The Whole World's On Steroids
"If you can take advantage of a situation in some way, it's your duty as an American to do it. Why should the race always be to the swift or the jumble to the quick-witted? Should they be allowed to win merely because of the gifts God gave them? Well, I say cheating is the gift man gives himself!" -- Mr. Burns, shortly before he and Homer used a hidden snowmobile to win the Springfield nuclear plant's team-building exercise, a race to the top of a snow-covered mountain.
While the proliferation of performance enhancing drugs in sports has been long-rumored, what with track and field records falling faster than Ben Affleck's Q-Rating and the average second baseman sporting the puffy physique made popular by former British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith, jaded skeptics like this author have been forced to rely on the overwhelming visual evidence for lack of any tangible confirmation.
With no concrete proof to support our claims, we've been forced to watch and wait as the specter of steroids dangled above the sports world like the Sword of Damocles, threatening to demean and diminish so many athletes and so many accomplishments at any moment.
That moment arrived last Thursday, when the weight of all the accusations, insinuations and innuendo finally grew to be too much, and the sword came crashing down square in the middle of a San Francisco courtroom. That's where a grand jury returned a 42-count federal indictment alleging four men -- two executives of the Bay-area supplement company BALCO, a personal trainer, and a track coach -- provided anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, EPO and other drugs to major league baseball and NFL players, as well as track and field stars. While the four have pleaded innocent, Greg Andersen, the personal trainer, has already confessed to federal agents that he has given steroids to several baseball players, but gave no specific names. At this point, it's only a matter of time.
Soon, many supposed superstars will be exposed as being no better than Mr. Burns. Tired of losing out to those more genetically blessed. Willing to break the rules in order to achieve their goals. Fully aware that in our quick-fix, instant-oatmeal, eight-minute abs society, there is always a much faster way to the top of the mountain than hard work and perseverance.
Cheating -- my friends -- is in, and an ever-expanding menu of performance enhancing drugs is the free ride of choice.
So why are they doing it? Why are so many athletes, from the rookie-league right fielder to the leading-man linebacker, lining up for the opportunity to experiment with unproven, untested concoctions that could cost them their careers, their legacy, and most importantly, their physical health?
Simple -- because they work.
Boy, do they work. Shoot, if BALCO wanted to start advertising, they could produce the most convincing testimony-based infomercial since the George Foreman Fat-Free Grilling Machine made the hamburger live again. Don't believe me? Then just listen to these responses from this collection of celebrity endorsers.
Ben Johnson, Sprinter, Canadian Olympic Team: When I arrived at the 1988 Games in Seoul, Carl Lewis' world record in the 100-meters was a leisurely 9.92 seconds. Thanks to a healthy diet, strict training regimen, and twice-weekly injections of the anabolic steroid Stanozolol, I shocked the racing community by running an unheard of 9.79, or roughly the speed of sound! I smoked Carl Lewis by eight meters! Sure I may have been stripped of my gold medal, banned from competition for two years, and had my record wiped from the books, but nobody could take away the satisfaction I felt as I watched the best sprinters in the world take 14 years to beat my time. Fourteen years! That's why I chose Stanozolol, the steroid that Stanz' the test of time!
Ken Caminiti, Third Baseman, San Diego Padres: Are you suffering from financial difficulty? Do you dread the arrival of the mailman due to mounting bills and credit card debt? Well, I was once like you. Heading into the 1996 season, I was a light-hitting nobody who had never hit more than 26 home runs during any of my first 9 years in the league, and as a result, was getting paid just over the league minimum. The league minimum! I could barely pay my three mortgages! Lucky for me, that's when I discovered Testosterone, available at your nearest Mexican pharmacy. Within a year, I was transformed into a muscle-bound slugger, launching 40 homers on my way to the N.L. MVP award and the new $40 million contract that came with it! And I did it all at the age of 33! Sure my testosterone levels dropped to 20% of normal, my nuts retracted, and 5 years later my broken-down body forced me out of baseball -- but at least I don't have to fear my creditors anymore!
Michelle Smith, Swimmer, Irish Olympic Team: Early in my career, despite logging mile after mile in the water, I felt like I was going nowhere. I was ranked 90th in the world in the 400-meter IM, and in two Olympics had never finished higher than 17th in the 100-meter backstroke. Seventeenth! I could have sat on my ass and smoked Newports and finished 17th! That's when my husband, a Dutch discus thrower serving a steroid suspension, suggested I try a little Vitamin S. By 1996, I had cut an unthinkable 17 seconds off two personal bests and won three Golds and one bronze in the Atlanta Games! And Ireland doesn't even have an Olympic-sized swimming pool! I never got caught either. The best they could do was suspend me for four years because I had a "lethal amount" of alcohol in one of my drug tests and they claimed it was a masking agent. Lethal amount of alcohol? I took so many roids I sprouted a penis, and they think some booze can kill me?
