| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 4:32:12 PM | I did a thread search and didn't see this topic recently, so hopefully it's not redundant.
Much has obviously been made over whether the recent past in MLB particularly has any relevance due to the steroid era. One voter in the MLB Hall of Fame voting actually abstained from voting, even with the likes of Cal Ripken Jr being up, with a stance that nothing can really be accurately judged.
I'm going to go on a limb with my opinion--and I know I'm going to get blasted for it. Before you check out my profile and assume that I'm a user because I've competed and I lift weights, please note that the competition I've done has very strict testing standards with urine and polygraph testing for banned substance abuse, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
That being said, steroids and worse things are just going to become an accepted part of today's sports world and ultimately society. There is so much big money in sports today, and we as fans have made it so. We've made it very lucrative for an MLB prospect to juice to get out of the minors and make it big--because we'll make him rich. The line between cheating and otherwise is going to get more and more fine, because there is so much money fueling pro sports and scientific research with supplements that blur the line between cheating and otherwise. Eventually we'll have advanced gene therapies that will be impossible to detect, and it will be impossible to tell what really is cheating and what is not without a PhD--and even they will disagree.
Even Lance Armstrong didn't get through his tenure as Tour champion unscathed with rumors, and his eventual replacement was caught red-handed.
Maybe this sounds pessimistic, but it's true--our society rewards people who cheat, and we usually look the other way. It's no different in corporate America--people will lie and cheat to get promotions and raises, and you can't tell me that a young up-and-coming executive wanna-be wouldn't take steroids if he thought it would improve his odds of becoming CEO 100 times over. When people like this get caught, we give them a fine they're perfectly able to pay and they go on like nothing ever happened.
I don't defend steroids or their users, but I'm willing to accept that our society has made it very worthwhile for people to cheat and fueled this problem. I enjoy sports for a distraction from reality, and I'm not going to let steroids taint my enjoyment of sports. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 5:18:50 PM | | I don't condone steriods, but I do not like the witch hunt going on in the MLB. You can't institute a new policy and then punish players retroactively. Maybe Bonds was on juice, probably McGwire was but baseball had no policy on it. All of a sudden they write a policy and then go after past records and players for it. They should have told everyone the policy and go from that day forward. Then the records stand, and McGwire, Bonds, etc. can try playing with the new rules. Baseball is trying to improve it's image at the expense of those who made the game great in the past. Kind of like trying to suck and blow at the same time and it sucks. Selig should be fired and get an unbiased Commissioner to clean things up, and leave the past where it belongs, in the past, just or not. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 5:29:59 PM | | MLB had been getting blasted for being too lenient on thier subsitance abuse policy. Mark McGuire is the poster boy for steriods, therefore MLB and the writers association has and will continue to use him as an example. Dont get me wrong I'm not defending McGuire. He was definatley not more deserving than #8! I understand Cooperstown is sacred. But MLB had no problems with McGuire when he was putting buts in the seats game after game, at a time when they needed to revive thier fanbase. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 6:21:27 PM | at Op
I don't defend steroids or their users, but I'm willing to accept that our society has made it very worthwhile for people to cheat and fueled this problem. I enjoy sports for a distraction from reality, and I'm not going to let steroids taint my enjoyment of sports.
^......okay! BUT then, parents and adults can't complain when their young kids start experimenting with steroids when emulating the very athletes whose actions we are "tolerating".......steroid have been known to put pple at risk for many kinds of illnesses and conditions in the long run...............so we can't have it both ways here! | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 7:48:52 PM | sum1reel.....in regards to your comment, I wish more parents would be as passionate about whether Bush lied to Congress while leading our country to war in Iraq than whether Barry Bonds used steroids. THAT is the point I'm trying to make here more than anything else.
We put these athletes up on a pedestal, and we act as though we're heartbroken when they "fail" us, but turn the channel when they talk about the truly important issues going on in the world, while US children continue to lag behind the rest of the world in education and are getting fat while playing video games all day.
I agree with what another poster said on here that we shouldn't hold these MLB athletes accountable for lax rules in the past as well. Yes, it was illegal for them to use steroids, but baseball let it happen because they helped resurrect MLB from the post-strike era and made a lot of money.
We as US citizens tend to over-dramatize things that really aren't that important in the big-picture, and not listen to the things that really matter. Sports are entertainment--just the same as I know a lot of my favorite musicians are coke-heads, I'm not that concerned about whether Barry Bonds is a juicer. I care about whether our President is a liar and a thief. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/9/2007 7:56:23 PM | The real problem is teenagers using steroids.
Other than that, let the adults destroy their on bodies if they are uninformed idiots that don't take te time to research what they are shooting int their a$$. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/10/2007 12:36:53 AM | "There must be steroids in the macaroni!" LOL Sorry I just finished watching Benchwarmers ... couldn't resist the quote!
I was in an LTR with a bodybuilder for about five years and I know he did a few cycles of roids. I saw an immediate change in him ... he turned aggressive, angry, and deceitful. Wasn't very pleasant to live with.
Steroids are what we are finding today in our young athletes, high school and at times even younger. The desire to make the elite team or to get drafted drives these kids to go to any measure to reach their goals.
