"An aging pitcher is suffering from a variety of persistent injuries. They are healing slowly. He is depressed and lethargic, and anxious about his career. He goes to see his doctor. The doctor finds that the patient's testosterone count is low. He prescribes the pitcher a small dose of testosterone, as part of his rehab. The patient is desperate, and the doctor agrees to experiment with testosterone, and see if it speeds recovery."
He argues:
"But since the league's policies clearly can't govern drugs prescribed legally by a physican--particuarly if they are undetectable-- it has the effect of only preventing the use of drugs obtained illegally."
Sure, baseball will always have a hard time preventing marginal cheating. But baseball's big problem over the last dozen or so years has not been players taking modest doses under a doctor's supervision.
That's a problem, but it's hardly as big a problem as the full-fledged circus freak shows that have overwhelmed baseball going back to 1988 when juicing evangelist Jose Canseco became the first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in one season, and led the Oakland A's to the first of three straight World Series. Other freak shows include the late Ken Caminiti suddenly starting to take mega-blasts of steroids at the All-Star Break in 1996 and carrying the Padres on his acne-scarred back to the World Series and himself to the MVP; or McGwire and Sosa "returning the innocence to the game" in their ultra-hyped homer record duel of 1998; or Barry Bonds, with his head the size of a basketball, breaking the career homer record last summer; or Roger Clemens having the best ERA of his career (relative to the league and adjusted for park effects) at age 42 in 2005.
So, if the rules that baseball has finally put into effect could keep players down to the levels of juicing that a legitimate doctor might prescribe, baseball could still spare itself a lot of these humiliations in the future.
Of course, none of these guys suffered from some sort of innate deficiency in testosterone production that kept their testosterone levels below that of the average male and thus medically justified a prescription. They were all studly specimens to begin with.
Indeed, that's why baseball is a big business: it's a showcase for masculinity.
If Malcolm was looking for a better example, he could Google "golfer beta blocker."
Beta blockers are completely legitimate drugs that save huge numbers of people from dying of heart problems. They also seem to have the side effect of calming the jitters, which could be very useful in putting. Beta blockers are said to be used by classical musicians with stage fright. A number of professional golfers, especially on the age 50+ Champions Tour where "the yips" making putting troublesome, have beta blocker prescriptions. The Tour doesn't want to ban beta blockers because it doesn't want players keeling over on the green because they aren't allowed to take the medicine. (Some players who have taken beta blockers complain that they make them too calm, and hurt their tee-to-green game.)
The differences between beta blockers and testosterone, though, should be fairly obvious: First, beta blockers make the people who need them healthier overall, such as extending life expectancies. Second, they don't make players better than they would be if they didn't have a specific medical problem. (Nobody starts taking beta blockers and suddenly has years better than in their prime.) Third, like laser eye surgery, the side effects are not such that only fanatics would use them. They are used by millions.
Fourth, most popular sports are to some extent, in effect, a test of testosterone. (The Geezer Golf Tour ranks pretty far down the list of popularity, in part because of that.)
Fans admired Roger Clemens because he is a fine specimen of rampant masculinity. If he had had a low testosterone count to start with, he never would have put on the 235 pounds of solid muscle that allowed him to go 24-4 in 1986. When Clemens's testosterone count naturally dropped with age to the point where he could no longer compete up to his standards, he should have retired to the golf course and let the young bucks have their day, just as his elders once got out of the way and let him have his day.
Friedrich at 2Blowhards put his finger on part of the reason why we object to juicing:
The best answer I've been able to come up with is an evo-bio one. To wit, that most people unconsciously view sports as a display of reproductive fitness, not merely one more entertainment option among many. And those people don’t want their athletic displays of reproductive fitness being fiddled with by chemical means.
If you make this assumption, it sorts out what is really different about performance-enhancing drugs from other training aids. It’s okay to allow athletes to train for competition, because the discipline and capacity for hard work are also sexually desirable, inheritable traits. It’s okay to build up your body with weights, because the ability to maximize your muscularity is again an inheritable trait. And being crafty about your training regimen is a tribute to the athlete’s intelligence, another capacity transmittable to one's offspring.
Steroids, on the other hand, are clearly not inheritable and thus 'cheating'. A less reproductively fit athlete, one likely to produce less capable offspring but who is taking steroids can appear better than a more reproductively fit athlete who isn’t juicing.
Friedrich says:
Granted, if you would allow all the athletes to juice, presumably the most genetically gifted would still shine through relative to the other elite athletes.
No, because ever more juicing, Ken Caminiti-style, would still be tempting, so baseball becomes just a test of foolhardiness.
The best policy is to ban the major performance-enhancing drugs outright and institute rigorous testing. There will still be cheating, but it will be on a less ludicrous scale and the honest players will still have a chance to make the team without cheating.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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16 comments:
But since the league's policies clearly can't govern drugs prescribed legally by a physican....
Does Gladwell really believe this?
Why we object to juicing:
Because we'd like our kids to be able to play competitive sports.
As things are now, I dread my kid growing up and wanting to compete in these sports -- if he doesn't juice he won't be able to compete, and if he does juice, we will be harmed.
That's not a world I want my kid to grow up into.
O-T! Steve, what do you have to say about Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy?
When a high achiever gets pregnant young, modern society acts extremely shocked. "Successful" women are supposed to wait until they're as decrepit as the yuppie "Idiocracy" couple, or Julia Roberts.