Mr. X, Superstar, Major League Baseball:(face blurred out and voice digitally altered) I became a BALCO client right before the 2001 season, and that year I went on to shatter the all-time single-season home run record. I could check my swing and still go yard 400 feet to the opposite field! Even though human growth hormone has slowly expanded my cranium and left me resembling a PEZ dispenser, I still give this product and this company my full endorsement.
I know what you're thinking -- this isn't funny, it's criminal. Steroids, EPO, HGH...these drugs have no place in sports. President Bush was right -- they need to be regulated and eliminated, immediately.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Didn't you see Jurassic Park? If not, here's the gist of it -- you can't stand in the way of evolution. You can't charge to the brink of discovery only to slowly back away from the ledge. It's irresponsible and short sighted.
I, for one, say turn the "juice" loose. I want to know just where the absolute limits of human athletic potential lie. If we shot enough testosterone into Maurice Green, could he outrace a cheetah? If we turned a Turkish weightlifter into a walking Petrie dish, could he clean and jerk a pick-up? Could we drop enough EPO into some barefoot Kenyan to produce the first 1-hour marathon? These questions need to be answered!
What we need to do is provide a stage on which ambitious athletes and freelancing pharmacists can redefine the impossible without fear of reprisal. I'm picturing a modern spin on that outdated concept, the Olympic Games. Only in my version, not only will the use of performance enhancing drugs be permitted, it'll be mandatory. Every athlete involved will owe it to themselves and their country to chemically engineer their body to the point where a 60-foot long jump will only be good enough for the bronze. It'll be like the Island of Dr. Moreau, only with a lot more spandex. Heck, it'll be the greatest spectacle in the history of sports! Are you honestly telling me that you wouldn't pay for the chance to see some freak chuck a javelin two miles? We'll throw it on pay-per view, charge $49.95 a pop, and clean up in the Deep South.
O.K. Moving on...in honor of the BALCO trial, here's a very bloated, jaundiced version of 12 Things You Oughtta' Know about the week that was.
12. Interesting note about the A-Rod trade. Do you realize Ichiro (Seattle, 2001) is now the only A.L. MVP winner since Frank Thomas in 1994 that still plays for the team with which he won the award?
11. Here's one I don't understand. After declaring war on terrorism, President Bush invaded Iraq, turned Baghdad into a landing strip, and overthrew an entire government based on very limited evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Now, Bush has declared war on steroids in sports. Based on the policy exhibited in the Middle East, shouldn't John Ashcroft be tearing apart Barry Bonds' bedroom right about now?
10. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 5: Brady Anderson's 50-homer year of 1996.
9. I have too many teeth to be a true NASCAR fan, but that didn't keep me from appreciating what Dale Earnhardt Jr. accomplished at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. What a surreal moment, watching him win the biggest race of his life on the same track that claimed his father. Movie material.
8. Classic Syndicated Simpsons Moment of the Week: Homer, trying to free himself from the Springfield tar pits, but instead making matters much worse -- "I'm pretty sure I can struggle my way out! First, I'll just reach in and pull my legs out. Now, I'll pull my arms out, with my face." Too funny.
7. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 4: Bret Boone's traps. In case no one else noticed, he's starting to look a lot like Latimer from "The Program."
6. I can still remember when Gary Barnett was hired to clean up Rick Neuheisel's mess, and he vowed to "bring the CU program back to national prominence." Did he ever.
5. I'm trying to decide which team has quit more -- the Magic or the Celtics?
4. Ready to hand the Yankees and their new $180 million line-up the World Series? Slow down... Last year's Red Sox team has the best offense statistically since the '27 Yankees, and we all know what happened to them. Bottom line -- hot pitching wins in October, and NY hasn't had enough of it since 2000.
3. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 3, NO. 2, and No. 1: David Boston, David Boston and David Boston.
2. About those Yankees -- in the 100-plus year history of Major League Baseball, only eight players have had contracts with a total value of over $100 million. FOUR of them are on the 2004 Yankees. Seems fair.
And the grand finale...
1. The "Did He Just Say That?" Quote of the Week: While I miss my brother Dave dearly, his living in Florida has provided a never-ending supply of too-good-to-be-true redneck quotes. He passed this nugget on last week -- Jimmy Spencer, when asked about NASCAR opening its doors for the first time to a foreign manufacturer and allowing Toyota to compete in the Craftsman Truck Series, actually responded to reporters that the Japanese "bombed Pearl Harbor, don't forget." I'm not making this up. Meanwhile, last year, Spencer, true patriot that he is, drove for Dodge... which is owned by Chrysler... which merged with Daimler... which, as you can probably tell, is a German manufacturer. Now, I never really paid attention in history class so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Germans play a small role in WWII as well?
