There's Really NOTHING WRONG with USING Performance Enhancing Drugs

This would just shift the average. Today's "honest" players would be the ones on this program. The "cheaters" would take designer drug XXXX because they don't want to wait for the league to approve it, or the league didn't approve it, and they're trying to get ahead of the competition.

You pro PEDs guys aren't thinking long-term greedy. This IS capitalism. PRO sports makes the money it does because we, the paying population, subscribe to the illusion that everything on the field is fair play. When that Illusion is shattered, the league starts to lose revenue.

Allowing PEDs will result in a short term boost in sales when everybody starts seeing home run records shattered and 150 mph fastballs, then experience a rapid decline when the conversation becomes about which cocktail hit all those home runs. Not to mention droves and droves of lawsuits from players, former players and player families alleging that the league didn't warn players of the true health cost of the drugs they allowed and the negative working environment they fostered.

tldr; long term profits = no PEDs

 

Or I could support the fight against steroids.

Yes, and I support trying to reduce that risk where possible. Sort of like working in a factory has certain risks associated with it, but I support efforts by factories to make conditions safer for their workers instead of just not caring if they lose limbs or die.

Yes, and all that sucks. That's why I support all the efforts to make sports safer (better helmets, penalties, etc).

 

Taking them is cheating. I would much rather see more people playing the speed game in baseball anyway.

But the league isn't really being very anti-steroid. They're just giving the appearance of being so. They should mandate that anyone who is caught taking them voids their contract and they're done for at least 5 years in the league. Make that part of every single contract.

If they did that, very few, if any guys would want to void their whole contract. The risk wouldn't be worth it.

 

My biggest problem with doping is that it creates uneven field. Those who took drugs and got away are taking advantage of those who didn't take (or take less or inferior drugs).
So two ways to solve that. Sports leagues can legalize drugs as OP suggests. But then you have to ask, why do people compete in sports and why do spectators buy tickets to watch them compete in sports? Do we really care about bunch of jack-ups with necks as thick as pillars to win? I think many of us watch sports because we want to see natural athletic abilities and skills. We don't just watch NBA, NFL, MLB - we also watch college, high school, AAU, because we care and we can relate. So I think leagues around country and sports organizations in generally wouldn't want to legalize drugs.
The other solution is obvious ...

 

Cause that works so well with keeping kids away from alcohol.

 

This is so bad I can't tell if you're trolling or not. Insult after insult. Getting a little angry are we?

Bottom line for me on this, I don't want my kid, or anyone else's for that matter, to be required to take substances that harm them in order to compete on a supposedly level playing field.

 

they should have two pro leagues.. clean and outlaw. Then viewers can choose which one they like better and possibly have interleague games every once in a while. If you get busted in clean.. you are automatically booted to outlaw.

 

Notice that the first two examples you gave did not result in suspensions or penalties. Whatever you believe occurred in those incidents was not illegal. Nice try, though.

And yes, the HR nonsense would not have happened had I had my way.

Because, if I can avoid it, I prefer avoiding forcing the athletes I watch for entertainment have to take unnecessary risks with their health. I'm happy to see a few less HRs in exchange for that. Baseball is just as enjoyable - if not more so - now, without people having 50 and 60 HR seasons regularly.

Would depend on the long-term consequences to their health. Short-term gain at the expense of long-term debilitation is not really a winning formula.

What about the plenty of athletes who don't want to take drugs and destroy their long-term health in order to entertain you and me?

 

It's not the drugs it's the cheating.

All drugs have pretty significant risks, but within that framework steroids are widely used for a range of medical reasons just like other drugs. There's nothing inherently destructive about steroids or HGH, if legal they would be administered under doctor's supervision.

The issue is that when you play sports you've agreed implicitly to play it clean. There's a lot of reasons for this, the most accessible one is because they want you to play the sport, not play the drug. They don't want the best drug to win every year but the best athlete.

There are larger issues similar to the ones that impact the importance of "amatuerism" in sports. In particular tracing back to American's 2 major influences: Classical Greek thought and Judeo-Christian prohibitions. The Greeks, from whom we got our attitudes on sports and competition considered the human body to be the ultimate perfect machine of almost cosmic importance. So sports should be between these perfect machines, drugs and enhancements only dilute and demean that pure competition. The other side is the Judeo-Christian idea that body is God's temple. Similar to why tattoos and plastic surgery is "evil" it's immoral to change what God gave you. Dumb crap like that.

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing an all steroid football league. MMA is obviously infested but imagine China or Japan putting serious money behind that. Load up the perfect genetic kids with HGH when he's a kid to grow an army of 6 foot 6 fighters then pump them full of riods, train them up to the pinnacle of Asian technical skill and watch them barefist lions and ****. Badass.

 

From what I've seen, the advantage from steroids is roughly equal to the advantage gained by going from eating whatever to getting a good nutritionist, eating well, and taking protein powders, creatine, and all the other workout supplements.

