Steroids are the new scapegoat; people are willing to blame steroid use for just about every possible adverse outcome experienced by anyone who has been a user.

Steroids are quite likely bad for users and steroid use can most-definitely be considered cheating for those involved in sports. The public debate over steroid use has been heated and emotional. The media, possibly because they feel guilty that they ignored this obvious problem for the better part of 4 decades, seems to want to make up for lost time by over-hyping every steroid-related story that hits the news wires.

Despite this new-found interest in covering steroids-in-sports stories, the media hasn’t gotten much better at reporting the facts. Misinformation still rules the day with regard to what these substances do, can do, might do, etc. The hyperventilating aside, there isn’t all that much detailed science to tell us how bad steroids are. The difference between steroid use and steroid abuse is vast and to discuss the effects of these drugs without making a distinction between the two groups is to give in to the hysteria. The data doesn’t provide a picture of the physical damage done by steroid use. We certainly don’t have any meaningful data to tell us steroid use leads to suicide or any catastrophic psychological disorders.

We have plenty of anecdotal evidence that steroids are bad, but there are anecdotal stories that show the opposite. That’s the problem with anecdotal evidence, my story can trump your story. Do a Google search and see how many actual studies you can find that give you a concrete picture about the physiological and psychological effects of steroids.

My position isn’t that steroid abuse doesn’t cause damage or doesn’t/cannot contribute to early death. Steroid use and abuse – and the behaviors and other decisions associated with its use – doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The scenario that we’ve been fed is BS, the modern day version of Adam eating the forbidden apple; the choirboy athlete gets a taste of the demon steroid and turns bad immediately.

Nonsense.

Steroid use is evidence of a screwed up decision making process. The popular narrative that steroids are the Bogeyman that causes all other problems resonates partly because people don’t want to think their kid can make a series of horribly bad choices that have disastrous, catastrophic results. Also, too many parents don’t want to believe that they are in any way – big or small – responsible for the bad decisions made by their kids.

I am a parent of three young boys who play sports, have coached thousands of kids over the past 20 years and am very concerned about this issue. I know if my sons or one of my players turned to steroids, or other illegal performance-enhancing drugs, I would assume a part of the blame. Frankly, if my sons ever turn to steroids or other drugs I will have totally failed them as a father. How many people are willing to take this responsibility? Unfortunately, over the past three decades parents have been looking for some family-external reasons to explain their kids’ bad behavior (By the way, it is not politically correct to tell kids they behave badly. Too judgmental.). Call it the,”Not-My-Kid” syndrome.

Recently Brent Musburger – legendary sports journalist and broadcaster – told a group of journalism students that he thought steroids might be able to be used by athletes – effectively and safely – under the supervision of qualified medical personnel. Cue the obligatory hue and cry.

While Musburger’s comments can be criticized, it’s not for his position that steroids could be used by athletes under a doctor’s care. Actually, it’s quite clear that athletes have been successfully using steroids, both with and without doctors’ help, for years, and Uncle Brent can be taken to task for not recognizing the obvious. Maybe he was afraid to go all out and say that many athletes have been successfully using steroids for years and now it might be time to level the playing field for everyone. Give everyone equal access so they can get equal benefits.

Exponentially more athletes are getting away with PED use than have gotten busted. Do you really think Brian Cushing and Shawne Merriman are the only linebackers in the NFL who have used? Do you really think all those who stood on the podium during the last Olympics were clean? What Musburger proposed – and it will never, ever in a gazillion years happen – is to allow medical professionals to determine whether steroids should be used. He said, “Let’s go find out. What do the doctors actually think about anabolic steroids and their use by athletes.” That’s a better and more honest suggestion than most of the waste-of-time drug screening/prevention programs we’ve had to listen to over the years.

Any time a kid dies it’s a tragedy. And suicide must be unfathomably worse for a parent to endure. But people who want to say steroid use causes suicide are ignoring the reality, and the dynamic, of how and why kids make decisions in general, and specifically bad decisions.

Another problem is that kids are allowed and encouraged to idolize athletes.

It would be ludicrous for someone to make the point that their son, who wanted to be a coach, became a depressed, beer-swilling drunk who crashed his car because Mike Ditka, Jim Mora, Dennis Greene and Brian Billick do Coors Light commercials. And yet we accept this line in the steroid use argument.

