On Steroids

A conscience is the part of you that tells you, immediately and without reflection, if a certain act is lawful or unlawful. It's pretty clear that most everyone knows, in their gut, that it's not right for a ballplayer to use steroids.

I feel that way. But I do think there's a lot of overreaction to the Jason Giambi news. Steroids is cheating but baseball has always been full of cheating. Corked bats. Stolen signs. Overwatered infields. Foreign substances on the ball.

There's no conclusive proof that steroids do anything but help the body heal faster and help the body add muscle mass faster. There's no proof that they do anything to help a hitter hit a ball, and there's no proof that they help a pitcher to hit his spots. There's no proof that they do anything to turn a mediocre player into a superstar. Jason Giambi took them, if reports are to be believed, and so too did Jeremy Giambi.

People are overreacting to the steroids question. People have said that the 1951 Giants stole the pennant and there's been no movement to put an asterisk on their accomplishment. Guys are in the Hall of Fame for careers built on doctoring the baseball. Where is the outrage? There is none. There has always been a lot of winking when it comes to the usual forms of cheating in baseball.

We've always known that athletes have used and abused "recreational" drugs. Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter on LSD. We all know Ricky Williams has been running all stoned but there's no movement to put an asterisk on his accomplishments, either. And we know many athletes played high on cocaine or half-drunk. Amphetamines are reported to be totally common in sports, too. Would anyone have a problem with a ballplayer who's taking Prozac?

So why all the hullabaloo about steroids? What is it about this drug that has so many people convinced that it's the rock-solid iron-clad most-foolproof sure-thing way of cheating?

My response to news that players have been "juiced" is one of pity - it's the same reaction I have to news that players abused and suffered from their use of LSD, cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol, and marijuana. And I can't believe that steroids use is a threat to the "integrity of the game." Why do some people worry more about the integrity of a game than they worry, say, about the integrity of a business, of a political policy, of a college degree, or of a religious vow? The "integrity" of baseball was sacrificed long ago and since it's sport, it's no worse for wear for this habitual wanting of virtue and consistency.

On the scale of cheats, I'd rank steroid use below putting vaseline on the ball. I'd rank steroid use below sign-stealing schemes which involve more than one person. (If one person cheating in secret is bad, worse is two or more players helping each other to cheat.) My guess is that steroids have had no more impact on the outcome of games than alcohol, which is to say that it's probably had some influence but no more influence than dozens or even hundreds of other factors which have come and gone over the last hundred-and-fifty years.

If steroids helped players get stronger, it's not very clear that they helped the hitters more than it helped the pitchers. If they helped players heal faster and get back on the field, then I don't see why we should complain about them.

Compounding the dubious "criminality" of steroid use is the fact that they were legal until last year. And now that Bud Selig has banned some of them, I can still walk into any mall and go home with a big jug of Creatine. Are the illegal versions of steroids that much more effective than the legal ones?

Something tells me this is all about the home run record. I think that's sad. People can't help themselves from barrelling down this train of thought: Steroids -> Muscle -> Home Runs. Never mind the fact that this is only one of the many logical consequences of steroid use. How about Steroids -> Muscle -> Career-ending ligament damage? Or Steroids -> Muscle -> A home-run-preventing extra 5 mph on the fastball?

The more important question is this: who gives a damn about the home run record? I'd trade one playoff win for a home run record. If the home run record really is the most important thing to baseball fans, then the sport is in worse shape than I thought.

The fact that this might go down as the steroids era is sad, but no more sad that the fact that other eras might be remembered as the alcohol era, the cocaine era, the amphetamine era, the sign-stealing era, the spitball era, the vaseline era, the pine tar era, the body armor era, or the what have you era.

The game is just as strong as it has ever been. And it has just as much integrity as it has ever had.

Play ball.