Posted on 12/07/2004 8:27:12 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
SO athletes use steroids to perform better. Wall Street traders take Ritalin and everyone uses caffeinated drinks during work to stay alert. News anchors get face lifts and actors take Botox so more people watch them. What's different about athletes?
Yet, this weekend you would have thought that Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds had committed some unspeakable crime. Commentators spoke of them "falsifying the product." Saturday, Sen. John McCain promised hearings and threatened legislation imposing drug-testing standards if professional baseball does not crack down. By Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist made a similar call for legislation, and McCain said President Bush would sign such a bill.
Athletes may have more at stake than most of the rest of us. They may go a little farther in competing, but the risks seem pretty mild. This spring a baseball players' union representative, Gene Orza, claimed that steroids are "not worse than cigarettes." With over 4,000 people playing major league baseball over the last decade and claims that 40 or 50 percent of players are using some form of anabolic steroids, what is striking is how rare baseball deaths are and that these are not really related to "performance-enhancing" drugs. Take the last two years:
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ritalin is illegal is you don't have a prescription for it. And many people that take it do not have one.
I don't have a problem with athletes who want to use performance drugs. I have a problem with athletes who pretend that they don't.
Owners or sponsors should require testing all the time. Drugged athletes should be labeled as "enhanced" (or whatever).
Eventually the natural athletes will compete against each other and the drugged athletes will have their own competitions.
This has already happened in bodybuilding.
Let me know when they get a Clean one going....
So you want to force people to risk their lives just so they can compete?
Bonds (last month):
"I'm not trying to prove anything being over 40," said Bonds. "Maybe I'm just getting better with age."
"I can't explain it," he said. "I don't have an answer and don't understand why God has blessed me. I'm grateful and excited and happy about it. When I play, a light goes on and everything changes inside of me. I can't understand it."
You could do all the drugs you wanted, and you still wouldnt run a 4.4 40, or be able to hit a 95 mph Fastball.
"Performance Enhancing" drugs have made a mockery of the sport. The statistics are meaningless now. Henry Aaron would have hit 900 homeruns if he'd been juiced like Sammy, McGuire and Bonds. The users have defiled the game, but I don't expect this ditzy writer to understand that.
How did Bonds cheat? Baseball didn't have rules against what he's supposed to have done. If it's not against the rules, it's not cheating.
The problem is that Baseball didn't address this 40 years ago, and a lot of folks like owners, advertisers, vendors, fans, and players who did and didn't take steroids enjoyed the ride, especially when Baseball was recovering from the 1994 strike. A rigourous and frequent testing program for clearly banned substances should be implemented immediately, but scapegoating a few people for allegedly taking advantage of a flawed system isn't going to accomplish much.
On the other hand, the BALCO prosecutors are clearly cheating, having leaked grand jury testimony where the athletes gave up Fifth Amendment rights and representation by their attorneys. Baseball needs to be cleaned up, but so does the D.A.'s office.
Without steroids Bonds would have still looked like the Michelin man at 40?
Not really. TGH wasn't known, and therefore not illegal. Cortisone is legal.
In a lot of these cases you also lack any positive steroid tests on blood or the substances those particular athletes were using. Baseball need to be cleaned up of steroids, but there's a lot of hype, misinformation, and prosecutorial misconduct in the BALCO case.
Well, the same argument could be made against smaller ballparks...Or against releif pitching...or forcing modern players to go back to playing doubleheaders on weekends...Or Better nutrition, and earlier more comprehensive training techniques...
This BS about the 'purity' of the sport over Time, is ridiculous.
hmm...well roids are illegal thats whats wrong with them.
I don't care how they affect the game, or what they do to the players...they are illegal. That simple, case closed next one please.
coffee isn't illegal, botox isn't illegal and face lifts aren't illegal. This over generalization shit is killing me.
To say walstreat traders all do ridlin and baseball players all do roids is akin to saying all computer programers are fat slobs who eat take out chinese food, or even perhaps all mexicans are lazy, all arabs are terrorists ect ect ect. I'm tired of this over generilization stuff
i'm also tired of this well everyone is doing it anywys lets just legalize it or reduce the standards stuff. Everyone is using roids in baseball just legalize it, or we already have too many illegal imegrants..lets reduce that statistic by making the illegals legal, then viola no more illegal imegrant problem. Same with lowering test stardards ect ect.
whoops...i kinda of went off on a tangent for a bit..I'll try and do better next time! ;)
I disagree. With enough drugs pumped into your system and with complete deregulation, any reasonably conditioned athlete could shatter any current world record. And, bat speed is the key to hitting any thrown object - the more bat speed, the more HRs you get. The point is, how entertaining would it be to watch something like that, knowing that the athlete might literally physically explode in front of your eyes at the end of the meet? Again, cheering for the product of one drug company over another is not something that I would do nor countenance.
