Steroids

[trojansrule]

Is it really cheating to use a substance that the rules of one's sport do not prohibit? In other words, was it cheating for MLB players to use steroids and HGH before baseball banned them?

Where do we draw the line between the "bad" performance-enhancing substances and the supposedly "OK" performance-enhancing substances players from little league through the majors take all the time?

You can go down to the health food store or the GNC and get tons of stuff that's supposed to build muscle mass faster and help you get more out of your workout. Why is it not cheating to take that, but it's wrong to use other substances that accomplish essentially the same thing.

Keep in mind, I'm not asking whether it is wise to use such substances. Some of those can clearly harm your health, and that's an individual choice each will have to make.

[washedupredskin]

Yes it is cheating. Regardless of whether baseball had banned the substances at the time, it was still illegal under law to take those substances without the prescription of a doctor. Plus even though steroids weren't banned, there was still a general consensus that using steroids would be cheating.

The stuff you get at GNC aren't anywhere near the same thing as steroids. Things like creatine don't directly built muscle. What creatine does is basically give you more energy so for example: instead of being able to put up 8 reps at 200 lbs you'll put up 10. The benefit being, if you're able to do more reps you'll get stronger because you're working harder. I never personally took creatine, but this is how it was explained to me by a Human Physiology professor. And protein shakes are basically just like choosing to have a diet of mostly protein to build muscle.

By injecting Steroids or HGH into your body, you're giving yourself hormone therapy, and putting more of that hormone into your body than your body was intended to produce. And that's the reason your balls disintegrate if you take Testosterone for too long. They produce the testosterone, so when you put more testosterone into your body than is needed there is a negative reaction causing them to shut down. The same thing can happen to your Pituitary Gland if you use HGH. There's a huge difference between THIS and what you get in GNC in my opinion.

Steroids are a big problem in High School football as well. There are two programs that I know of by speaking with players, in which steroid use is rampant. I won't say which programs, because what's the point in ruining a school's reputation? Personally, the only thing I ever tried were the protein shakes and that lasted for about two weeks. I'd rather eat all beef and chicken all the time then have to down those nasty shakes. And it disgusts me to know that it goes on in HS football because of how much work I had to put in just to be a half way decent player. If I wanted to I could've taken them and become a monster, but then I would have always wondered if I could've won the starting spot with out the help. I did it with no help and I take great pride in that. I could never have lived with myself if one of my teammates was sitting on the bench because I cheated.

As for what I think of guys like Barry Bonds and now Roger Clemens. I think they should be erased from the baseball record books. It should be as if they never played the game.

[washedupredskin]

This explains the workings of Creatine.

health.discovery.com/centers/nutritionfitness/fitnessqa/creatine.html

[scooterjumbo]

Hanz & Franz (SNL) will "PUMP YOU UP" for free.

[washedupredskin]

Unless you're just a girlie man and don't want to be pumped up

[scooterjumbo]

washedupredskin said:

Unless you're just a girlie man and don't want to be pumped up

Spek for you my friend. SNL fan I see. ;D

[washedupredskin]

The ones from the 90's yes. Nowadays SNL kinda sucks. But back in the days of Dana Carvey, Will Ferrell, and Chris Farley along with Celebrity Jeopardy, SNL couldn't be beat. Who was the guy who always played Sean Connery in Celebrity Jeopardy?

[trojansrule]

First: the SNL guy is Darrell Hammond. He does tons of impersonations and voice impressions.

Next: I will agree completely with you that doing steroids or HGH to improve athletic purposes is dumb, and especially stupid at the high school level.

My question remains - why is it considered cheating if it's not against the rules? Lots of MLB players have used amphetamines for years, probably to offset the effects of so many games, long road trip, day/night doubleheaders, etc. Those drugs are illegal, and could be considered performance-enhancing, to the effect they help players stay awake and alert during games. There's no big outrage about amphetamines, though, perhaps because they don't make you look like a superhuman freak.

Creatine gives you energy to allow you to build larger muscles through working out more. Steroids give you larger muscles by making those workouts more effective. Both are artificial substances that result in bigger, stronger athletes.

Also, from the article you linked to about creatine:

"Safety is another issue. There have been reports of kidney troubles with regular use or abuse of creatine supplements. The Food and Drug Administration is conducting ongoing studies to determine the side effects of creatine use, especially as there are no good studies of the long-term effects of creatine use. Also, since creatine is not regulated, different manufacturers have different standards for purity and concentration of creatine. "

So should high school athletes (or anyone for that matter) use creatine until its safety is determined?

[washedupredskin]

Until something presents itself as a problem, there is not going to be a rule for it. Like corking your bat for example, there wasn't a rule for it until people found out that some players were doing it. And just this year Alex Rodriguez yelled "Mine!" on a pop fly as he was rounding third base, causing the Toronto Blue Jays third baseman to let the ball drop because he thought his shortstop had called him off. There's is no rule against doing this, yet it was almost universally considered cheating. The point is, that just because there is no written rule for something, that doesn't mean it's not cheating.

If you don't see creatine as completely different than steroids then I don't know what to tell you. Steroids don't work the same way as creatine. They directly build muscle, you dont have to do any extra work. You can do the same amount of work as the guy next to you, but you will be gaining more muscle than he will. Like I said, creatine is just one type of energy supplement. Caffeine can be used the same way. So can energy drinks. As far as the safety issues, the only problems that I have heard of is if you use too much of it( which is why younger players are discouraged from taking it) But any substance is like that. Drinking too much water can kill you. Energy drinks and too much sugar are also bad for your kidneys.

[trojansrule]

Don't get me wrong - I am not in any way advocating the use of steroids or HGH or anything like that to enhance athletic performance. My point is that the powers that be are having to draw pretty fine distinctions between "good" performance-enhancing substances, which are OK, and "bad" performance-enhancing substances, which are not.

