What do Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriquez, and Ray Lewis all have in common?
We fell in love with all of them.
Remember that summer of ’99, when you never knew if Sosa or McGwire were going to break Maris’ record. They both did, rejuvenating our country to love baseball again.
Remember when we it was considered absolute certainty that A-Rod would break all ‘all-time home run records’, surpassing Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, and unlike Bonds, A-Rod would not be tainted by steroids? Those were the days…
Looking back on a year of Schmoozify, our first, it is striking to learn about how much we have learned about our beloved sports heroes. Last year, we knew about Bonds, Clemmons, and A-Rod (the first time).
But this year we found out that those who vote on the Baseball Hall of Fame would ignore some of the game’s most famous players like Bonds, Clemmons, and Sosa. Why? Steroids.
Last week, on the same day, A-Rod was linked to PEDs again, so was football player Ray Lewis. While I am not sure about Ray Lewis’ guilt, many critics say it is strange how quickly he came back (3 months) from an injury that usually keeps people out a year.
These people are scum.
Or are they?
Was it not us who loved the home run chase for those magical summers? Didn’t ‘chicks dig the long ball’?
Is it not we who praises Ray Lewis (not to mention his connection or lack thereof to a murder case) as one of the greatest ever? Aren’t we moved by his pre-game and post-game motivational speeches?
Didn’t we all buy LiveStrong bracelets and pretend to care about the Tour de’ France because Lance Armstrong was in it?
How can we place all the blame on these people and none on ourselves?
I know baseball purists will hate me, but also consider this logic. We pay athletes because we, as spectators, want to see something great. We want to be in the presence of greatness, of something that has never been done before, and something truly entertaining. So why should we care if the people we pay to entertain us dope? It’s one thing if they are crack addicts, but they are just trying to improve their physical specimen so that they can become legends.
Suddenly, the Hall of Fame or the World Doping Association or the IOC strips these perpetrators of their wins, medals, and place in our hearts. We hate them. But we should keep in mind that we are the Frankenstein, creating our athletic monsters.
I hear the critics now…But what about the children? The children?!?!?
Let’s encourage all high schools and universities to issue intense drug testing of athletes. These players, after all, are not paid. Let’s lay down the law on any offenders.
But once they are at the pro-level, which is purely a profitable industry in all aspects, let’s produce the best product. Ideally, PEDs would not be used. But when we demand the best and we reward it, we should not act so surprised when the ‘best’ is supplemented by something created in the lab.
So what –
Those baseball players should be in the Hall of Fame. I think Lance Armstrong is probably a terrible person but that he definitely won those Tour de’ France races. I think A-Rod is obnoxious but he is still a great baseball player. I think Marion Jones was a great track star. She won those races! I think Roger Clemmons is one of the best pitchers ever.
Let’s not celebrate that they cheated, but let’s not pretend that it was the cheating that made them great. Our praise, our cheers, our money made them great. We rewarded them for being gladiators in their sport, entertaining us in service of the almighty dollar. Do you regret it?
After all, don’t ‘chicks still dig the long ball’?
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…………………………………………..And…what about Manti Te’o?!!??!!!??!??!?!?!?!!
Yoav, whilst I appreciate what you are trying to say, I whole heartedly disagree. I think that drug use ruins sport. I dont watch an event wanting to see the best performance, I could watch machines do far better than a human ever could, I watch a sport to see a human perform at their highest ability. I want to see human endeavour, human performance, and dare I say it human failure! Using steroids or drugs changes everything. No longer are we watching the human that has trained the hardest or best prepared. We are now watching human’s that have pumped their bodies full of non-human steroids.
Now I know critics would respond to me with the usual shpiel about selective dieting, unnatural eating patterns, extreme training and granted this holds some weight but at the end of the day I want to feel that even if I had trained to the best of my ability and dieted in the same way, the people I am watching are far superior to me. Steroid use will forever give me a glimour of hope, a glimour which should be banished everytime I step onto the scales!
