OMG, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America is
boycotting the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. How dare they? Perhaps the era
of enhancement drugs is wrong, but how do we actually know that? Steroids, their
uses, and benefits are well known and like most drugs have side effects which give
their application some need for risk analysis. Are sport writers, sports
management, medical professionals, or even the public qualified to judge?
First, but surely not most important, I find it interesting
that the New York Times would publish
three quarters of a blank page to dramatize this year’s choices for baseball’s
Hall of Fame. No wonder the newspaper business is in trouble. Who is paying for
that space? Was there an advertiser to underwrite the void? It is difficult for
me to respect these decisions by either the New
York Times or the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
A word about steroids: how many of us have used steroids? My
bet is that most have. How about hydrocortisone? We put it on bug bites, scrapes
and scratches, skin ailments, and in inhalers to treat asthma. Hydrocortisone
is produced naturally by the adrenal gland, but its manufactured form is widely
used and its value is not questioned. Progesterone and estradiol are used every
day by millions of women. Anabolic steroids are naturally produced by the body
and promote bone and muscle growth. Synthetic versions are the culprit in controversies
involving athletes.
Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens are probably
the most known athletes that have dominated the news. Bonds and Clemens were
both on the list of those nominated this year as candidates for the baseball
Hall of Fame for the first time. Home run sluggers Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were
also passed over by these sportswriters. Babe Ruth, however, a man of some very
questionable moral values, may stand at the highest level of esteem among our
athletic heroes.
Let’s look at this issue from a different perspective. What
about women who have enhanced their breasts? What about the privileged school
children whose families can afford tutors to help them compete for academic
success? What about our soldiers who have better weapons on the field of
battle? What about Viagra? What about those of us who have ever gotten a job
because we knew someone? There are many kinds of enhancements that we all use
to get ahead in the world.
So, what’s right? Is it ethically correct for a politician
to rely on the influence of lobbyists whose job is to educate rather than base their
judgment on emotional ignorance? Is it the right thing for our colleges and
universities to promise anything to student athletes other than an education?
If we start thinking about these things, we can all come up with examples of
the nebulous philosophical questions that we are all faced with.
Athletes are just as human as the rest of us. They seek
approval. They seek attention. They love their sport. They seek success. There
are any number of levels of dedication and commitment. Our culture encourages
all sorts of ethical compromises and then arbitrarily makes judgments on those
that we would like to feel we are better than. Athletes are natural targets for
our hypocrisy. They were favored growing up. They dated the cheerleaders that
we lusted after. They were popular. They earn more money. They make headlines
for their personal lives that show they are really no better than the rest of
us. They deserve what they get!
But wait, we are Americans! Altruism and high moral
standards are an important part of our culture. We are also capitalists and
most everything, including sports, can be viewed as a business. Do you think
that the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY would exist if not for the
tourists who see it as a shrine and make that pilgrimage visit? How many times
have we heard questionable human behavior justified by the premise that “it’s
not personal, it’s business”? It’s a competitive world out there and we need to
succeed to survive. Just ask Darwin.
Therefore, I laugh at the Baseball Writers of America. I
laugh at the pretentious New York Times
that prints only the “news that is fit to print”. I laugh at my fellow Americans, and I laugh at
myself. How do we fix this?
