Hopefully this will be my last post on the issue.
McMegan, a libertarian on most things, offers this thought:
There's something upsetting about the fact that athletic contests are less and less a measurement of your willingness to train, and more and more a measure of your body's responsiveness to arcane chemical cocktails. On the other hand, I don't see how to stop it, given that athletes at that level are pretty much insane.
But it isn't a choice between chemical cocktails and training. As she says, they are insane, and they are going to do everything they possibly can to win. It isn't either/or, it's everything. And it has always been this way. Before there were 'roids in baseball there was amphetamines, sand paper, spit, and razor blades. This isn't anything new. It is as old as the sport itself. Or more accurately, it is as old as sport itself. Go read about the way Greek olympians trained and you will see what I mean.
But that small error from McMegan is minor, and in her big finish she gets it exactly right:
Yes, to some extent, we're selecting for athletes who are willing to do extreme and dangerous things to their body in order to win--but then, most olympic and pro athletes, except perhaps swimmers, are destroying their bodies anyway and we find that laudable. Athletes from runners to pro football players will all mostly end their lives crippled by joint problems and old injuries; boxers will end their lives ten or so IQ points lower than they started. But no one worries that we're selecting our athletes for a willingness to trade a healthy old age for victory now. And if you're willing to do to your shoulders what pitchers do to theirs, I'm not sure how big a step it is to inject testosterone analogs.
As I've said before, I just don't get it. If we ban this, why don't we ban "natural" nutritional supplements, too? What precisely is the difference between the one and the other? How does one threaten the integrity of the game if the other does not? I realize everyone acts as if this is obvious, but I just do not see it.
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