As a friend pointed out to me not long ago, the MLB and other pro athletes are doing designer drugs, undetectable by current tests. Unfortunately, as one drug gets banned, there is a new on ready to take its place. The cheats always seem to be one step ahead of the game. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 1/13/2007 6:33:07 PM | | Steroids and sports in America goes hand in hand. I mean, check at the phisiques of the past compare to the ones now across every sport. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/26/2008 3:55:09 PM | | Terry Bradshaw admitted to taking steroids the other day. I find it hard to believe that many football players can do without them. Kickers maybe. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/26/2008 5:38:30 PM | I definitely wish the media and the general public would be more educated on the subject. Everyone feels that taking steroids is cheating but almost every top level athlete takes cortisone. That is the biggest steroid advantage in sports and no one even blinks an eye. It helps athletes get on the field quicker, recover quicker and perform at levels that they normally wouldn't be able too without cortisone injections.
Isn't that the same thing people complain about with steroids? Oh and it is a steroid as well.
Steroids get such a bad rap but if you are a meat eater you are consuming steroids all the time did you know that? Did you know that beef are injected with a very anabolic steroid named "Trenbolone".
Many race horses are injected with winstrol, trenbolone, methandrostenolone, clenbuterol and other hormones so you can be entertained at their major races such as the Kentucky Derby and no one evens bat an eye. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/26/2008 6:38:35 PM | | It IS cheating if they are banned substances in the sport. The amount of steroids you get from meat is pretty low compared to the amount you get from shooting it into your butt. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/26/2008 7:29:41 PM | Their is too much money in pro sports.Having said that most athletes are going to try and maximize their potetial to make the big moneyEveryone wants results and steroids could be the answer .As far as teenagers and parents, parents are not in the locker room ,but teamates are. If steroids are readily available, testing for them can be avoided one hand you make millions on the other you might load trucks.What would most chose.
On the subject of MLB, how hypocritical of them to use Mcguire and Sosa as poster boys for steroids when if it wasnt for those two and their homerun race baseball would still cry to put butts in the seats Selig should be thrown out like dirty laundry | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/28/2008 5:19:54 AM |
Many race horses are injected with winstrol, trenbolone, methandrostenolone, clenbuterol and other hormones so you can be entertained at their major races such as the Kentucky Derby and no one evens bat an eye.
while many (probably most) trainers do use steroids, we will see significantly fewer incidents of this in the coming years.
rick dutrow, trainer of derby winner big brown, admitted to using steroid injections. with well-documented national focus, he took the horse off the steroids in may. he now faces suspension for using steroids on another horse in kentucky. this indicates that ntra will no longer tolerate rampant use of these drugs.
in fact pennsylvania banned 4 steroid substances and now tests horses regularly.
you can't say no one bats an eye.
with the racing industry now facing scrutiny from congress, i predict that we will see reforms, not only in the drug area, but also in breeding, training and handling.
high time, too. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/28/2008 5:56:09 AM | | A couple of years ago Sports Illustrated ran a story on Tommy John surgery, and in it they claimed some teenage kids were having it without needing it because it could add up to 5 mph to their fastball... is this any more fair than taking steroids to improve performance?... | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/29/2008 1:22:48 PM | Let those juice monkeys do there thing so they can entertain me and earn my 65 bucks a ticket!!
GO JUICE MONKEY NUMBER 18 GO!! TOUCHDOWN!HOMERUN!GOAL!GOAL!GOAL!! | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 6/30/2008 11:38:14 PM | | I think steroid use is a very interesting topic in sports ... most people write them off as bad without really considering the problem. I think the question needs to be brodened, were do we draw the line on what is a competitive advantage and what is cheating. There are many legal performance inhancing drugs that are not healthy as well as training techniques ie altitude and hypaberic training or dropping large amounts of weight to compete in lowere weight classes. Is it a question of the athletes health and well being or a question of an unfair advantage. I find the more i really look into this question the harder it is to really define a point of moral high ground. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 7/1/2008 7:32:56 AM | Would you do roids if you knew that it had the chance to shorten your life, and you would make millions.
OR
Would you be a police officer if you knew that it had the chance to shorten your life and you would make thousands.
Replace police officer with any number of jobs. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 7/1/2008 5:46:34 PM | Ja - if I were an athlete it would be FAR too tempting to use roids to make myself a superathlete. Look what they did for Ben Johnson. He wasn't even mediocre clean, but on the juice he set the world record. Loom at all the baseball players who bulked up and hit all the homers.
Maybe we should let them use all the stuff they want so they can do all kinds of cool things like run a one minute mile. They would drop dead at a young age, but they would get to enjoy themselves and we would be entertained. As long as they know the risks and that they are shortening their lives. | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 7/2/2008 11:33:36 AM |
You can't institute a new policy and then punish players retroactively. Maybe Bonds was on juice, probably McGwire was but baseball had no policy on it. All of a sudden they write a policy and then go after past records and players for it. They should have told everyone the policy and go from that day forward.
co-sign | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 7/2/2008 12:03:06 PM | | No no no! I want them to use MORE, get BIGGER FASTER STRONGER. I want to see some guy get so juiced up that he cleans and jerks 1000 pounds and then his freakin' head explodes! Now THAT would be entertaining!!!!!! | |
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| Steroids and their impact on sports
Posted: 7/2/2008 6:39:18 PM | The whole steroid issue can be blamed on owners and fans also. We, as fans, like to watch people do super human type things, and the better you perform, the more money you make. So, if the day comes where you can take something to make you perform better and make more money and be more worshipped, they will do it.....
It has not hurt baseball at all, attendance is up from previous years, and for the most part, people are forgiving as long as they are entertained. I personally do not give a crap if they take the juice of not, still takes talent overall to play pro sport, drugs or no drugs.
There is a movie out called bigger, faster, stronger, that talks about steroid use and is about 3 brothers who worshipped Hulk Hogan, Arnold, and Sylvester Stallone. Not seen it yet but very interesting I heard. | |
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