But the freaking FedGov sticking its nose in here goes BEYOND a simple power grab in to outright Nanny Statism. People can hurt themselves by drinking too much water or eating too many Twinkies. GET OFF OUR BACKS!!! There is NO AUTHORITY writen into the Constitution to even come close to this crap they are pulling.
WE assume the risks. WE are adults perfectly capable of making our OWN decisions. If we end up croaking from brain cancer or an enlarged heart, WE knew the risks and were willing to accept them. That's just more resources for the rest of you guys to leech from each other.
Same goes for smoking, drinking, and not wearing a seat belt. And don't give us that lame assed "insurance cost" BS either. Its a circular argument for socialism and you damn well know it...
Sorry... but I really felt that need to rant. None of the above is necessarily directed at anyone here, but should be taken generally...
Dennis Miller: In response to what its sponsors claim is an idea whose time has come, the first All-Drug Olympics opened today in Bogota, Columbia. Athletes are allowed to take any substance whatsoever before, after, and even during the competition. So far, 115 world records have been shattered! We go now to correspondent Kevin Nealon, live in Bogota for the Weightlifting Finals. Kevin?
Kevin Nealon: Dennis, getting ready to lift now is Sergei Akmudov of the Soviet Union. His trainer has told me that he's taken antibolic steroids, Novacaine, Nyquil, Darvon, and some sort of fish paralyzer. Also, I believe he's had a few cocktails within the last hour or so. All of this is, of course, perfectly legal at the All-Drug Olympics, in fact it's encouraged. Akmudov is getting set now, he's going for a cleaning jerk of over 1500 pounds, which would triple the existing world record. That's an awful lot of weight, Dennis, and here he goes.
[ Kevin steps aside to reveal the steroid-bulked athlete bent over to lift the 1500 lbs. weight. Sergei tightens his grip on the barbells and pulls up, but instead of lifting the weights, his arms are pulled off and blood squirts ferociously out of his pulpy stubs. ]
Kevin Nealon: Oh! He pulled his arms off! He's pulled his arms off, that's gotta be disappointing to the big Russian! [ Sergei's trainer wraps a towel around him ] You know, you hate to see something like this happen, Dennis! He probably doesn't have that much pain right now, but I think tomorrow he's really gonna feel that, Dennis! Back to you!
Dennis Miller: Thank you, Kevin. Very nice form on the Russian. Canada, of course, is leading that competition.
I think there should be mandatory and random drug testing in the House and Senate also.
Why not ?
The problem is clear. (Agreed, the government should stay out of it. ) We place restraints on the things we do in the name of competition so that no body gets injured, even if the risk is voluntarily undertaken. Say there was an exilir that allowed you to hit .459 with 76 home runs, but if you took it, you'd be dead at 29. Some 28 year old would take it. The rules of competition should not allow it, for obvious reasons.
Another example is "demoltion derby". You could sell more tickets (maybe) if each car were required to carry a 55 gallon drum of gasoline on the roof. And participation would be voluntary, but is this a good idea?
We don't know, do we? Baseball should have been testing and suspending for steroids years ago, but didn't. Do we have a positive blood test for Bonds? A positive test on anything found in his locker or at his home? I'm not saying he's clean, but the system wasn't in place to detect and punish steroid use until this year. The system needs to be made even stronger, with far more frequent testing.
However, I'm going to refrain from joining a stampede against a few athletes based on prosecutorial misconduct and leaked grand jury testimony. Someone in the D.A.'s office is breaking the law to manipulate public opinion, and that person or those people need to be discovered and disbarred, at the minimum.
That is a grotesquely ignorant statement. EVERY Human body has limits to it's innate ability, regardless of the use of Pharmaceuticals. Otherwise, the WWFs Triple H would be a world champion Powerlifter, or Worlds Strongest man champion.
Pharmacology is nothing more than a component of effective training.
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