Using steroids is both a selfish and self-destructive decision. Selfish because your self interests come before everything else. Self-destructive because the position that you can accomplish your goals based on your own hard work is abandoned; this aspect is far more insidious. Athletes have gone to great lengths to hide and deny their steroid use rather than promote, defend or even justify it for precisely this reason. Steroid use is antithetical to the goals of competition and sport. The damage done by the decision to use steroids occurs immediately and is likely to be just as much of a problem, and harder to overcome, as any possible physical or emotional damage from the drugs themselves.

This headline is timeless.

Regardless of the year, the news that a Tour de France winner tested positive for steroids, or any other banned substance, is about as shocking as the sun rising every morning or Lindsay Lohan entering rehab.  I’m sorry, that’s a cheap shot.  I shouldn’t put the rising sun in the same category as a falling star…Wow, that’s bad, too.  Ok, I’ll stop now.

So here we are, once again, this time talking about Alberto Contador, a three-time winner of the Tour de France.

According to news reports, Contador tested positive for clenbuterol, also known as “clen” by the drugs’ closest friends.  Here’s the statement released by Contador’s people, “The experts consulted so far have agreed also that this is a food contamination case, especially considering the number of tests passed by Alberto Contador during the Tour de France, making it possible to define precisely both the time the emergence of the substance as the tiny amount detected, ruling out any other source or intentionality.”

The list of Contador’s experts has not been made known as of this point in time, nor have we been given a clue as to the other possible “source or intentionality.”

I find it interesting that these cyclists – and any athlete who tests positive – always manage to inadvertently eat contaminated food that contains the kind of banned, anabolic substance that enhances performance.   Remember Shawne Merriman of the San Diego Chargers?  He had the misfortune of using a protein powder that was spiked with all kinds of banned, potent muscle building agents.  Anyway…

Clenbuterol is a synthetic bronchodilator that is prescribed for asthmatics and is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Clenbuterol has a reputation of being both anti-catabolic and anabolic in animal studies, which makes this steroid quite desirable for the kind of guy who would want to do well in the Tour de France.  Clen also stimulates your beta-2 receptors; this allows you to burn more stored fat than you normally – naturally – would.

So what this means in simple language is that clenbuterol is both muscle-sparing and muscle building – great for recovering during a grueling competitive event – while allowing the body to use more of its stored fat for fuel.  This is a great deal for any athlete.

So like I said, isn’t it so crazy that a Tour de France winner would have the amazingly dumb luck to inadvertently eat food tainted with precisely the kind of steroid that could improve their performance?

Here is a list of reasons as to why HGH – right now – is the ideal drug for athletes.  With the latest edition of the steroids in sport scandal that involves professional athletes from Major League Baseball, as well as other sports, people need to understand why these supplements are desirable to pro athletes.

And you won’t get this kind of info if you depend on the mainstream media and sports news outlets…

Body builders have enjoyed the benefits of human growth hormone, used in conjunction with a variety of other anabolic agents, for over 20 years but only in recent years have legit athletes started to catch on to this “better” kind of performance enhancing drugs.

1)       Human growth hormone provides a potent anabolic effect; it builds muscle.  Without turning this into a biochem lesson – especially since that’s way over my head – suffice to say that HGH increases the body’s ability to synthesize protein, and that this allows for muscle tissue to be built.  Human growth hormone use produces the holy grail of all anabolic benefits, hyperplasia.  Hyperplasia is the permanent increase in the amount of muscle cells.  Over the years there have been many steroids that were alleged to result in creating new muscle cells, but HGH is the substance that actually delivers this incredible benefit. HGH also increases the size of existing muscle cells.

So with HGH you have a situation where the size of existing muscle cells are increased AND a permanent creation of new muscle cells.  So a person could go on a cycle of human growth hormone therapy, which would create new muscle cells that remain after HGH therapy stops.  The longer the person remains on this regimen the more new muscle cells will be produced.  This person would then have more muscle than he did before the therapy and reap all of the performance benefits that come with increased muscle even after the end of therapy.

