NASCAR cheats. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and baseball cheat. Floyd Landis rides accused of cheating. Track and field world record holders like Justin Gatlin cheat. NFL players cheat. Horse trainers are giving their steeds cobra venom. You would think soon someone in Florida cheated to throw a US presidential election.
Group journalistic hand-wringing is consuming the print media. For some reason the NASCAR high-tech cheating caused the last flicker of hope to extinguish. We are firmly in the cheating, lying, 21st Century. If the 20th Century was the century of world war, genocide, communism, and science, the 21st has started out as the war in anti-doping labs, the century of high-tech sports cheats, and continuing genocide.
From Ft Wayne comes a typical piece talking about the cheating in sports.
Looking for a little extra power, a little extra oomph, the professional sports figure uses a banned substance to gain a competitive edge, however slight.
Baseball, the Olympics, bicycling, even horse racing – all have been tainted with scandals involving steroids or similar drugs.
(and now NASCAR) But jet fuel? Say it’s just a tale, Dale.
Now, we're all used to hearing about baseball and football players, track stars and cyclists using steroids. It's gotten so commonplace, it's not even front-page news anymore.
I'm just wondering when cheating became the norm in professional sport
Chris Walsh bemoans all the cheating (found here in the Tuscaloosa News)
Check some of the headlines from the past few weeks.
The primary issue in baseball’s Hall of Fame voting was Mark McGwire, even though no one has ever proved that he took anything illegal. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds’ on-again, off-again contract with the San Francisco Giants is finally done, one year, $15.8 million.
San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman was up for NFL defensive MVP honors even after testing positive and missing four games. From now on, players who fail the substance abuse policy will be banned from the Pro Bowl.George Mitchell warned baseball that lack of cooperation with his investigation into steroid use will “significantly increase" the chances of governmental involvement.
What are they waiting for?
Probably more outcry.
Dave Kreiger at the Rocky Mountain News has a headline that sums things up : Krieger: Integrity? In baseball, it no longer exists
It's been a busy week on the cheating front, and I'm not even talking about NASCAR, where Jeff Gordon was sent to the back of the Daytona pack for his quarter panels.
Barry Bonds finally signed his new contract with the Giants, meaning it is only a matter of time before a product of modern chemistry owns baseball's career home run record.
On the bright side, the Colorado lawyer-leaker in the federal BALCO case reached a plea agreement with prosecutors that let San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru- Wada and Lance Williams off the hook for the work that led to Game of Shadows, the best piece of sports journalism in our time.
Had they imprisoned the guys who broke open baseball's steroids scandal, it would have sent, shall we say, a mixed message to all those kids that are ostensibly the basis for the rules against performance-enhancing drugs.
Unfortunately, Shadows demonstrated beyond any doubt that some athletes will risk their careers, not to mention their health, for the chance at immortality or riches or both.
Fort Worth Calls out Bud Selig: Dear, Bud, just turn the page
From Allentown PA, comes more pleading...and angst.
I'm having a difficult time figuring out which major news story, the death of Anna Nicole Smith or NASCAR's cheating ''scandal,'' is least surprising — Anna Nicole's death because she hadn't put together a coherent sentence since, well, ever, and NASCAR's cheating scandal because, really, who doesn't cheat, especially in sports?
Baseball players juice up, cork bats, spit on balls; football players juice up, hold, push and grab when they're not supposed to; basketball players palm the ball; hockey players curve their blades; soccer players fake injuries; sprinters inject illegal drugs; so do cyclists. Professional golfers, it seems, are the only honest lot out there. Problem is, their recreational brethren are as crooked as a three-dollar bill....
So how do you stop cheating?
Well, you don't. If it's idealistic to think the players would ever police themselves, it's even more so to believe a set of rules would scare them all straight. Because no matter how harsh the penalty, someone will still find the reward outweighs the risk. Just look at track and field.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer offers some hope: at least a doctor or two at the Cleveland Clinic hasn't seen multitudes of fatal side-effects from steroids (yet). Amazing because the reports of steroid/EPO/HGH morbidity and mortality are out there.
When The Nation considers history, essentially a time line of scandals and cheating, it is easy to become pessimistic about the human response to competition: to cheat. It's pandemic. Let's get back to more cheery stories, like Anna Nicole Smith, or genocide...
Not everyone is cheating. We need to recognize those honest champions rather than constantly reporting on the cheaters. Only the customer can force change. . . the fans. The fans need to demand a change . . . have you seen www.livetrue61.com?
Posted by: swbkrn | 02/20/2007 at 12:27