Last week Ryan Braun successfully appealed his 50-game ban for the 2012 season based on little more than a technicality involving the time it took to Fed Ex the sample to the testing lab. He gave a heartwarming speech to the media that continued to deny his guilt, and everyone moved him back to the top of their fantasy baseball draft boards. I for one am glad to see his suspension overturned, regardless of whether or not he was genuinely innocent; I want him back because I like to watch him play baseball and I really don’t care whether or not he’s doing steroids.
For the past fifteen-plus years, baseball fans have argued over the presence of steroids in the sport, often using Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa (among others) as talking points on the subject; their homerun races through the late ’90s and early 2000s were seemingly fueled by performance-enhancing drugs. Although the shattering of Roger Maris’ longstanding single season homerun record brought copious amounts of fans back to a game that had been tarnished by a lockout just years prior, most fans look back on the events now as a “dark” period in baseball history: the steroid era. The only issue with this, as we can now see in the case of players like Manny Ramirez and most recently Ryan Braun, is that this era has not yet ended, and I doubt that it ever will.
The problem with steroids in my opinion is not the drugs themselves, but the lack of education about them. Mention them to the average “ethical” fan and they conjure images of Soviet body builders circa Cold War era injecting themselves with strange chemicals. I would like to think that science has advanced somewhat in the past thirty years and it has. Chemists have not only come up with safer drugs that allow athletes to build muscles and recover from injury quicker over the years, but they have also managed to find ways to conceal them from testing. They have continuously managed to stay one step ahead of the leagues that test for them but this is where the problem lies.
When you have someone who wishes to perform better they will do whatever it takes to do so; this is the psyche of the driven competitor. Throughout the history of sports, athletes have always tried to find the edge that would allow them to beat their opposition. Even in the Ancient Olympic games, competitors would ingest lizard’s flesh as a form of performance enhancing potion. If an athlete wants to win, he will try to win, sometimes regardless of his own health, and this is what we must consider when looking at steroids.
On Monday Charles P. Pierce of Grantland.com wrote in his article titled “In Defense of Ryan Braun” that detractors of steroids have two major issues with them: the player’s health, and the morality of performance enhancing drugs. “Too often, it seems, the former consideration is used to camouflage arguments based primarily on the latter” he says and I completely agree. If we know players will be taking performance enhancing drugs, regardless of any sort of laws set in place, wouldn’t it be better to help develop these drugs so that they are less harmful
By treating testing for steroids like a witch-hunt, we are simply opening the door to drugs that have less medical testing with regards to adverse effects. The primary goal of such drugs is simply to provide the athlete with the same advantages of steroids while being able to fly under league authorities’ radars. However, there are usually safer versions of these drugs that have had extensive testing and medical research; HGH (human growth hormone) for example is used in the United States as a prescription drug to treat growth disorders in both adults and children. HGH was banned by the MLB last year under the new collective bargaining agreement, and as a result, athletes have found ways around it; some have even gone so far as using a spray derived from immature deer antlers. Like I said, if a player wants to enhance his or her performance with the aide of drugs, they will find a way.
It is hard to say straight out that steroids should be allowed in the game of baseball, but it’s ignorant to deny that they have become a part of the sport. Athletes use performance enhancing drugs to increase work-outs, recover from injury and essentially play for longer at a more optimal level. As we saw during the homerun races between Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa, this can be entertaining, and at times make the game better. I understand there are issues with regards to health and the ethics of at what age these drugs should be allowed if legalized, but there is no way to resolve these issues unless we first get them out in the open. The taboos surrounding steroids have hindered any sort of discussion on the topic and rather than attempt to understand them, the MLB (and every other professional sports league for that matter) has decided just to shove the problem in a closet and lock the door. Unfortunately when last year’s MVP tests positive for performance enhancing drugs, it becomes a little more difficult to ignore the issue.
With Braun’s suspension lifted and Manny Ramirez signing a one year contract with the Oakland Athletics, it will be interesting to see how fans react to the war on drugs this season. Braun should once again lead the Brewers to a spot in the postseason, even without the help of Prince Fielder, and he will probably make a run at a second consecutive National League MVP Award; he will most likely due so under huge scrutiny from those ethical fans who care more about his health than anything else, but I wish him the best. I know he has denied having taken steroids, but guess what? I don’t believe him and you know what else? I’m not upset with him if he did. He’s trying to win games and make watching baseball fun, and, as a fan, I’m okay with anything that helps him do that.
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Nick McIsaac is Toronto Standard’s sports writer. Follow him on Twitter (for everything sports related) at @nickclass.
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