Andrew Sullivan has a point

I should probably start out by saying:

NO HOMO!

Now, where was I?

Sez the gay man:

Our cultural norm is that drugs that do not harm you are perfectly legit in increasing your enjoyment of life, or enhancing your ability to perform certain tasks. Why, then, are steroids so illegitimate in sports? Yes, they can harm a body, but only if taken in excess and outside a doctor's supervision. Yes, it's unfair when some players use them and others don't. But the answer to that might just as well be universal steroid use as a universal ban. I think trying to stop this is almost certainly futile (the steroid technology almost always out-strips the testing technology) and not obviously virtuous. The notion that there is some "pure" human being out there - unaffected by the technology that now enhances our lives in so many ways - is fiction. Why are sports the only arena in which this fiction is maintained?

I don't really have anything to add other than the fact that I more or less agree (see above). And I guess I could add that I find it rather amusing that McCain is going to try to pass a law about a fucking sport. What are we, a country of fucking 8-year-olds?

You can guess where I found this one.

Comments

[fitz]

One warning I would have regarding this is that sports, but specifically baseball, have records that are really important to enjoying the sport. For example, Hank Aaron's 755 has become legendary. To have steroids become the norm would wipe out the importance of those records and the history of the sport.

Also, to re-state my position, if steroids become legal within the leagues, then the athletes have no choice but to do steroids and potentially harm their own health. People say steroids don't harm people, but Jason Giambi, who did steroids under reasonably good instruction, came up with a tumor last year, and steroids have generally created a higher incidence of injury.

The author has a valid point, but I dont agree with it.

[fitz]

Also, I'm glad that McCain is considering introducing legislation, because hopefully it'll get the players unions in various sports to realize that if they don't regulate themselves that they are going to get regulated on, in a style similar to Warren G and Nate Dogg.

[Bol]

Prozac could probably fuck someone up pretty bad too. And they didn't have Prozac back in the day. Hank Aaron had to get his shit together the old fashioned way - by kicking the shit out of his wife.

I would argue that the statistics have already been fucked and most people could give a rat's ass.

And I'm sure John McCain could find something better to do.

[kevirnscott]

statistics are no reason to place an all out ban on steroids nor is it a reason in my view to support a ban. although i don't care one way or another who uses them and for what purpose... i ask this (as a non sport watching homo): are the rules and standards of major league sports ever adjusted to encompass the evolving "technologies" of the "modern" world?

[Bol]

Not that I know of. Fitz could probably tell you.

[ian]

Er, Sullivan would have a point except that for steroids to have the desired effect you DO have to take them in excess thereby putting athletes in the position of deliberately having to harm their bodies whether they take them under the supervision of a doctor or not.

Also, legalizing steroids would probably level the playing field and render their use moot because the majority of players would feel like they had to use them to remain competitive.

That being said I'm of two minds on the issue because I do actually support a more libertarian approach to the legalization issue in general as I think the war on drugs is futile. I guess the difference for me wrt sports is that fans pay to see and the major leagues sell sports products in which, supposedly, the best clean athletes compete. Hidden steroid use by some athletes subverts that premise and undermines the "integrity" of the product.

[Bol]

>Er, Sullivan would have a point except that for steroids to have the desired effect you DO have to take them in excess thereby putting athletes in the position of deliberately having to harm their bodies whether they take them under the supervision of a doctor or not.>

Is that true of all roids though, or just the old school Eric Nies versions?

[ian]

If there were steroids safe enough to take in the huge quantities athletes need to take them in, I think we'd know about it, no?

[Bol]

I guess. But most arguments against them I've heard have just been that same old "It's cheating!" shit anyway. I think Sullivan at least has a point when he says that athletes these days have all benefited from technology in one way or another.

[fitz]

Yeah, but what you aren't factoring in is that the technology advances tend to work both ways. In baseball, as hitters get better because of advanced training methods, so do pitchers and fielders. In football, as wide receivers get faster, so do the cornerbacks. Sports might speed up and get stronger, but they generally do so on offense AND on defense, so it just kind of evens out in the end

[defacto]

One effect of the steroid issue that no one has mentioned is the effect on kids. High school athletes see the best players in baseball using steroids. This might give them the belief that in order to be at the top of the game, get scholarships, and possibly make it to the pros they will have to use these performance enhancing drugs. And at the high school age, your body is at the peak of its testosterone production. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) steroids cause your pituitary glands (or some other glands, I'm not sure) to stop producing testosterone, b/c your body comes to rely on the steroids for testosterone. This cannot be healthy, especially for young kids in puberty.

[Mister]

There are much safer and much more effective steroids (often mutually exclusive however) and other performance enhancing drugs than what these athletes use. They're just much harder to mask. This amateur cyclist dude for Outside magazine spent a year on 'roids , HGH and some blood doping agent and wrote about it: http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/200311/200311_drug_test_1.html. Apparently HGH is the shizznit.

[TZA]

In my opinion, Fitz is right, Sullivan is wrong, Bol is wrong.

>Hank Aaron had to get his shit together the old fashioned way - by kicking the shit out of his wife.

