Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy
Revealing secrets concerning our national security won't get a reporter in trouble.
But Barry Bonds taking steroids is much more important than that.
I never have figured out why it's such a big deal that an exceptional employee took performance enhancing drugs.
I can only assume that the best baggage handlers at major airports should be under suspicion for doing it, too. Why only atheletes?
What about that curb-girl at the Sonic that's awesomely fast? Something's up with her.
In this country baseball is like a religion of sorts. It's integrity is very very serious business. For someone to break long time records is a part of the game. But to find out they broke those records unfairly, by cheating, is to shake our faith in the institution of the game and it's records.
It is very serious business when any players cheat. But when they cheat and in so doing cheapen the records of the game, the demise of the game itself would soon follow.
There's no other institution in America with such deep roots and which enjoys the same popularity and participation and has remained pretty much unchanged throughout the generations.
We can't compare our time to the time of the 1940's. The peoples values have changed too much. But with baseball's stats and records we can always have a standard of performance that tells us of the potential of the athlete of that day and era. To introduce steroids into the mix is to be tantamount to changing the whole game.
If steroids are allowed then those who do them will have an unfair advantage over those who don't. The only way to compete is to start taking them yourself. And what if you choose not to because of their health hazards?
The only answer is to ban them and to designate any records set by those who took them as having been set by use of unnatural enhancements.