rocco wrote:If a guy wants to take steroids with the health risks involved, so be it. That should be the deterring factor. Otherwise it makes only a small difference on the game. The players that were implicated in this most recent investigation other than the three allstars were Benito Santiago and Marvin Bernard. Those two can't hit for shit. The object still is to hit a round ball with a round bat squarely and HGH doesn't make that any easier. I don't think it adds a lot of distance to HR's either, Dave Kingman and Mickey Mantle could crush balls into the night but they weren't huge physically.

Steroids do add distance to home runs ( witness a Sammy Sosa batting practice to see evidence of that ), and they can also increase a player's fast twitch muscle ratio, improving bat speed. Increased strength and bat speed in the hands of any skilled hitter translate to more than minor advantages. Benito Santiago's offensive numbers rank him with the top five catchers of the last 15 years, by the way. Mantle was incredibly strong in his forearms and wrists, same as Aaron or Mays or Frank Robinson, and that's the source of 90% of the power that you need to hit a baseball 500 feet. Those power hitters of the 50's and 60's probably couldn't curl or bench press a third of the weight that Barry Bonds can, but those muscles are largely irrelevant to power hitting. As far as steroid use being a choice left to the player, dependent only on his willingness to risk his future health, I think that's a reckless argument. The integrity of any competition rests upon the levelness of its playing field. Let the players who want to juice go off and form their own league.

...

yeah... whoever is in on this discussion and is trying to claim that steriods do not create an unfair advantage and increase the performance of an athelete significantly is a friggin' nimrod.

That's where the inconsistency (AKA "cheating") lies. That's where we are all getting it from. They do...

Just like posted above this one... all athletes would then have to be on uniform doses of steroids to once again create an even and fair playing field.

Simple. When the consistency of something is uniform... no variables (more simple), you get more honest and true results. Just like a science experiment.

What happened to the game?

steroids are bad for people

steroids can make people stronger, including professional athletes

if certain athletes are stronger than other athletes, they will have certain advantages over these other athletes

therefore: if some guys choose to endanger their health by taking 'roids, they will enjoy certain discrete advantages over the guys who don't take 'roids. the clean guys will feel pressure to keep up by getting on the juice.

again, steroids are bad for people. there are built-in risks to playing sports professionally, but besides these risks, no athlete should feel compelled to endanger his health to keep up.

if you can't understand that, that's unfortunate, and everyone else should probably ignore you

if you do understand that, and you still don't care, then you look at professional athletes the way the romans used to look at gladiators

i think that's an inhumane perspective, and there's nothing pollyannaish about having a humane perspective on sports or anything else

so... steroids are bad because they're physically bad for the people who take them. okay, um, then we have to illegalize american football comepletely, because it's extremely physically dangerous for people. another arbitrarily drawn line.

and all this level playing field shit is amazing. apparently now sports is all about socialism or something? i think we should probably institute some kinda rule that baseball players all have to be between 5'10" tall and 6' tall, between 180 and 200 lbs. that way, y'know, it's a more level field. and everybody should only be able to work out for let's say exactly 3 hours a day. anybody who works out for 5 hours a day is gonna hafta be banned, because he's now made it not a level playing field.

somebody explain how either of these concepts really have anything to do with professional sports... "physically bad for" and "nobody should have any physical advantage"... sounds like we should start trying to replace professional athletes with robots as soon as possible.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:...all this level playing field shit is amazing. apparently now sports is all about socialism or something? i think we should probably institute some kinda rule that baseball players all have to be between 5'10" tall and 6' tall, between 180 and 200 lbs. that way, y'know, it's a more level field. and everybody should only be able to work out for let's say exactly 3 hours a day. anybody who works out for 5 hours a day is gonna hafta be banned, because he's now made it not a level playing field.

There is a difference between a fair advantage and an unfair advantage. Sports have rules designed to eliminate unfair advantages thereby enhancing fair advantages. For example, Randy Johnson has a distinct advantage over me when it comes to pitching. Even though The Big Unit has spent the majority of his adult life playing the game, working out and honing his skills, he does not have an unfair advantage over me. He's just better, that's all. Professional sports is supposed to be about the victory of the naturally gifted and/or hard-working. People who enjoy professional sports get upset when rules are broken giving certain competitors unfair advantages (corked bats, crooked umpires) or when they perceive that a lack of rules in a particular area (salary cap, certain performance enhancing drugs) may be doing the same. This is a pretty basic concept and is at the heart of lots of other "systems" in life (law, economics, etc). Please revisit the first sentence in your quote above "...all this level playing field shit..." and think for a second about why that is a cliche for fairness in general and where it might have come from.

You know, if you don't like sports, it's cool - you don't need to chime in on every topic under the sun. I refuse to believe an intelligent person would have trouble with the idea of "fairness".

Dan

so... steroids are bad because they're physically bad for the people who take them. okay, um, then we have to illegalize american football comepletely, because it's extremely physically dangerous for people. another arbitrarily drawn line.

bud

look at my original post

i wrote:

there are built-in risks to playing sports professionally, but besides these risks, no athlete should feel compelled to endanger his health to keep up.

reading is underrated

tm

There is nothing wrong with an athlete being of a certain height, weight, creed, or stature. These are natural phoenominon that can work towards the advantage of a player, or not really contribute at all towards a players abilities or skill.

There is something wrong w/ illegal substances that drastically alter the physiology and performance of an athlete. This provides a clear advantage for the player... which is why steroids are widely taken/abused in pro sports.

You think athletes take them for kicks. No... they help them out performance-wise. Give them the unfair, unjust, and un-natural edge.

Not cool... crap!