Posted by Johnnymac 5:06 PM
The big news today is the release of the Mitchell Report. Count me as nonplussed.

Why?

Yes, steroids are illegal, and yes there are detrimental long-term health effects, and yes, their use is against the rules of baseball. That said, arguments about why they are against the rules of baseball tend to fall down on the limit that using them provides an "unfair advantage" and not simply because the general misuse of drugs is illegal, like, for instance marijuana or cocaine. Baseball purists everywhere want to say that Barry Bonds's and Mark Mcguire's - and all the other guys' - records are "tarnished" when compared to older players who didn't take steroids.

But throwing aside the illegality aspect and the health aspects, I don't see what the big deal is about how steroids are so bad for the game. They didn't have Lasik or even even lenses back in Babe Ruth's day, did they? And the special vitamins and supplements that are legal and available today weren't available to Roger Maris and Hank Aaron, were they? Not to mention weight rooms and personal trainers and sports psychiatrists... So why are modern advantages from those things OK but not steroids? Shouldn't all modern records be looked up with suspicion when compared to a fat guy who drank too much and slept around and whose body was pretty much the antithesis of the modern pro athlete's?

Look, I'm not saying that there are not detrimental health effects from these drugs and that they shouldn't be illegal or against the rules, I'm just saying that arguments about the "integrity of the game" are just a little relative and I'm tired of hearing about them.

2 Comment(s):

Posted by  Dr Fro, at 7:04 PM, December 14, 2007  

Word.

I feel the same way about weed.

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 6:32 AM, December 17, 2007  

If we didn't have some ostensible constraints around subject matter, you and I could really go off on a libertarian streak here.

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