Fair enough Dan. But what will you do when it comes out that your hero, Bradley Wiggins was not only doping on the Tour, but during the Olympics. Will he still be a national hero to the UK? He won’t be. For me, I think that is the rationale that needs to change. Regardless of what training an athlete uses, they are competing against people with the same access to the same performance enhancers. There is a drink called 5 hour energy in the USA and it is endorsed by a football (not to be confused with futbol) player who drinks it before every game. This immense caffeine boost is sure to give him an edge. Food is chemical nutrients when you break them down. We have figured out what we need to achieve the best from our bodies. So we watch sport to see the best of ourselves, physically. One major problem is that we expect our physical gladiators also to be a part of a moral meritocracy, which is again, a failure of our expectations. In terms of why you don’t watch robots – that is just absurd. We watch because we want to see human error and human drama. Last year, a field goal kicker missed a field goal (worth three points) which could have sent the Ravens to the Superbowl. Penalty Kicks are dramatic because we expect them all to go in – it is arguably one of the easiest ways to score in all of sports – and yet futballers miss all the time. A tiebreaker in tennis is so intense because there is much riding on the player’s inability to be perfect. All this has nothing to do with PEDs, because you still get this in a drug-filled or drug-free world.
I do not want my hero to be someone who breaks the law of their sport. If Wiggo admitted to illegal doping, he would no longer be my hero. We should not be allowing these law breakers to carry on. We should open the debate about legalisation but as long as it is illegal no praise shall leave my mouth!
So long as these game enhancers are illegal and only available to the morally questionable sport is like watching robots.
Discussion on the schmoozify facebook page:
Yoav B Guttman: You are saying that athletes shouldnt use PEDs. I am saying that we shouldnt really care if and when they do. And that when they do, we are partly to blame for glorifying them in the first place.
Me: I am saying that they shouldnt be praised for PEDs whilst they are banned substances. I am open to convincing on whether they should be legalised or not ut I am saying that I would no longer sing the praises of anyone found to be using banned substances. For me it is all about the fact that they are banned! I also reject the idea that our praise should lead anyone to head down the route of doping!
Yoav B Guttman: why do you reject that idea? athelets, professional, our after our praise (in monetary form) and get it first and foremost through winning. Surely it is our praise precisely that leads to doping.
Me: Ok maybe our praise leads to doping in the morally dubious, but why should we support the morally dubious?
Yoav B. Guttman: bc we did before we knew they were morally dubious. it is morally dubious for us to suddenly cast out the iron hand once we found out they were doping and pretend that our fandom had nothing to do with the roots causes of why an athlete dopes
Me: I completely disagree, what is wrong with changing your opinion of a person once you found out that they are not the person you thought they were!
Yoav B. Guttman: bc u created that image of that person for yourself, based completely on athletic ability and an assumed moral compass…that assumption is your fault, not the athlete’s
Me: Maybe its my naivety but I assume that people abide by the laws. Would you still be happy to call clear cheats role models?
Yoav B. Guttman: By clear cheats, do you mean obvious cheaters? I am assuming yes on that. They should only be role models in that we can look to them for our physical aspirations. I think we, as a society, too often combine success in sport with success in morality. and then, suddenly when we find out that lance has been cheating, we only hate him. we totally ignore the possibility that we may have had a part in that. In so, demonizing him we neglect to ask ourselves the tough questions about who we choose as role models, why we choose them, and why athletics has assumed a nearly religious place in our world
Sam Schryer: I’m not really sure where I stand on the issue. Whilst it is obvious morally to condemn these people as cheats and misleading, I can’t help but agree with yoav about the “Frankenstein” culture that has been encouraged. Before we condemn the cyclists (I can’t comment on American sports as I don’t know enough about the governance etc) surely we condemn a sport that has a culture that breeds the performers believing they are indeed super Human. Is it super human for an individual at the peak of physical and mental fitness to cycle around France for nearly 3 weeks? Once the sport gets rid of this aura about the people that compete it into blue chip event, I would like to think the cyclists wouldn’t need to conform to the image?