While the proliferation of performance enhancing drugs in sports has been long-rumored, what with track and field records falling faster than Ben Affleck's Q-Rating and the average second baseman sporting the puffy physique made popular by former British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith, jaded skeptics like this author have been forced to rely on the overwhelming visual evidence for lack of any tangible confirmation.
With no concrete proof to support our claims, we've been forced to watch and wait as the specter of steroids dangled above the sports world like the Sword of Damocles, threatening to demean and diminish so many athletes and so many accomplishments at any moment.
That moment arrived last Thursday, when the weight of all the accusations, insinuations and innuendo finally grew to be too much, and the sword came crashing down square in the middle of a San Francisco courtroom. That's where a grand jury returned a 42-count federal indictment alleging four men -- two executives of the Bay-area supplement company BALCO, a personal trainer, and a track coach -- provided anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, EPO and other drugs to major league baseball and NFL players, as well as track and field stars. While the four have pleaded innocent, Greg Andersen, the personal trainer, has already confessed to federal agents that he has given steroids to several baseball players, but gave no specific names. At this point, it's only a matter of time.
Soon, many supposed superstars will be exposed as being no better than Mr. Burns. Tired of losing out to those more genetically blessed. Willing to break the rules in order to achieve their goals. Fully aware that in our quick-fix, instant-oatmeal, eight-minute abs society, there is always a much faster way to the top of the mountain than hard work and perseverance.
Cheating -- my friends -- is in, and an ever-expanding menu of performance enhancing drugs is the free ride of choice.
So why are they doing it? Why are so many athletes, from the rookie-league right fielder to the leading-man linebacker, lining up for the opportunity to experiment with unproven, untested concoctions that could cost them their careers, their legacy, and most importantly, their physical health?
Simple -- because they work.
Boy, do they work. Shoot, if BALCO wanted to start advertising, they could produce the most convincing testimony-based infomercial since the George Foreman Fat-Free Grilling Machine made the hamburger live again. Don't believe me? Then just listen to these responses from this collection of celebrity endorsers.
Ben Johnson, Sprinter, Canadian Olympic Team: When I arrived at the 1988 Games in Seoul, Carl Lewis' world record in the 100-meters was a leisurely 9.92 seconds. Thanks to a healthy diet, strict training regimen, and twice-weekly injections of the anabolic steroid Stanozolol, I shocked the racing community by running an unheard of 9.79, or roughly the speed of sound! I smoked Carl Lewis by eight meters! Sure I may have been stripped of my gold medal, banned from competition for two years, and had my record wiped from the books, but nobody could take away the satisfaction I felt as I watched the best sprinters in the world take 14 years to beat my time. Fourteen years! That's why I chose Stanozolol, the steroid that Stanz' the test of time!
Ken Caminiti, Third Baseman, San Diego Padres: Are you suffering from financial difficulty? Do you dread the arrival of the mailman due to mounting bills and credit card debt? Well, I was once like you. Heading into the 1996 season, I was a light-hitting nobody who had never hit more than 26 home runs during any of my first 9 years in the league, and as a result, was getting paid just over the league minimum. The league minimum! I could barely pay my three mortgages! Lucky for me, that's when I discovered Testosterone, available at your nearest Mexican pharmacy. Within a year, I was transformed into a muscle-bound slugger, launching 40 homers on my way to the N.L. MVP award and the new $40 million contract that came with it! And I did it all at the age of 33! Sure my testosterone levels dropped to 20% of normal, my nuts retracted, and 5 years later my broken-down body forced me out of baseball -- but at least I don't have to fear my creditors anymore!
Michelle Smith, Swimmer, Irish Olympic Team: Early in my career, despite logging mile after mile in the water, I felt like I was going nowhere. I was ranked 90th in the world in the 400-meter IM, and in two Olympics had never finished higher than 17th in the 100-meter backstroke. Seventeenth! I could have sat on my ass and smoked Newports and finished 17th! That's when my husband, a Dutch discus thrower serving a steroid suspension, suggested I try a little Vitamin S. By 1996, I had cut an unthinkable 17 seconds off two personal bests and won three Golds and one bronze in the Atlanta Games! And Ireland doesn't even have an Olympic-sized swimming pool! I never got caught either. The best they could do was suspend me for four years because I had a "lethal amount" of alcohol in one of my drug tests and they claimed it was a masking agent. Lethal amount of alcohol? I took so many roids I sprouted a penis, and they think some booze can kill me?