Additionally, human growth hormone has a positive strengthening affect on connective tissues such as ligaments, tendons and cartilage and at an accelerated rate. Old injuries will heal and these tissues will be strengthened which can potentially minimize future injuries as well.  There is no doubt that human growth hormone therapy is being used in conjunction with the surgery and rehab of professional athletes, which has had the effect of getting athletes back on the field quicker than ever. These connective tissue benefits make HGH much more attractive than the use of old school steroids, as steroids only positively affect muscle tissue, while having a negative effect on connective tissue.

2)      HGH provides metabolic benefits such as helping the body burn more fat than usual, and serves as a protein-sparing agent as well.   HGH administration triggers the release of fatty acids from fat stores and the body winds up burning more fat than carbohydrates to meet energy requirements.  This is why athletes on human growth hormone can have extremely low levels of body fat while maintaining extremely high levels of muscle mass.

Without drugs, there is a kind of equilibrium between body fat and muscle mass.  If body fat is too low a person’s muscle mass will decrease as well.  HGH also has an anti-catabolic effect (protein sparing), which means that muscle protein isn’t broken down during periods of intense exercise or in the case of calorie restriction.  This anti-catabolic effect means that athletes can recovery quicker from competition and training.

3)      HGH is legal and can be acquired and administered by a physician, and as a result, the intelligent athlete can use medical privacy regulations to avoid the spotlight. The dose at which HGH is effective is small, which minimizes risk and – in most cases – allows the physician to avoid breaking any laws or breaching any ethical standards.

Additionally, due to the stresses of professional sports there is a very good chance that most – if not all athletes – would test for low hormonal levels during their season.  This means HGH can be administered in order to normalize an athlete’s levels.  This kind of therapeutic dose can provide enormous benefits to an athlete during their season. This is an important distinction to make.  If an athlete does test for low HGH levels – which most would or could – this is a case of using HGH as it is intended and not abusing it.

There are doctors all across the country that are openly practicing this kind of medicine.  One could argue that these doctors are incorrect in their uses of HGH, but this argument doesn’t seem to hold any more weight than the counter argument that there are no appropriate “off-label” uses of HGH. These are the major reasons as to why HGH is so popular among athletes.

There are other reasons as well, but this is enough for now.  And it is worth noting that testosterone when used in similarly appropriate doses, in conjunction with HGH is an extremely potent supplement cocktail from which all athletes would benefit greatly.

Remember, this isn’t an effort to rationalize or justify the use of HGH and testosterone.  I am simply recognizing and pointing out reasons why athletes – or anybody who works out for that matter – would find these substances so desirable.   What I will say is that when you understand what these drugs can do for athletes, and understand the nature of risks involved with playing professional sports – especially football – the case can be made that some supplementation may be appropriate and even necessary.

Comments made by Mark McGwire’s bodybuilding idiot of a brother illustrate A) what a joke bodybuilding is and B) why bodybuilders should NEVER be allowed anywhere near real athletes.

So Mark McGwire’s loose-cannon brother has come out with a book, and in it he details his big brother’s steroid and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) taking regimen.  Does anyone really care what this little man has to say about his disgraced brother? As a matter of fact, who really could be interested in what he might have to say about anything, what it’s like to be the talentless brother?  Is there that much interest in bottom feeders these days?

Note: Someone should ask Jay if he helped his NFL quarterback of a brother Dan McGwire get an edge, as well.

Jay McGwire’s comments really speak volumes about how little bodybuilders know and why they should be ignored when they talk about athletic performance.  Here’s a sample of idiocy from Little Jay, “Oh, his strength. His leg strength was awesome. I talked about what he is doing on the leg press — over 600 pounds for 20 reps. That is pretty good for a baseball player. And that is the key in baseball, I think. … Mark didn’t really have big legs until after that. He couldn’t do some other serious leg workouts because of his lower back issues, so we had to be careful with that.”

Hey Jay, did you stop and think the leg press machine might be responsible for your brother’s back problems?  What did you do to try to strengthen the lower back, huh? Also, as a guy who supposedly spent a lot of time in the gym, you should know that 600-pounds on the leg press is common-place, unless you’ve spent your time in Curves’ gyms.  And come on, what functional purpose does the leg press serve for a baseball player, not to mention for a guy who is approaching the end of his career? A lot of people can leg press 600-pounds for 20 repetitions, I have seen it countless times and it is completely unimpressive.  It also proves nothing and is indicative/predictive of nothing.

