PEDs and the 1 way to restore fairness

White_Savage

Mentor
Joined
May 20, 2005
Messages
1,217
Location
Texas
The recent downfall of Marion Jones got me thinking.

My first reaction was to wonder how the hell anyone could look at a woman with the body of a Marvel Comics action figure (A male character, mind you, Spidey is a good match for Jones' physique) and NOT know she was doping.

BTW, to further illustrate how pervasive PED use is at all levels, I ran into a 20 year old Black guy who plays for the local Junior college's basketball team. He had a truly grisly case of acne. For those of you who don't remember when athletes weren't as drugged as beef cattle, grown, beard sporting men aren't normally adorned with the zits of a second puberty.

My second assesment was, "Well, she's screwed now, but if she had never won, she'd never have been anything."

And that is really true. If you do, or don't take PEDs and loose, you're a looser, period and no one really cares whether or not you doped.

If you win and get away with it, world is your oyster. Get caught later like Jones...well, at least you were something for awhile.

When you consider, it's easy to see why it's practically certain most of the people in the winner's circle will be doping most of the time.

There is only so much officials can do to insure fairness. Sure, you can make sure a boxer doesn't have loaded gloves when he steps in the ring, etc., but with the ingenuity of the PED chemists at work, staying ahead of the dopers in sports seems like a loosing battle.

I don't like the turn the PED witch hunt has taken either. I HATE Barry Bonds as a person, but this totalitarian practice of calling citizens on the carpet, prying into their most personal, none-of-thy-business affairs, and then indicting them for perjury if they aren't absolutely honest is FRIGHTENING. So are the bullying tactics of John McCain, that 1st Amendment and MMA-hating hemorhoid who apparently thinks Congress has the right to define the rules of Major League Baseball

My conclusion there is perhaps one, and only one way to level the playing field, especially for those athletes who may have a genetic tendency to be more anxious and less willing to break the rules. That way is to simply quit trying to stop them from doing what we know they are most all doing anyway.Edited by: White_Savage
 

jaxvid

Hall of Famer
Joined
Oct 15, 2004
Messages
7,247
Location
Michigan
White_Savage said:
My conclusion there is perhaps one, and only one way to level the playing field, especially for those athletes who may have a genetic tendency to be more anxious and less willing to break the rules. That way is to simply quit trying to stop them from doing what we know they are most all doing anyway.

I can't see how that won't happen anyway. We live in a society where virtually all classic concepts of morality have been stripped away and wrecked. The taboo of PED's will eventually follow. There is just no moral high ground to resist it. I think first there will be an attempt to regulate the amounts an athlete can use then eventually it will be unrestricted. In the future Barry Bonds won't be considered a pariah for his drug use but instead one of the founding fathers of the new era of using science to maximize human athletic potential.
 

Bart

Hall of Famer
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
4,329
jaxvid said:
In the future Barry Bonds won't be considered a pariah for his drug use but instead one of the founding fathers of the new era of using science to maximize human athletic potential.


Bud Seligwill be pushing for a Jackie Robinson - Barry Bonds month in baseball honoring African pioneers.
 

Poacher

Mentor
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
Messages
943
The chemists can stay one step ahead of the tests but there is another alternative to drug testing and that's the polygraph.

From what I've read those things are about 75% accurate which, combined with questionable test results, would be proof enough for me.

Put them on the lie detector and see what happens. There is no masking agent for that.
 
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Messages
476
Location
United States
The problem is that the establishment (NFL, NBA, NCAA, etc.) WANTS their players using illegal enhancements, because it makes their players seem superhuman and draws more interest. As long as they allow a guy who gets caught using steroids to be named Defensive Player of the year, or break Home Run records, they won't be serious about policing this issue. It would really be simple to stop if they wanted to, you would simply write into their contracts that if caught using any banned substance you would be banned for life and be forced to payback all of your earnings, because in fact you really didn't earn it, you cheated.
 
G

Guest

Guest
White_Savage said:
The recent downfall of Marion Jones got me thinking.

My first reaction was to wonder how the hell anyone could look at a woman with the body of a Marvel Comics action figure (A male character, mind you, Spidey is a good match for Jones' physique) and NOT know she was doping.

BTW, to further illustrate how pervasive PED use is at all levels, I ran into a 20 year old Black guy who plays for the local Junior college's basketball team. He had a truly grisly case of acne. For those of you who don't remember when athletes weren't as drugged as beef cattle, grown, beard sporting men aren't normally adorned with the zits of a second puberty.

My second assesment was, "Well, she's screwed now, but if she had never won, she'd never have been anything."

And that is really true. If you do, or don't take PEDs and loose, you're a looser, period and no one really cares whether or not you doped.

If you win and get away with it, world is your oyster. Get caught later like Jones...well, at least you were something for awhile.

When you consider, it's easy to see why it's practically certain most of the people in the winner's circle will be doping most of the time.

There is only so much officials can do to insure fairness. Sure, you can make sure a boxer doesn't have loaded gloves when he steps in the ring, etc., but with the ingenuity of the PED chemists at work, staying ahead of the dopers in sports seems like a loosing battle.

I don't like the turn the PED witch hunt has taken either. I HATE Barry Bonds as a person, but this totalitarian practice of calling citizens on the carpet, prying into their most personal, none-of-thy-business affairs, and then indicting them for perjury if they aren't absolutely honest is FRIGHTENING. So are the bullying tactics of John McCain, that 1st Amendment and MMA-hating hemorhoid who apparently thinks Congress has the right to define the rules of Major League Baseball

My conclusion there is perhaps one, and only one way to level the playing field, especially for those athletes who may have a genetic tendency to be more anxious and less willing to break the rules. That way is to simply quit trying to stop them from doing what we know they are most all doing anyway.
Almost every pro athlete uses something to become faster or stronger ect.

Its only the dumb ones that get caught.

How many here would or would not use if their athletic ability was how they made a living ?.
 

PitBull

Guru
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
448
That's a bad argument. Unless sonebody were unbelievabley stupid, they
could make a living in a variety of ways. There's no good excuse to cheat.
Its a moral question, not a monetary one.
 

white is right

Hall of Famer
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
10,179
Yes but few people could make that kind of income. See what type of job Jones gets when the dust settles over this scandal. Ben Johnson hasn't been able to do much since he was forced out of track(He is semi-literate at best). As for Bonds being a founding father for PED usage he also could be warning symbol for PED abuse if he drops dead at 50 something too....
smiley36.gif
smiley2.gif
 
G

Guest

Guest
PitBull said:
That's a bad argument. Unless sonebody were unbelievabley stupid, they
could make a living in a variety of ways. There's no good excuse to cheat.
Its a moral question, not a monetary one.
A pro athlete makes his living based on how well he performs on the field.

If the difference between number one and number two is millions in prize money and endorsements you will use what you can get away with.

If you are a pro athlete who stays clean but cannot reach the top if you dont use something then you have wasted YEARS of your life knowing that you can NEVER EVER reach the plateau of winners.



Edited by: Turner
 
Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
359
Reminds of a page 2 article on ESPN last year. Argued that athletes ought to be able to use PEDs, because look at the Beatles when they started getting high...
 

jaxvid

Hall of Famer
Joined
Oct 15, 2004
Messages
7,247
Location
Michigan
Matt_Bowen_Fan said:
Reminds of a page 2 article on ESPN last year. Argued that athletes ought to be able to use PEDs, because look at the Beatles when they started getting high...

The Beatles were always getting high!
 
Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
359
I'm talking LSD and harder drugs, not just pot smoking.
 
Top