The message appears to be seeping out. Rick Morrissey and the Chicago Tribune get it. Murray Chass at the New York Times, not so much.
Yes, HGH, human growth hormone, becomes illegal when prescribed without a legitimate prescription. The defrocked dentist working with the busted Internet pharmacy would not be considered on the up and up. HGH, synthesized for children who do not produce enough endogenous hormone, really was not targeted at 6-2, 240 pound left fielders. Really.
The ballplayers' standard defense will be that MLB didn't ban HGH until 2005 and therefore it
was OK to use the drug before then. Yes, but it was criminally illegal unless prescribed by a doctor. There are athletes, doctors and over-exuberant dentists out there who should be doing some heavy duty sweating right about now.
Not all of the substances were banned by baseball when the players were said to have received them, but they are now.
So the MLB needs to ban a substance or a an action for it to be considered naughty? Does MLB ban parking in handicapped spaces? Does baseball feature a rule suspending a player for embezzling the front office's payroll? If a player becomes the kingpin of a cocaine cartel which deals down on the third base foul line, does he retain his Hall of Fame eligibility?
The recent PED/steroid/HGH scandals constitute a side note to federal investigations of drug trafficing, or conspiracy, aimed at dealers. That's the usual MO of the 'war on drugs'.
If you believe the use of a children's hormone by a tall strapping athlete seems a bit twisted; if the diversion of an anabolic steroid from an AIDS patient to a home run slugger defines perversion; or if Clomid used as a anti-estrogen in an athlete's body rather than used as a fertility treatment to enhance women unable to become pregnant, then enlist in the 'sports fraud' army.
That these guys misuse the drugs -- designed for children, women, and AIDS patients -- with a clear conscious speaks volumes where sports ethics treads today; that moral high ground appears impossible to recapture between the lines.
So send these cheaters a message: sports fraud constitutes the condition where you violate the ethical use of medicines and treatments to defraud the fans, your competitors, and the game itself.
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