Sideline the Smoking Syringe

Roger Clements is defending himself against accusations of using performance enhancing substances in the pursuit of excellence in his baseball career. Barry Bonds has steadfastly denied taking such substances to a chorus of criticism and skepticism by sports pundits. And, Marion Jones suffered an embarrassing conviction and sanctions connected with her involvement with performance enhancers.

As I have witnessed the furor burn from the media through the halls of Congress, I find myself having the most politically incorrect feelings about it all. I can honestly say I enjoyed watching Jones jet past her Olympic competition and I don’t believe that she was the only athlete in the games who got a pharmaceutical performance boost. I enjoyed watching Clements push the age envelop into certain Hall of Fame consideration. And, I enjoyed watching Bond bash baseballs out of ballparks at a record crushing pace.

If nothing else, the proliferation of performance enhancers has proven that they work. The competitive edge that they gave the stars of baseball seems to have been nullified by how pervasive they have apparently been. If the Mitchell Report found enough suspects to field nine starting line-ups then any baseball players who weren’t juicing was either not trying or just plain stupid. All of the uproar is fueled by the hypocrites disguised as baseball “purist” whose unrealistic romanticizing of the sport conveniently overlooks other performance enhancing advantages that modern players have over their counterparts of a hundred years ago. I don’t want to see players go back to horsehair in their balls or leather and steal cleats instead of ultra light weight shoes instead or hand stitched mitts stuffed with goose down instead of high-tech and specialized gloves machine made for every position. Afterall, the Bronx Bomber never chugged Gatorade.

There was a time when American athletes gained an advantage over the rest of the world by indulging in the original performance enhancing substance … red meat! Our advances in food quality and distribution gave us a clear advantage over our adversaries in developing nations. Just as equipment upgrades in sports like golf, tennis, football, basketball, track and field, swimming, gymnastics, winter sports and … heck every sport ... have continued to advance, perhaps it is time to upgrade the athletes, too.

Inevitably, the argument against the use of performance enhancers comes to the negative example pro athletes sets for our nation’s youth. But in generations to come, as our children unlock the human genetic code, human beings will find valid medical reasons to tamper with human DNA, just as valid medical reasons have uncorked the bottle of the performance enhancing genie. Even though high school athletes might be getting bigger and stronger only the elite athlete’s training and skill can break records. There’s much more to hitting a ball, running faster or even dominating your opponent than merely bulking up or adding muscle mass. Hard work and God-given talent would still be what separates the amateur from the elite athlete even if the playing field was leveled by making performance enhancing substances mandatory instead of prohibited.

What am I saying here? Easy … SO WHAT! The current atmosphere of hunting performance enhancing witches is more harmful than helpful to the American society at large. First, it stigmatizes the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone by the people who need them to recover for devastating illnesses, injuries and diseases. Second, the witch hunt distracts money, attention and resources away from more important issues like the War in Iraq; threats to the global ecology; monetary policies that are driving us toward economic recession; the need for affordable and universal health care; the diminishing of America’s middle class; the plundering of political influence by corporate special interest groups; the lingering undercurrent of social ills like racism, sexism, classism, agism, etc.; the wake of death that washes over foreign shores due to unbridled greed of western civilization; and on and on and on. The more things change on the field of sports competition, the more they stay the same for the world’s marginalized and oppressed masses. The more pleasure we derive from the spectacle of demonstrations of rising human potential in sports, the more pain we ignore when the mothers of the Third World bury their infant children by the millions. Finally, (and more selfishly) I want to see a 3 minute mile or a sub-9 second 100 or someone jump 30 or 40 feet. I want to see the upper limits of human potential expanded to mythical levels.

In short, let’s stop holding back both the human potential to perform on the field of sports and the human potential to resolve issues that demean the value of human life. What do you think?