The Chris Moeller Archives

The dangerous lives of athlete boys

Following Major League Baseball through the media during the so-called "steroid" era is getting a little exhausting. If you let it get to you, it's easy to pin blame on the sport and begin weighing the prospect of running for the hills of respite and alternative pastimes.

I've successfully passed through this phase of exhaustion now-- mentally and emotionally freed by that article in Salon that I linked last week. The article, which, for me, finally turned all of the empty steroid hypocrisy in the media back on itself, was published to coincide with the release of the "tell-all" Alex Rodriguez biography. This week, the first challenge to my newly-found sanity was the Manny Ramirez suspension.

The harsh media and public reaction to the discovery that Ramirez used a banned substance while under a doctor's care has been swift and merciless. ESPN's Buster Olney called for the installation of a new zero-tolerance drug policy, forgetting I guess that the enormous business of baseball operates under the confines of a collective bargaining agreement designed to protect the interests and civil liberties of its employees. Fox's Mark Kriegel chided Manny's manager for pointing out the fact that the ballplayer is "a human being." In the LA Times today, Bill Plaschke is practically foaming at the mouth. All semblance of perspective seems to be gone. In baseball, we're left with the same climate of intolerance and inconsistency that's all-but-wrecked the sports of cycling and track-and-field.

As the Alva Noe article in Salon pointed out, sports are bad for your body. People need to finally come to grips with this fact. Our top athletes are going above and beyond what's good for the long term health of their bodies. They do this in exchange for a shot at a public glory they hope will be much more enduring, and I'm not only talking about the violent "contact" sports that seem to get a free pass on steroids because people already see them as inherently dangerous.

For example, it's unhealthy to run 20+ miles at a time. If life longevity is your goal, a brisk walk in comfortable shoes is a much better way to go. Likewise, it's bad for your heart to bulk up digesting the choice body parts of a cow for dinner every night. It's bad for your knees and ankles to jump up and down for a living on a hardwood floor, while your body twists and contorts itself around the flying limbs of others. It's unsanitary to piss on your hands. And it's rough on one's body to endure a series of elective surgeries on shoulders and elbows. (A high school friend of mine has lived with a torn rotator cuff since he was 16, but since he works in an insurance office for a living, instead of throwing baseballs, he's been able to avoid having to go under the knife.)

In terms of competitive fairness, do Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez have physical and medical advantages today that Babe Ruth didn't have in the 1920s? Not only are you right that they do, but you're fortunate as well, in terms of your own existence on this planet. It's called progress, and you can take that element into the equation if you want (and you should) when you debate who's the greatest slugger of all-time, but lets stop labeling PED usage "cheating" unless we're also going to label as such-- collateral ligament reconstruction (Tommy John surgery), laser-eye enhancement, or even polio shots. The sluggers coming up behind Rodriguez, Ramirez, Bonds, Howard, and Pujols will have advantages today's stars never dreamed about.

I'm satisfied with anything Manny Ramirez has to tell us about what he's put in his body through the years (and it's worth noting anyway that he's been passing MLB drug tests for six years.) With all the shit that's gone down in baseball for over a century and a half, from the racial exclusion of players to gambling to collusion, reporters and fans lamenting the disappearance of some sort of lost era of innocence and purity in the sport frankly deserve to be lied to.

Can we get back to the game already?

posted by CM @ 12:47 PM