Mr. X, Superstar, Major League Baseball:(face blurred out and voice digitally altered) I became a BALCO client right before the 2001 season, and that year I went on to shatter the all-time single-season home run record. I could check my swing and still go yard 400 feet to the opposite field! Even though human growth hormone has slowly expanded my cranium and left me resembling a PEZ dispenser, I still give this product and this company my full endorsement.
I know what you're thinking -- this isn't funny, it's criminal. Steroids, EPO, HGH...these drugs have no place in sports. President Bush was right -- they need to be regulated and eliminated, immediately.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Didn't you see Jurassic Park? If not, here's the gist of it -- you can't stand in the way of evolution. You can't charge to the brink of discovery only to slowly back away from the ledge. It's irresponsible and short sighted.
I, for one, say turn the "juice" loose. I want to know just where the absolute limits of human athletic potential lie. If we shot enough testosterone into Maurice Green, could he outrace a cheetah? If we turned a Turkish weightlifter into a walking Petrie dish, could he clean and jerk a pick-up? Could we drop enough EPO into some barefoot Kenyan to produce the first 1-hour marathon? These questions need to be answered!
What we need to do is provide a stage on which ambitious athletes and freelancing pharmacists can redefine the impossible without fear of reprisal. I'm picturing a modern spin on that outdated concept, the Olympic Games. Only in my version, not only will the use of performance enhancing drugs be permitted, it'll be mandatory. Every athlete involved will owe it to themselves and their country to chemically engineer their body to the point where a 60-foot long jump will only be good enough for the bronze. It'll be like the Island of Dr. Moreau, only with a lot more spandex. Heck, it'll be the greatest spectacle in the history of sports! Are you honestly telling me that you wouldn't pay for the chance to see some freak chuck a javelin two miles? We'll throw it on pay-per view, charge $49.95 a pop, and clean up in the Deep South.
O.K. Moving on...in honor of the BALCO trial, here's a very bloated, jaundiced version of 12 Things You Oughtta' Know about the week that was.
12. Interesting note about the A-Rod trade. Do you realize Ichiro (Seattle, 2001) is now the only A.L. MVP winner since Frank Thomas in 1994 that still plays for the team with which he won the award?
11. Here's one I don't understand. After declaring war on terrorism, President Bush invaded Iraq, turned Baghdad into a landing strip, and overthrew an entire government based on very limited evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Now, Bush has declared war on steroids in sports. Based on the policy exhibited in the Middle East, shouldn't John Ashcroft be tearing apart Barry Bonds' bedroom right about now?
10. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 5: Brady Anderson's 50-homer year of 1996.
9. I have too many teeth to be a true NASCAR fan, but that didn't keep me from appreciating what Dale Earnhardt Jr. accomplished at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. What a surreal moment, watching him win the biggest race of his life on the same track that claimed his father. Movie material.
8. Classic Syndicated Simpsons Moment of the Week: Homer, trying to free himself from the Springfield tar pits, but instead making matters much worse -- "I'm pretty sure I can struggle my way out! First, I'll just reach in and pull my legs out. Now, I'll pull my arms out, with my face." Too funny.
7. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 4: Bret Boone's traps. In case no one else noticed, he's starting to look a lot like Latimer from "The Program."
6. I can still remember when Gary Barnett was hired to clean up Rick Neuheisel's mess, and he vowed to "bring the CU program back to national prominence." Did he ever.
5. I'm trying to decide which team has quit more -- the Magic or the Celtics?
4. Ready to hand the Yankees and their new $180 million line-up the World Series? Slow down... Last year's Red Sox team has the best offense statistically since the '27 Yankees, and we all know what happened to them. Bottom line -- hot pitching wins in October, and NY hasn't had enough of it since 2000.
3. Overwhelming evidence that everyone is on 'roids No. 3, NO. 2, and No. 1: David Boston, David Boston and David Boston.
2. About those Yankees -- in the 100-plus year history of Major League Baseball, only eight players have had contracts with a total value of over $100 million. FOUR of them are on the 2004 Yankees. Seems fair.
And the grand finale...
1. The "Did He Just Say That?" Quote of the Week: While I miss my brother Dave dearly, his living in Florida has provided a never-ending supply of too-good-to-be-true redneck quotes. He passed this nugget on last week -- Jimmy Spencer, when asked about NASCAR opening its doors for the first time to a foreign manufacturer and allowing Toyota to compete in the Craftsman Truck Series, actually responded to reporters that the Japanese "bombed Pearl Harbor, don't forget." I'm not making this up. Meanwhile, last year, Spencer, true patriot that he is, drove for Dodge... which is owned by Chrysler... which merged with Daimler... which, as you can probably tell, is a German manufacturer. Now, I never really paid attention in history class so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Germans play a small role in WWII as well?
posted by Tony at 1:41 PM
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