However, Spears has money and resources and she's just saved herself years of agonizing thru her thirties.
What if the taboo against high-achieving young women getting pregnant was to dissipate? They could have kids while they were 18-22, start college at 27, and hit the workforce running at a relatively young 31 (equivalent to a man starting his professional career at 25-26 due to his shorter life expectancy), never having to worry about the "Mommy track."
By her early forties she's an empty-nester and can make annual pilgrimages to Tibet for the rest of her life if she so desires.
"The best answer I've been able to come up with is an evo-bio one. To wit, that most people unconsciously view sports as a display of reproductive fitness, not merely one more entertainment option among many"
Two problems:
1. "Artificial enhancements" don't seem to be much of a problem when it comes female beauty contests.
2. The fitness-display theory of sports appreciation would make more sense if the audience were mostly female, which it isn't
@Scott:
Good points, but:
- I doubt whether the audiences of beauty contests are predominantly heterosexual male.
- Artificial enhancements are less of a problem for men than for women because men are less selective than women anyway - given a choice, many guys may still prefer the 'unenhanced' option - I know I would.
- Sports audiences may be mostly male - after all, sports spectacles play an important role in determining social hierarchy, but at the top level and locally - but women have been watching the results of such competitions and going after the winners since times immemorial - the equivalent of the knigh who wins the favours of a lady in a jousting tournament.
the main problem with steroids is that they cause harmful side effects. If steroids had the health profile of,say,vitamins then it'd be fine to take them
Baseball resisted science for a long time, and pace Friedrich, weight training was not considered okay until long after other professional sports took it up. Baseball has now 'rationalized', with players using every kind of dietary and training manipulation to improve their game, extend their careers and (above all) sustain a high level of performance throughout a very long season.
Given the amounts of money involved, there is an enormous incentive to use any advantage, so there will always be demand for performance enhancing drugs in baseball and elsewhere. Regulations, testing and banning will simply drive the activity underground and create a 'black economy' in baseball. The drug scandals will never go away. They'll get worse.
The only effective punitive regime will be one that catches obvious users. Once PEDs are developed that don't produce things like pumpkin-heads, the fans will quiet down and return to their fantasy land of baseball as a test of 'natural God-given' talent. But it will be just that...fantasy. The real fantasy league in baseball will be none other than MLB.
Steve,
Apart from whether or not Sadwell is right or wrong, you make too much of the raw effect of test.
While these guys are scarfing test, their Y chromosome goes a-degeneratin'!!!!
Andrew Sullivan will never escape the curse of the Y chromosome.
He'll end up looking like an old lesbian, too.
His worst nightmare.
In many ways it really comes down to money. At least in the case of baseball, the money to be earned by extending one's career an additional few years by means of steroids is so great that it's nearly impossible to resist.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Classical musicians definitely use beta blockers. Back when I was an orchestral musician, they were de quite common at auditions; in some cases, to my certain knowledge, over half of the candidates took them.
I think they're more common at auditions than in concerts, because auditions stakes are so high. (Students coming out of conservatory, usually with at least one graduate degree, routinely practice 8 hours a day for 3 years in order to win regional auditions for jobs paying $30k / yr. There's an entire orchestra made up of these people in Florida.)
It seems like the teams have to pay old players extra because, even when it's not their free agency year, they always have the option of retiring. For example, Andy Pettite is get $16 million not to retire this year.
What if the taboo against high-achieving young women getting pregnant was to dissipate? They could have kids while they were 18-22, start college at 27, and hit the workforce running at a relatively young 31 (equivalent to a man starting his professional career at 25-26 due to his shorter life expectancy), never having to worry about the "Mommy track."
They'd have to marry men at least five to seven years older than themselves for this to be workable from a middle-class point of view. A big increase from today's current husband-wife age gap of a year or two. Increasing the husband-wife age gap is a bad idea given the way that men age more quickly than women and die much younger.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
The average NFL football player is said to have an average life-expectancy of only 55. (Playing pro football takes 20 to 25 years off of your life, very scary.)
I don't suppose you happen to know the statistic for baseball players?
No, because ever more juicing, Ken Caminiti-style, would still be tempting, so baseball becomes just a test of foolhardiness.
Drug use among bodybuilders is a good example of this. Heavily juiced bodybuilders have turned the sport into as much an arms race of finding the right combination of performance enhancing (and health damaging) substances as one of optimal genetics and difficult training. Those not willing to engage in heavy drug use need not even apply themselves to becoming the next Mr. Olympia. That's a rather boring conclusion for bodybuilding, in my opinion.
Fortunately, bodybuilding's appeal is mostly limited to boys in their late teens and grown men. Under Gladwell's scheme, the message sent to young kids playing softball would be atrocious.
I remember those freakish looking East German women at the Olympics in the 80s. There was a swimmer who'd taken so much testosterone she looked like an alien life-form - won a gold medal, swimming absurdly far ahead of all the others.
And yet - was it Ben Johnson who ran the fastest 100 metres ever for Canada, but was disqualified because of drugs? Even WITH drugs, surely that's amazing?
So why not have two competitions - one with a no drugs policy, and the other a freakshow with a "take any drug you like" policy. But if you win in the drug olympics, the med guy in the lab coat gets to share the gold medal with you...
SEriously now:
Please read the 3 Steroids books: Canseco book, Balco book and Steroid Nation. And give a bit of a stepping back view.
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