More nonsense. “And obviously his arm strength, getting those hands through the [hitting] zone. Think about it, it is pretty remarkable. He is gaining 30 pounds over three years, and that is the right way to do it because you go slow and the body reacts slow in the ways of getting it more flexible. So Mark was more flexible 30 pounds heavier. Now think about that torque that he could have. That is why the ball was going out of stadiums.”

WTF? This is gibberish. It would take thousands and thousands of words to try to decipher this garbage. It’s classic bodybuilding, throw some jargon around, figure you’ll impress/intimidate people who supposedly don’t know as much, and Voila, you sound like an expert.  He actually sounds like a moron.

At 170-180 pounds Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron were hitting home runs, why couldn’t Mark McGwire hit them at 225-pounds?  Oh, and the Cardinals’ new hitting instructor had more strike outs than hits during his years as an active player in St. Louis.

Then Jay McGwire spoke about his brother’s drug cycles.  More Neanderthal musings.  Just like Greg Anderson, the alleged personal trainer who ruined Barry Bonds’ body with steroids and unsound training, Jay McGwire dosed his brother up with massive amounts of drugs.  Again, bodybuilders who don’t do anything that can be considered even remotely athletic just need to add muscle, and ingest tons of drugs.  Baseball players and real athletes don’t need to pack on muscle at any cost, especially at the cost Jay McGwire exacted on his brother’s body.

No less of an expert than BALCO Labs’ Victor Conte says, “The first thing you are going to see is size. You are using Dbol (Dianabol) and this stuff at this dosage, you’re going to look like Hercules, if he is doing the weight training. At 12 weeks and those dosages, this is not baby food.”  By the way, you can train like Olive Oil and you’ll look like Popeye if you dose up like Mark McGwire did.

The final insult comes in the form of this statement by Jay McGwire, “Jay McGwire repeatedly stressed that any changes weren’t just from the drugs, but that his brother trained ridiculously hard, often six days a week. And the combination paid off.” This is just bullshit.  The drugs are responsible for allowing someone to train “ridiculously hard, six days a week.” Don’t buy this nonsense. And don’t but the malarkey that teammates and team personnel didn’t know what was going on.

Mark McGwire cheated by taking performance-enhancing drugs because he wanted to break home run hitting records and his brother was right there with him every step of the way.

Spare us the tears, Mark.  It’s 2010 and nobody is buying the pathetic nonsense that you didn’t take steroids to help you hit home runs.  Furthermore, if it weren’t for steroids – not androstenedione, creatine or any other supplement – Mark McGwire would have been out of baseball around the time he was setting home run records.

Steroids were responsible for allowing McGwire to embark on his magical 8-year run that began in Oakland in 1995.  That’s all we needed to hear.  Not getting that simple,unqualified admission made the McGwire/Costas interview kind of silly.

McGwire acted like a little kid who got caught doing something wrong and broke down in an attempt to minimize the punishment and engender some sympathy.

Although it is sad that McGwire is still lying to himself and is still in denial about his steroid use.  His claim that he didn’t take steroids to hit home runs defies logic, especially when you consider that Little Mac had the help of a public relations firm.

And let’s ignore Tony LaRussa’s defense of McGwire.  LaRussa was on the scene of two of the biggest steroid scandals in baseball’s history, the Jose Canseco/McGwire A’s and the McGwire St. Louis Cardinals, and now he wants to bring Mac back to the scene of one of the crimes.  I wrote about this years ago, and my case holds up to this day.  LaRussa has managed to skate through all these years without having any of this steroid stink stick to him.  Don’t buy this “Teflon Don’s” take on McGwire or anything to do with the steroids in baseball story.

The overlooked joke of this whole story is that Mark McGwire is coming back as the Cardinals’ hitting instructor.  McGwire is a guy who struck out once every 4 times at bat and was worthless at the plate when he didn’t hit a home run.  In his last year, after the steroids had ravaged his body, he had a .187 average, 56 hits with 29 home runs and 4 doubles.  He struck out 118 times in 299 at-bats, the 4^th highest total of his career in about 40% fewer total at-bats for the season.

The bottom line is that Mark McGwire got another chance to come clean and he blew it.

