Steroids

The mainstream sports media finally got what it's wanted for so long. Proof that Barry Bonds used steriods. So, now he's a cheat. And all his records, his unrivaled achievements especially over the past five years or so, are no longer worth the paper they're printed on. What crap. I know sportswriters. Barry Bonds is not their type of people. They still prefer their black athletes humble and cooperative. If you don't think there's a violent undercurrent of racisim to this story, you're crazy.

I know what you're thinking: "They're taking down Jason Giambi and even the hallowed Mark McGwire and those guys are white." Yeah, but Giambi and McGwire are the chum they're using to land their targeted prey. And, make no mistake, they're hunting Bonds with greater ferocity than Robert Shaw hunted down the shark in "Jaws."

Personally, I don't care if Bonds took steriods. And I believe that not only is there no proof that steriod use in baseball enhances performance, I submit that there is proof any benefit derived is, at best, inconsequential. Ironically, the proof that I cite grows stronger as evidence mounts that steroid use in baseball was widespread.

I don't care about steriods because complaining about athletes using them to enhance performance lacks any credibility. Where are the complaints over athletes using better balls and bats and gloves and helmets and pads and shoes and playing surfaces and on and on and on? What about athletes using sophisticated weight training and nutrition to better develop their bodies? Is this that much different than using chemicals? If the body is such a temple, why don't people complain when pain killers are injected to mask injury or when ligaments are taken out of cadavers and used to replace the ones that athletes have torn? What's more artifically performance enhancing than that? Steroids are just an extension of this science. That is, assuming they actually work.

To me, steriods are like corked bats. The intent is arguably corrupt, but what's the advantage? With corked bats, physics proves that the mass you lose by removing the wood and replacing it with cork or rubber balls or Spam or whatever else you choose costs you any advantage gained by lightening the bat (the only advantage ever gained by any corked bat to date).

If steriods work and if their use has been so widespread, why hasn't anyone shattered the records for home-run distance or for the speed of a pitch. Shouldn't someone, somewhere have hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium or at least broken 500 feet, which, to my knowledge, no one has done since home runs began being measured? Shouldn't someone be throwing a baseball faster than anyone before: 103 or 104 miles per hour? Even if someone did, they'd only be gaining a three or four percent advantage because there have been guys throwing baseballs 100 MPH for decades. But no one does. In fact, balls don't travel any father or get thrown any faster than we've seen since we were kids. And that's with arguably better bats and better balls and better training techniques and the use of computers to scientifically break down every technical component of performance, etc., etc.

To quote George Carlin, the purists need to grow up. The body is not the athlete's sacred vessel. It's just another one of their tools.