To the memory of Babe Ruth and his hookers, beer and hotdogs, should we declare all the modern players (besides John Kruk and one or two others) as cheaters with an unfair advantage over players from the good old days? Maybe put an asterisk next to any record from the modern era?

To me I honestly don't see how it is cheating. Rather, it is doing the things necessary to maximize the results of all of your hard work and natural talent, in the same way that a player will eat well, visit sports psychologists, hire personal coaches, etc. The players who do those things receive an advantage that the players who don't do them don't receive. Does that make it unfair cheating, or does it make the people who do those things more dedicated and smarter about how they prepare?

I think the relevant parties have done such a wonderful job of creating an artificial line and exaggerating the effects of everything beyond it that people don't have a realistic understanding of what steroids will or won't do, as well as what the risks are. No matter how many steroids I hypothetically take, I will never be a better baseball player than the most worthless scrub on a major league roster playing it without the 'roids.

It's like Reefer Madness, but for sports.

Below is the introductory text from Reefer Madness. To me, the tone is remarkably similar to the way that the relevant parties speak about steroids:

[rquoter]
"The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you.

It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug-- a violent narcotic-- an unspeakable scourge-- The Real Public Enemy Number One!

Its first effect is sudden violent, uncontrollable laughter; then come dangerous hallucinations-- space expands-- time slows down, almost stands still... fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances-- followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions... leading finally to acts of shocking violence... ending often in incurable insanity. In picturing its soul-destroying effects no attempt was made to equivocate. The scenes and incidents, while fictionized for the purposes of this story, are based upon actual research into the results of Marihuana addiction. If their stark reality will make you think, will make you aware that something must be done to wipe out this ghastly menace, then the picture will not have failed in its purpose...

Because the dread Marihuana may be reaching forth next for your son or daughter... or yours... or YOURS!"

[/rquoter]

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing inherently wrong about taking steroids. It isn't a "moral" rule but a "customary" one. It will never change because of considerations of marketing to families, but if the rules did change to allow the steroids, the steroid takers wouldn't be inherently bad people or doing something immoral or wrong.

 

They're called PED's for a reason (performance enhancinging drugs).

It's not just about the end result.
Some people will cheat on a test to get a good grade. What about the person who doesn't want to cheat to get the good grade? Puts in the long hours of studying to get the good grade and another person gets the exact grade by cheating and not working for it.

One person wants to be able to look in the mirror and know they did it the right way where another person says if you aren't cheating you aren't trying.

In sports it should be everyone playing by the same rules. Unfortunately we now live in a time where it's win at all cost and anything to get a dollar.

 

Cheating is everything for professional sports.
Just like bias is the spirit of all media.

Professional players play the sports for money, for show, not for fairness. Good employee taking PEDs.

 

Posting on this forum is bad for you.

 

Do you have support for the bolded part? My understanding is drugs give athletes who took them extra boosts, probably not much, to win, which could be the difference between those who didn't take them. It seems to me you have a pretty loose definition of what constitute cheating. But to me, train hard, eat right (naturally), hiring the right conditioning coach, etc are not cheating, but taking drugs are, because all of the former is part of the sports, but the latter is not. This is just common sense IMHO. There are certain rules that set boundaries of a sport, like not using special equipment (like rocket propeller), not pushing your opponents ... and not taking drugs. To me if drugs were allowed in a particular, I just wouldn't have much interest in watching that sport.

 

Is this about illegal drugs, or legal drugs? I don't support leagues banning legal substances, but banning illegal? I think they should.

I don't consider athletes immoral for cheating. I consider them immoral for lying and intentionally harming others. Lance Armstrong destroyed lives. Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez have acted similarly in trying to defend themselves.

 

I don't have evidence. Just from experience. But eating well gives you extra boosts, not much, to win, which can be the difference between those who eat well and those who don't.

Your boundaries appear artificial and arbitrary to me. "Drugs" is pejoritive, and applied selectively. From Wikipedia,

[rquoter]
The classifications of substances as performance-enhancing drugs are not entirely clear-cut and objective. As in other types of categorization, certain prototype performance enhancers are universally classified as such (like anabolic steroids), whereas other substances (like vitamins and protein supplements) are virtually never classified as performance enhancers despite their effects on athletes' performance.

[/rquoter]

In my experience, "common sense" is the explanation people use when they don't want to have to use logic or pay attention to evidence, but rather rely on their natural inborn biases. It is the go to explanation for the wrongness of homosexuality and things like that. I don't want to divert the conversation, but I can provide you with examples of people saying things like, "I don't care how much scientific evidence you have, common sense says you are wrong."

 

This seems a bit hyperbolic. There are people who were inconvenienced, people who lost money, and people who lost out on opportunities, but can you detail specifically detail anybody whose life was really and truly "destroyed"?

 

double post