As the New York Times reports that Dr. Anthony Galea, a physician who has treated Tiger Woods, is being investigated for providing Performance Enhancing Drugs to athletes, debate is being waged on sports talk shows across the radio dial; did the revealed-to-be-a-horn dog golfing great use steroids or human growth hormone and if he did, how much, if any, did these drugs help?

As usual, when discussing athletes and PED use, logic and facts take a back seat to emotions, incorrect and inconsistent assertions, and misinformation about what these drugs can and cannot do.

Arguments are being forwarded in this debate that were used when baseball players got caught using steroids and HGH.  Steroids don’t make the athlete, technique does; bulk doesn’t help these athletes; young athletes don’t really get any benefits from the recovery benefits offered by PEDs; the athletes were great when they were teenagers and young men, so why would they need to take PEDs to get any better, and the list goes on.

Different sports and different athletes, but the same bad info and faulty logic.

For the sake of discussion, let’s accept the” big picture” assertion made by some folks that athletic performance in golf is (somehow) different than all other athletic endeavors, and therefore, steroid use cannot improve the swing and play of a golfer.

So what?

Tiger has displayed such incredibly bad judgment in the way he has handled his personal life it’s entirely reasonable that he would use the same faulty decision making process regarding the use of PEDs.  Knowing what we know about this mess, Tiger’s reasoning skills are obviously suspect.

What we know about athletes who use PEDs, their motivation is that they believe taking the drugs will help.  It is also clear that many athletes are willing to go to extreme measures to be successful and to gain an edge over the competition.  In this regard, could Tiger be that different from Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rodney Harrison or any other uber-competitive, successful athlete?

The nonsense about increased muscle mass – aka “bulk”- and steroid/HGH use comes from what people think they know what these drugs can do as a result of stories about body builders and other meat heads.  Unless the definition and physics of “athleticism” and “ability to perform more work” has changed, increased muscle mass is never a bad thing; a relatively small increase in muscle mass can reap large performance benefits.

A golfer, baseball player, tennis player, swimmer or any other athlete will benefit from increased muscle mass and athletes who use PEDs don’t have to look like this, they look like this.

By the way, Tiger is known to have hit the weighs hard and has added muscle to his body over the past several years, so it’s clear that Tiger thinks adding muscle to his frame will help his game.

Again, for the sake of argument if we accept the line of reasoning that adding muscle is detrimental to a golfer’s performance to explain why Tiger Woods would not use PEDs, how can this “no improvement” be measured?  Whether from weight lifting and PED use, or weight lifting alone, if he wasn’t as muscular would he have won more tournaments?  First, there’s no way to know this and second it is not logical to say that Woods wouldn’t use PEDs simply because he didn’t want to add muscle mass.

In the real world we can’t ignore the facts for the sake of argument and the unshakeable reality is that additional muscle is beneficial to any athlete, athletes are aware of this, and as a result follow many strategies – ethical and unethical, legal and illegal – to improve their performance.  However, while increased muscle mass can’t be considered to be a detriment, there is no doubt that a golfer – or any athlete – can decrease performance and increase their risk of injury by following an improper weight lifting regimen.

There is no evidence that Tiger Woods has taken steroids, human growth hormones or any other banned PEDs.  However, absent any proof, hackneyed and ignorant arguments cannot be used to explain why he wouldn’t.

Mark Cuban seems like he’s a fun guy to hang around with and to work for.  I think the players on the Dallas Mavericks are probably the best taken care of (spoiled) players in the NBA and he would have made things interesting if he bought the Chicago Cubs.  His actions as a maverick – pun intended – owner in the NBA are a good thing.

However, Cuban is way off base when he says that steroids could be used responsibly under a doctor’s supervision to improve athletic performance.   I’m sure the East German sporting authorities thought the same thing, and we all know how well that turned out.

Supervised doping in sports is a ridiculous idea for so many reasons that it is ridiculous to spend the time rehashing the obvious. Saying steroids can be used in a positive manner is kind of like saying Mussolini may have been a brutal dictator, but he did get the trains to run on schedule.