Regardless of whether it works in the same manner as steroids, creatine is still a performance-enhancing substance. A player who uses it will, in all likelihood, become stronger and more successful athletically than an equally-talented player who does not use it. My point is that what is considered "cheating," even though it's not in violation of the written rules, can often be a very gray area, subject to personal interpretations of what is right and wrong.

And don't kid yourself - MLB has known all about steroid use for a long, long time. If Barry Bonds was a fan favorite, a likeable sort of player, there would not be nearly the outcry as he approched Hank Aaron's record (which I'm old enough to remember happening). Modern players will always have numerous advantages over those who played with less advanced training regimens and techniques.

If a very popular player was the one breaking Aaron's record, many would say that steroids were just another of many improvements in training techniques. Bonds' thorough unlikeability made fans want to find a reason his record was tainted, and his obvious steroid use made an easy target.

[yerout]

Washed,

There is a "verbal obstruction" rule in the book .... it is just very seldom used.

Also, there is another seldom used rule that states, " anything not covered in the rule book may be amended by the home plate umpire at the time of the infraction" In softball it's rule 10 - 9 - B . I'm not sure where it is in baseball ........

[washedupredskin]

Trojansrule, you have to make a distinction between what is a good performance enhancing substance and a bad performance enhancing substance because almost anything can be classified as such. Does drinking water before and during a sporting event not enhance your performance? Also doesn't getting a good night sleep the night before a game help performance? So maybe Nyquil should be considered a performance enhancer too? Steroids are in a group entirely to themselves.

And no I do not think creatine will help you any more than drinking an energy drink before you work out, so no I don't think that a person who uses creatine will be any better of an athlete than the next person. It's all about energy. Depending on your blood sugar levels on the day you take creatine, if they're down, you may have even less energy than the person next to you if you're not eating right. I think it absolutely matters that it works in a different manner than steroids. It's not giving you anything you don't work for. And to me the ultimate defining factor as to whether something is considered cheating is whether less work is required to achieve the same results. You get that with steroids, with creatine you do not.

Honestly I don't care how long MLB knew about steroid use. It matters not. And it didn't make any difference that barry bonds was the one implicated, and he wasn't even the first. Ever heard of Mark McGwire? There were whispers of him doing it before we heard anything about bonds(Which is why i rooted so hard for bonds to break the single season record. I wanted someone clean to have it.) And guess what? It was still controversial then. Do you know why? Because it was considered cheating. My gosh not everything has to be a written rule for it to be valid. Baseball has many such "unwritten" rules.

YOU are kidding yourself trojansrule. It wouldn't matter at all to me whether it was bonds roiding, or sosa, or derek jeter, or my favorite player Ken Griffey Jr. I would still give no legitimacy to the record had it come to light that they took steroids. Cheating is cheating, regardless of the likability of the player.

[washedupredskin]

yerout said:

Washed,

There is a "verbal obstruction" rule in the book .... it is just very seldom used.

Also, there is another seldom used rule that states, " anything not covered in the rule book may be amended by the home plate umpire at the time of the infraction" In softball it's rule 10 - 9 - B . I'm not sure where it is in baseball ........

Thanks, I didn't know that. Why wasn't it used in rodriguez's case as it clearly affected the fielder?

[trojansrule]

MLB, from the owners on down, knew that steroids were being widely used. GMs, managers, players all knew. The players' association knew, but did nothing. Nobody screamed "cheating" until Barry Bonds' head grew three sizes and Congress got involved. There was no rule against it. It's pretty hard to call that cheating.

In contrast, everybody knows that certain pitchers scuff the ball or throw spitters. Everybody knows that is against one of the established rules of baseball. When a pitcher is suspected of doctoring the ball, the batter complains and the ump checks it out. If found to be true, the pitcher is ejected. That's cheating.

By the way, one of the most (in)famous spitballers, Gaylord Perry, is in the Hall of Fame. Nobody's screaming for him to be taken out.

While I'm not convinced that the use of steroids constituted true cheating before it was outlawed by MLB, I agree that it was good to ban them and similar substances. It's bad policy to permit the use of substances which are known to have serious long-term health consequences. This forces players to choose between being competitive and risking those consequences.

It's difficult for an outsider to say exactly what he would do if faced with the situation where use of steroids for a limited time could result in a multi-million dollar contract instead of languishing in the minors, or riding the pine if you do make it to the show. We would all like to say we would take the high road and do the right thing, but we aren't facing that call.

[washedupredskin]

trojansrule said:

MLB, from the owners on down, knew that steroids were being widely used. GMs, managers, players all knew. The players' association knew, but did nothing. Nobody screamed "cheating" until Barry Bonds' head grew three sizes and Congress got involved. There was no rule against it. It's pretty hard to call that cheating.

It was already illegal in the olympics(baseball is played there) so obviously it was considered cheating long before baseball did anything about it. Everyone knew it was cheating, they just figured they'd sweep it under the rug. It's not as if all, or even the majority of players, took steroids. Most knew it was cheating. I don't care if there was a rule, it was still something you knew you shouldn't do and was unethical. And no it's not hard to call that cheating. No amount of spin could ever make me think what Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Pettite, and others did should ever be considered anything but cheating.

I don't think it is difficult to know what I would have done in that situation. I already made that choice and so do thousands of players every year. I didn't have millions on the table but I could've taken steroids for two years and parlayed it into a scholarship, instead of being an average football player in highschool and now struggling to pay for college. And believe me, steroids would have made that much of a difference. There was a certain Tulsa World player of the year from a few years back that started out as a scrawny little guy before he got roided out of his mind(not on my team.) And with those steroids he got himself a full ride. Again won't mention names.