption, who has faltered having tested positive in 2003. Obviously not a good thing for baseball- and is expected to get much worse with a growing cry for having more names released.. with that said, here is my question for this esteemed panel.... Do you care?
Are steriods just other evolution of the game? Like an improved, more consistently manufactured baseball, a lightweight high-density maple bat, indoor stadiums, black back-drops, better nutrition, better fitness habits, less smoking/drinking/eating of hot dogs, nutritional supplements.
or, are steriods somehow different? Are they different than protein drinks or creatine, or other quasi-nutritional supplements? If so, where do we draw the line- Andro ok, then it's not ok... etc, etc.
3 Comments:
I am sure if I was younger and was into pro-sports as much as I was then, I would be outraged. Being older while juggling my own problems, I really can't get myself worked up over the steroid issue.
I would like to believe that the best athletes and the guys who look like good guys are doing it naturally. Everytime one of them bites the dust, I just shrug and think it figures. I am not going to let it foul up my mood or get me upset.
I am much more disgusted when politicians and religious figures get caught going against the very things for which they claim they stand. Although, I do find the damage control talk show tour rather funny as they claim god has forgiven them.
I guess the short answer would be not really.
February 9, 2009 at 12:52 PM
I think if I was someone who cared a lot about the quantitative nature of baseball (which seems to be the big argument when people explain why football gets a pass while baseball gets skewered for the PED problem) and the "sanctity" of all the numbers, then I'd be upset. But the bottom line is that I don't, really, and I think guys are always going to do whatever they can do to get better. There is just too much money to be made or lost.
The A-Roid / A-fraud situation is almost humorous to me. You know Selig wanted him to be clean so that he could erase Bonds' record some day. Well...so much for that. Plus, A-Rod is such a douche that this only makes him even less likable than he already is. Schadenfreude! Catch the fever!
So, I guess my short answer is also: not really. As LH mentions, I think it's just one of many things that about the game that has changed since the 1950s.
February 9, 2009 at 5:12 PM
I've decided that being surprised by any steroid revelation coming out of baseball at this point is equivalent to being surprised by any revelation of malfeasance and irresponsibility on Wall Street circa 2000-2008. There was no oversight of either, human nature took over. What's to be surprised about?
I do care a decent degree about the quantitative nature of baseball compared to other sports, but generally I trust people to mentally discount anything out of any player who played during the 1995-2005 era when comparing across other eras. There's no need for an asterisk in the record books for Bonds, ARod and the rest - fans forevermore will refer to the late 20th- early 21st centuries in baseball as the "Steroid Era" and appropriately discount numbers.
I will say I'm mildly dismayed that baseball, my favorite game, has been transformed from a game of coordination and speed into one of brute strength. I also get a not insubstantial bit of joy out of the mythology of baseball as a fundamentally and quintessentially American game in line with the history and character of the nation (witness the dustiness in the room every time James Earle Jones gets it going at the end of Field of Dreams). However that position in the nation's consciousness has been overtaken by the military industrial complex of football and its inordinate hero worship for one player on the field (which in this day and age is, admittedly, probably a better metaphor for American culture generally), to the extent this myth about America and its basic goodness has been damaged by a bunch of athletes behaving unadmirably, and Don Fehr and Bud Selig cooperating to do everything in their power to allow it to happen and then cover it all up, I can't say truthfully that doesn't bother me at some deep psychological level.
That said, like with rts and bg, the short answer is "not really."
February 10, 2009 at 7:46 PM
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