Now there are some folks who have spoken out and said that Cuban’s statements are – somehow – refreshing.  You can’t help but think those in this quarter are made up of two types; the ignorant and the cheaters/former cheaters who want some cover.  Anyone who truly understands what steroids are, what they do and how they are used understands that legitimate medical professionals would never endorse or supervise the use of steroids. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that humans possess the capacity to handle this responsibility, responsibly, is tragically out of touch.

Perhaps someday, decades from now, there will be a pharmaceutical elixir that delivers fantastic performance with zero side effects.  Maybe Huxley’s “Brave New World” will be realized in sports and a side-effect free Soma will be developed.  But when that day comes, everyone will be using and nobody will have an advantage.  Improved performance will lack context and there will be an effort to find something that will give athletes a leg up on the competition. And the skulking around in the shadows in the pursuit of a new advantage will begin again.

The romantic concept of the level playing field as it is supposed to exist in sports is a myth, as competitors have always looked for an edge over the competition. Anyone who doubts this just need look at the goings on in the world of cycling to see exactly what athletes are willing to do to win.  A world class boxer is willing to drink his own urine in order to get an edge.  Steroids are a wee bit more potent than urine and the taste is much better.

Back to Mark Cuban. Be quiet, you’re out of your depth and you’re wrong.

The criminal investigation that’s focused on Internet-based supplement selling powerhouse Bodybuilding.com points out how dirty the nutritional supplement business can be.

Bodybuilding.com has been the subject of a two-year investigation looking into the possibility that over-the-counter nutritional supplements actually contain illegal, banned substances, including steroids.  The company has served as an example of how the Internet can allow entrepreneurs a “rags to riches” opportunity.  Bodybuilding.com was started in a garage 10 years ago and in 2008 Liberty Media purchased the controlling interest in the company for $100 million.  They sell over $150 million of supplements every year.

But now Bodybuilding.com is in big trouble.  Federal investigators purchased 31 products, 23 of which turned out to contain anabolic steroids.  The Food and Drug Administration had sent warning letters to the company advising them they were in violation of federal law that deals with labeling and the distribution of steroids, and apparently Bodybuilding.com didn’t heed the warnings.

The nutritional supplement industry is as seedy and flawed of an industry as you can find, no matter where they do business, and this case serves as a great illustration of how bad it is.  The government contends Bodybuilding.com has been illegally selling five anabolic steroids with the names “Madol,” “Tren,” “Superdrol,” “Androstenedione,” and “Turinabol,” despite five “warning letters” from the FDA since 2002 informing the company that it was in violation of the law.  I found Superdrol advertised on several sites with the notation that it has been withdrawn.  And if you read about Turinabol, there’s no doubt that it is an anabolic steroid.  Bodybuilding.com shouldn’t be too surprised.

For years supplement makers have advertised a bevy of products with purported anabolic properties that could serve as viable alternatives to real steroids.  These claims were laughed at by people who know that the only thing that can deliver steroid-results are steroids.  However, it seems that many of these products could deliver steroid-like results because they really contained steroids.

We should be used to the notion that supplement companies are willing to sell products with dubious pedigrees and items that really don’t/can’t deliver on the advertised benefits. The frightening aspect of this story is that some supplement makers – and sellers – are willing to dose their clients with banned, illegal supplements.  This reality should make you think more than twice before purchasing any nutritional supplement from any source.

Baseball statistical maven Bill James published a paper last month detailing his thoughts on the steroid in baseball issue, and wrote that he was, “finally ready to say what I have to say about it.” James makes some good points along the way, but overall his 4-page missive is a mess of inconsistency, flawed logic and bad information.

When James’ paper was first made public, I read excerpts of it in a couple of wire service stories that had the effect of making me think James had done good.  As a matter of fact, I told a couple of colleagues that I thought James had made some good points.  However, when I read the full text I was more than surprised by the approach taken by James.

James starts off with the statement that, “The use of steroids or other Performance Enhancing Drugs will mean nothing in the debate about who gets into the Hall of Fame and who does not.” Nothing like starting off with a bold statement to make your position clear and get people’s attention.

The problem is that James follows this opening salvo with his analysis of steroids, “Steroids keep you young. You may not like to hear it stated that way, because steroids are evil, wicked, mean, and nasty and youth is a good thing, but…that’s what it means.  Steroids help the athlete resist the effects of aging.”  James goes on to look into his crystal ball to tell us that in the future not only won’t steroids disappear from our culture, but that “everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants.”

