We love steroids. In fact, they are the greatest thing to happen to sports since the Mets won the World Series in 1986! Got your attention now?
The confirmation of Floyd Landis' positive test for abnormally high testosterone levels this weekend continued the inundation of the American public with news of performance enhancement. For nearly a decade, the sports media has laid a cloud of suspicion over every athlete who competes successfully on a global stage. I contend, however, that the steroids obsession is not one of heartbreaking consternation but rather a subconsciously beloved addition to this country's most popular form of entertainment.
The year was 1998 and the world of sports was being turned on its head by the most prolific home run binge in baseball history. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were both on pace to shatter Roger Maris' 37-year-old single-season home run record. When the dust settled, both players had done the impossible, smashing the 60-home run barrier. McGuire edged Sosa by four dingers, but soon afterwards androstenedione entered the vernacular and the steroids witch-hunt officially commenced.
Every day new articles and television stories appear, denouncing steroid abusers and speaking of a "dark age" in sports. And every day these stories receive more and more hits online and even greater ratings on TV. Talk-radio is flooded daily with callers breathlessly debating the consequences of steroid use in professional sports. Performance-enhancing drugs have excited the general public to a fever pitch, providing Americans with their true favorite pastime -- celebrity controversy.
The American public fiends for gossip, looking for dirt anywhere they can find it. No matter our moral standards, we love to scrutinize the moral failures of others, especially those in the public eye. We are a country that wholeheartedly condemns infidelity, yet what has received more attention than the Pitt-Jolie-Aniston love triangle? Our national collective focus becomes clear when rising interest rates take a back seat to discussions of Russell Crowe's most recent phone-throwing incident or of whether a president will be better remembered for having oral sex in the Oval Office than for anything else. We are kidding ourselves if we think steroid scandals are anything other than yet another national guilty pleasure.
The issue of steroids in sports also speaks to one of the most distinct ironies in the American psyche. The United States is a land of milk and honey where people are encouraged to be all they can be and achieve all they can achieve. Yet Americans continue to be grotesquely satisfied watching giants fall (no pun intended, Barry). We love to hate. Nowhere else can one go from hero to zero after a single headline. We look for the faults in celebrities to remind ourselves that they, too, are human, and when they fail it allows us to feel better about own lot in life. Steroids in sports simply propagate the sick pleasure we take in the ruin of others. The scandals allow us to tear down the Herculean accomplishments of virtually every athlete, propping our own egos up on the rubble.
There are many traditionalists who argue that steroids ruin the purity of sport, that natural competition is undermined by performance-enhancing drugs. This contention is nave at best. When the first million-dollar contract was signed more than twenty years ago, "purity" became nothing more than a laughable memory. To think that purity, or even fairness for that matter, still exists in professional sports is ludicrous. Some might say steroids provide an unfair advantage to athletes who use versus athletes who don't. I'd say George Steinbrenner is an unfair advantage to the rest of the major league teams that cannot match his spending power. The comparison may be a bit of a stretch, but the principle behind it holds true. Sports worldwide is a business -- "for love the game" is, sadly, extinct.
The most valid argument against steroids comes from parents who fear their children will begin using in an attempt to copy their idols. Athletes have always been considered role models, but there is, as there always has been, a danger in putting individuals celebrated for their brawn on a moral pedestal. Parents worried about their child thinking illicit drugs are the only way to be an athlete should take an active role in painting steroids as the hazardous, self-destructive instruments they are.
I, of course, am not condoning steroid usage. I would never congratulate athletes for cheating the system and, in the end, themselves. Grown adults must take responsibility for their actions and appreciate the costs. Nevertheless, who are we to condemn a "tragedy" of our own design? We, as paying fans, demand superhuman performances from our million dollar babies. There is never such thing as enough in 21st century sports. Owners and coaches have employed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy of their own for decades, and only now that steroids have become the gossip-driven flavor of the week is this coming back to bite them. We love this drama -- if we didn't, we'd stop paying unbelievably irrational prices to see men in tight uniforms run after balls, we'd stop tuning in every night to Sportscenter hoping another star has fallen. We created the steroids epidemic, and we're happy we did.
