Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, authors of Game of Shadows, make a compelling case concerning the use of performance enhancing substances in sport. Designer steroids (such as the Clear and the Cream) or Human Growth Hormone have powered numerous athletic achievements, from baseball’s home run chases to the 2000 Olympics. After reading the book, it is difficult to take any sporting record seriously.
Where is the line? Where do vitamins or natural products like flaxseed oil end and controlled substances like steroids or H.G.H. begin? Lance Armstrong’s decision to devote his entire career to train for the Tour de France gives him an advantage over competitors who contest a full cycling season. How is that different from Barry Bonds’ choice to sculpt his body so he can maximize his ability to hit for power?
Sport has been plagued by a lack of consistency and fluctuating standards. According to the authors, Jason Giambi was a B.A.L.C.O. regular yet Bud Selig has announced that he will not be penalized because he admitted his transgressions. Steroids were not banned in baseball before 2003, so what grounds remain to sanction Bonds? Perjury, arrogance, and rudeness?
Ty Cobb, Cap Anson, and numerous friends of former Veterans’ Committee members are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. There is no reason to retroactively place an asterisk besides Bonds’ records (besides, he passed baseball’s drug testing programme and won two M.V.P. Awards in 2003 and 2004).
Drug testing could be an exact science yet some athletes have created the impression that the results are vague and imprecise. Also, uniformity is lacking because of differences across the globe, such as those between W.A.D.A. and the U.S. Track & Field. Sport requires standards: to clearly outline what is permitted and what is not and to enforce the rules.
Professional sport is unwilling to seriously do this. First of all, professional sport is for entertainment only (i.e. N.B.A. officiating). Secondly, early deaths in wrestling have established that although there is a severe cost to anabolic steroid use, athletes are still willing to knowingly cheat in order to chase fleeting fame.
Until the murky situation is clarified – and Game of Shadows suggests that it’s far more pervasive than most people think – it isn’t possible or fair to prosecute athletes for doing things that were previously within the rules. Perhaps fish oil will be banned tomorrow; what a high performance athlete eats is radically different a “lay-person’s diet” that there is hardly any connection.
Where is the line? How do we know what athletic accomplishments are legitimate and which were aided by other substances? Why is pine tar treated differently than H.G.H.? Why can Mark McGwire have an exhibit in Cooperstown while Joe Jackson cannot? I think that sport should reboot all of the rules and proceed under a system where anything goes or ban all cheating.