According to James, not only will steroids assume a Soma-like status because,

Doctors are going to routinely prescribe drugs that will help us live to be 200, 300 or 1000

In 40 or 50 years every citizen will take anti-aging pills everyday

People in the future will look back on the users from the steroid era as being pioneers and not rule-breakers that cheated to gain an advantage

Our children and grandchildren are going to be steroid users and will view the banning of PEDs “as a bizarre artifice of the past”

James’ argument that steroids and other anti-aging drugs will be used regularly and his view of the future are as off base as is statement that, “The argument for discriminating against PED users rests upon the assumption of the moral superiority of non-drug users.”  This declaration is frightening as it clearly implies that those who follow the rules are not morally superior to those who break the rules.

The statistical expert has gone off the rails and lost all credibility.  But it gets worse.  In the ensuing paragraphs James favors us with these gems.

A steroid user will get elected to the Hall of Fame and then acknowledge he used steroids

Some players who used steroid will get in which will open the floodgates so all users get in

Compares the attitudes towards rule-breaking PED users with the attitudes about sexuality on television of a generation ago.  I am not making this up.  You have to read this to believe it.

Dick Allen is going to get into the Hall of Fame

Andy Pettitte is probably getting a plaque in Cooperstown and when he does, “he is going to speak up for Roger Clemens.”  I am not making this up, either.

Click here to check out part two of my review of Bill James’ paper, “Cooperstown and the ‘Roids.”

Baseball’s preeminent statistical expert has gives us his thoughts on the issue of steroids and baseball and there’s a lot to talk about as a result.  This is part two of my look at his paper titled, “Cooperstown and the ‘Roids.”

James gives us this mind boggling passage, “The discrimination against PED users in Hall of Fame voting rests upon the perception that this was cheating.  But is it cheating if one violates a rule that nobody is enforcing, and which one may legitimately see as being widely ignored by those within the competition?”  This is another, “Wow!” moment. As in, “Wow, WTF is he talking about? Where has he been!”

James doesn’t seem to remember that the league wasn’t able to/didn’t test for steroids until recently, and cannot and will likely never be able to test for human growth hormone. Furthermore, regardless of whether or not the league has the ability to test for every PED, if MLB states that the use of these substances is prohibited, any player who uses them is breaking the rules.  James also doesn’t bring up the fact that not one baseball player, and to my knowledge, not one athlete has come out and admitted to using steroids and/or said that using them during the years when everyone was doing it, wasn’t cheating.

As a matter of fact, players have gone to great lengths to hide their usage from the authorities, their peers and fans, from wagging their fingers in denial at congressional hearings to telling people they didn’t want to talk about the past.

Towards the end of the paper James mentions how Will Clark was a great player who was historically under-rated because, “his numbers were dimmed by comparison to the steroid-inflated numbers that came just after him. Will Clark in the pre-steroid era, was a much better player than Rafael Palmeiro.”

James goes on to say that he would not argue with a person who did not support a player for the Hall of Fame because he was a steroid user and, therefore, a cheater. We writes that Will Clark has a “right to feel cheated out of a fair chance to compete for honors in his time, and, if you chose to look at it from the standpoint of Will Clark, I don’t think that you are wrong to do so.”

James writes that he doesn’t believe “history will look at this issue from the standpoint of Will Clark.”  The sad thing is that Bill James is one of the few people in the position to prevent/correct this injustice.  Who better to “man up,” and make the case for the non-cheaters than the leading baseball statistician of all-time?

It’s sad that a noted expert like Bill James chose not to take a stand and call PED users cheaters.  I don’t say this because I believe Clemens, Bonds, Sosa, McGwire and the rest of the lot are cowards and cheaters and want a guy with James’ stature to be on my side of the argument. I say this because James didn’t provide any provocative *cough* rational *cough* arguments to support his position, but takes the easy way out and says PED users will get in simply “because.”

Before reading this paper, if I had heard that Bill James had made the case for why steroid users should be baseball’s Hall of Fame my first thought would have been, “Great, I can’t wait to see how he makes his case.” Rather than provide a thought provoking lesson, James serves up a muddled, bordering on incoherent, collection of “arguments” that adds nothing to the debate.