Letter to anti-Barry sportswriters

And now, a post that has nothing to do with gap years. A letter to the mob-like sportswriters foaming at the mouth in their mad rush to condemn former users of performance-enhancing drugs:

Using steroids is dangerous and irresponsible. But when their use is legal, using them is not immoral. The onus to act against steroid use falls on the rule makers, not the individuals.

Not all dangerous actions are immoral. Suicide is a dangerous choice, but not an immoral one. Not all irresponsible actions are immoral. Cutting oneself is irresponsible but not immoral (unless others, the cutter’s children, for example are harmed).

An argument that steroid use does have victims beyond the perpetrator is that an athlete’s use of steroids pressures his or her competitors to use steroids. Competitors want to stay even with each other, so if one athlete uses, other athletes will feel pressured to also use for fear of falling behind. It’s a race to the bottom of safety standards.

But in “races to the bottom,” of which there are many real-world examples, the blame should usually fall on the system, not the individual.

A good example is companies’ environmental standards. Companies that pollute will continue polluting, for fear of falling behind other companies that pollute, until a system-wide rule is put in place that limits pollution. If no system-wide standard exists, then observers can bewail the situation, but they cannot reasonably blame the companies. These companies are acting naturally by trying to increase profits.

The onus of deciding which profit-boosts are off-limits falls on the ruling body (in this case, the national government). The decisions are too complicated to force individual companies to parse through and decide. Also, each limit works against the self-interest of the individual company, so it must be carried out across the board. Only the ruling body has the power to place a regulation on every company. It has the unique power to act comprehensively, so the responsibility to make restrictions falls on the ruling body.

Professional athletes do everything they can to get ahead. Any boost they use pressures their competitors to act similarly. Some boosts are harmless or even healthy. Athletes eat right, stay fit, watch hours of tape, study opposing teams, and drill fundamentals. Some boosts have the potential to harm. Athletes work themselves to exhaustion, ride past dehydration, pitch with torn rotator cuffs, play through sickness, and use performance-enhancing drugs. Most of these boosts are legal, and some (like playing with the flu, even if playing exacerbates the symptoms) are celebrated. The onus of deciding which boosts are off-limits falls on the ruling body (in the case of baseball players, the MLB). As with companies and environmental standards, the complexity of defining limits and the need for across-the-board action make it unfair to blame the individual for going beyond one limit or another. The responsibility to act falls on the ruling body.

Another argument that steroid use does have victims beyond the perpetrator is that steroids provide an artificial advantage to one athlete that other athletes do not have. Non-users finish races with slower times, hit fewer homeruns, run for less yardage, and generally perform at a lower level than users.

But athletes often use boosts that are not natural or are dangerous. Some athletes eat power bars, a product not found in nature, some use Stairmasters, another product not found in nature, and some use machines that stimulate muscles through electric pulses, a third product not found in nature. Dangerous boosts are similarly common; some of the examples of athletes going beyond a body’s breaking point are listed above.

Steroids are an unnatural, dangerous boost. That’s why they are bad. Once they are banned, using them is a form of cheating. But until they are banned, using them is not cheating.

Many say that Barry Bonds cheated. My understanding of the issue is that at the time when sources purport him to have used steroids, steroid use was not against MLB rules.

I take issue with the idea that Barry Bonds “cheated.” Was he cheating when he ate synthetically produced dietary supplements, used Stairmasters, and watched hours of tape? Even though these boosts are artificial advantages Hank Aaron never had, no one accuses him of cheating for these reasons. Was he cheating when he worked himself to the point of injury? Even though this advantage is dangerous, no one accuses him of cheating for this reason. Was he cheating when he used steroids? Steroids were just another legal means to increase the effectiveness of his swing. He was boosting his abilities through artificial and dangerous methods, but he was not cheating.

Blaming individuals when the onus is actually on the rule-makers (as was and is the case with steroids) is a bad idea. It leads to complacency by implicitly absolving the rule-makers of their responsibility to make the rules.

To see how far this complacency can go, consider once again environmental standards. George W. Bush’s policy is lenient toward polluters. It gives them a lot of leeway. Bush argues that companies will take it upon themselves not to pollute excessively. The policy comes from the idea that individuals bear the responsibility to place limits on themselves, even when defining those limits is extremely difficult and even in race-to-the-bottom situations. It’s a scary, dysfunctional policy.

Steroids are bad. Steroids are horrible. They hurt athletes and sports. The people who make the rules were right to ban them. Now, users are cheaters, and that is good for athletes, fans, and sports.

But before the ban, users were not cheaters. I’ll be sad when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s record, because Hank Aaron is awesome, and Barry Bonds is a schmuck. But I’ll accept the new record as legit.