Funniest shit ive heard in a long time

[j-station]

I just did a paper on steroids last year and basically the only way for roids to be effective it to take them in huge dosages. Steroids have been around for nearly 100 years and most research done on them has concluded that steroid use at a "healthy" level does not increase performance significantly. Medical and research ethics will not allow official research to be done on specimens using the amount of roid that the Arnold's and Barry's have taken throughout the year. Most of the reliable early steroid research comes from hitler and the germans, since him no government would be willing to openly research with such high levels of steroid.

[j-station]

Sullivan obviously has not researched his position on steroids outside of the fact that he thinks bulging muscles are sexy NO HOMO.

[fitz]

The Mindset of A Champion has only 3 rules

1. Win Championships
2. Bang hot chicks
3. Don't Do Steroids

[Luke Cold]

Steriod testing in like a virus scan. There are always new methods coming out that are undetectible, and the testing is reactionary and two steps behind. You can have manditory testing and the test will be outdated. I don't know, something to think about. I don't think this problem will ever go away.

[TZA]

Drinking isnt a rule for the Mindset of a Champion?

[fitz]

drinking gets in the way of championships.

[TZA]

Championships get in the way of drinking.

[TZA]

I got a question for Bol or Fitz of whoever listens to rap:

Is Craig Mack good enough to buy his CD? cuz i cant find anything on the net.

[Bol]

That's a good question. I've got it upstairs, but I haven't heard it in 10 years, seriously. Just pick up a used copy on the cheap.

[Bol]

>Drinking isnt a rule for the Mindset of a Champion?

>drinking gets in the way of championships.

Really, it depends on the sport. If you're a blogger, drinking is like strength and conditioning training. In football though, it might cause you to lose a step.

[esco]

This is simple, yes drugs including steroids should be legalized. Kids will be driven to take steroids because athletes are? If that's the case then kids should be taking them right now, why would legalizing them change that? As for fans, if they don't like watching a bunch of juiced up athletes then i'm sure a new league would form to take advantage of this market and the MLB would reform itself to compete, the United States government doesn't need to be involved. Why do people feel the need to be nannys? If someone wants to fuck up their body why is it any of your business?

[Bol]

You fucking progressive, you. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.

[WarriorMentality]

>>Is Craig Mack good enough to buy his CD? cuz i cant find anything on the net.

short answer:

no.

[Cal Ulmann]

They should encourage steroid use. Who the fuck is going to complain at seeing players hit more home runs?

[fitz]

i would. there are too many HRs allready.

[sleepnotwork]

I've got a suggestion for Vince McMahon for whenever the next time he gets it into his (steroid-addled) head to start up another shitty psuedo-sports league:

Robots on Steroids.

'Nuff Said.

[Elliott]

If steriods were deemed a legal substance in sports you would still run into the same situation we are currently facing. Athletes would continue increasing the level of drug use to outdo the guy next to him in order to get the starting job or the bigger salary. The elevated durg use would increase the occurences of estrogenic side effects along with more serious mental side effects. The headlines would read "Baseball Player snaps and breaks arm of umpire" usually headlines like this would be reserved for hockey and Euro League Futbol where the athletes are brain dead spazzes generally lacking any ties to a civilized country. But to see that in baseball would be the end of American society as we know it.

[Bol]

All the more reason to allow steroids. I don't see people breaking the referee's arms in the WWE. Unless it's part of the script...

[Michael Hip Hop]

I'd love to see a player break an umpire's arm. That would be as entertaining as the Artest (the gulliest nigga in Sports) brawl.

I think 75% of the hype about steroids now is because so many crackers hate Bonds for being the best player ever because he won't shuck and jive with a big teethy grin on his face like a good little sambo.

Despite all that, I still say Fuck that white-pussy loving Bonds and fuck all those racist Bonds haters. 99% of those baseball players were on roids in the late 90s including that white-hero - Roger Clemens. Take a look at that nigga's body - he's put on justr as much muscle as Bonds compared to how he was in the mid-80s!

Michael Jackson should join the catholic church

[WarriorMentality]

>>>Despite all that, I still say Fuck that white-pussy loving Bonds and fuck all those racist Bonds haters.

talk about having your cake and eating it, too...

>>>99% of those baseball players were on roids in the late 90s including that white-hero - Roger Clemens. Take a look at that nigga's body - he's put on justr as much muscle as Bonds compared to how he was in the mid-80s!

lol...dude, check the body comparison again. clemens ain't put nuthin' on but some krispy kreme personal body vests. if david wells wasn't in the league, clemens would be the sloppiest lookin' dude in baseball.

[michael hip hop]

"lol...dude, check the body comparison again. clemens ain't put nuthin' on but some krispy kreme personal body vests. if david wells wasn't in the league, clemens would be the sloppiest lookin' dude in baseball."

Stop smoking crack dude. All we hear about is Clemens incredible off season work out routine - but we are supposed to believe that is courtesy of Krsipy Kreme? LOL! That guy ain't fat - he's a diesal motherfucker.

[djhorserider]

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