I'm getting tired of all this crap! They're gonna screw it up for the rest of us.
Steve Jacobson
SPORTS COLUMNIST
Kids' lives are at stake
February 29, 2004
What do we care if our sports stars pump themselves full of laboratory concoctions as long as they fill the arena with excitement? What do we care if they inflate their bodies until they look not like Popeye but Bluto and die at 50 from a rotted liver or clogged arteries? It's their lives and they get big bucks to entertain us.
They're gladiators, aren't they? And what business is it of ours what's in those bottles in their lockers or what strength counselors hand out as (wink) nutrition?
We like those tape-measure home runs, and who are we to ask how come one of our favorite players reports to camp so much slimmer?
But just a minute. What if your son and daughter are on the brink of being big-time athletes, getting scholarships, maybe going to the big leagues. Would you tell your son or daughter to get the chemical help they need?
I asked that of a doctor who is informed on both the sports scene and the chemical-boost industry and chose not to be identified. "Absolutely not," he responded. "Under no circumstances. I'd work hard to see they didn't use those substances."
Athletes like to say they aren't role models, but that, in medical Latin, is phonus balonus. I have a 1998 letter from a professor of pharmacology about Mark McGwire's admitted use of then-permitted androstenedione: "If McGwire breaks Maris' home-run record, it's reasonable to expect a whole generation of adolescent athletes will be taking the supplement."
Indeed, Mark McGwire broke the treasured record and sales of andro doubled. Poor McGwire. He was a very good player before his knee injury wouldn't heal.
Kids do all kinds of crazy stuff. Half the teenagers surveyed in a study by Blue Cross and Blue Shield could not name a single negative side effect of performance-enhancing drugs. Everybody knew they worked. The drugs are more effective than ever and harder than ever to detect.
I'm told of a marginal major-leaguer who felt he was just short of a career in The Show. He said he needed something to get his best shots past the warning track. He boosted himself to the big leagues last year, boosted his salary from $30,000 to $300,000, and if he can last a few more seasons, maybe he will leave a financially secure widow at 50.
Never mind, for the moment, what baseball's fixation on power and better things for better living through chemistry have done to the sacred records. Doesn't this culture of drugs tell your kids that they can't compete unless they're willing to risk their health and maybe their lives?
The baseball union resists realistic drug testing. The owners invested all that public money in building new homer-friendly stadiums, and they don't want to taint the results.
We spend millions on nostrums - a baby aspirin a day - that might reduce the risk of heart attack by 20 percent. What about drugs that double the risk of heart attack or damage the liver? The liver is a useful organ.
We know a drug for anemia - EPO - that enables blood to carry more oxygen. It killed some bike racers. We have mostly short-term non-information, except for Lyle Alzado, who said football-enhancing steroids were what was killing him. Doctors found types of cancer in him that are rare in younger people.
What happens in the long term? "We don't really know," my doctor-expert said. The opinion is that there is damage to the endocrine system, particularly to the reproductive system, liver damage, blood vessel damage.
In the short term, there is suspicion that muscles are so strengthened that connective ligaments and tendons are pulled apart, typically in chronic knee injuries. There also is large bone growth, often increasing hat size and the size of the jaw. We've noticed a number of athletes with braces; maybe they couldn't afford them as teenagers. Acne eruptions on the face and back are suspected effects. It's hard to apply Clearasil to your back.
What are we to think when even Joe Torre notes that Jason Giambi looks slimmer? Giambi did have surgery on his knee for a condition similar to McGwire's, didn't he?
A study years ago asked athletes if they'd risk death at 50 to win a gold medal now; an overwhelming number said yes. Wouldn't it be effective if it could be proven to athletes that their homer-juice made them impotent? Or is the lure of the spotlight greater even than sex?
Now that the people from BALCO have been indicted, will some of our most prominent baseball players be called on to testify? Will what they say and what if indicted sellers tell baseball something it doesn't want to hear?
Maybe we don't care. Unless we think about sons or daughters who can't compete without risking their health and their ability to have children.
Steve Jacobson
SPORTS COLUMNIST
Kids' lives are at stake
February 29, 2004
What do we care if our sports stars pump themselves full of laboratory concoctions as long as they fill the arena with excitement? What do we care if they inflate their bodies until they look not like Popeye but Bluto and die at 50 from a rotted liver or clogged arteries? It's their lives and they get big bucks to entertain us.
They're gladiators, aren't they? And what business is it of ours what's in those bottles in their lockers or what strength counselors hand out as (wink) nutrition?
We like those tape-measure home runs, and who are we to ask how come one of our favorite players reports to camp so much slimmer?
But just a minute. What if your son and daughter are on the brink of being big-time athletes, getting scholarships, maybe going to the big leagues. Would you tell your son or daughter to get the chemical help they need?
I asked that of a doctor who is informed on both the sports scene and the chemical-boost industry and chose not to be identified. "Absolutely not," he responded. "Under no circumstances. I'd work hard to see they didn't use those substances."
Athletes like to say they aren't role models, but that, in medical Latin, is phonus balonus. I have a 1998 letter from a professor of pharmacology about Mark McGwire's admitted use of then-permitted androstenedione: "If McGwire breaks Maris' home-run record, it's reasonable to expect a whole generation of adolescent athletes will be taking the supplement."
Indeed, Mark McGwire broke the treasured record and sales of andro doubled. Poor McGwire. He was a very good player before his knee injury wouldn't heal.
Kids do all kinds of crazy stuff. Half the teenagers surveyed in a study by Blue Cross and Blue Shield could not name a single negative side effect of performance-enhancing drugs. Everybody knew they worked. The drugs are more effective than ever and harder than ever to detect.
I'm told of a marginal major-leaguer who felt he was just short of a career in The Show. He said he needed something to get his best shots past the warning track. He boosted himself to the big leagues last year, boosted his salary from $30,000 to $300,000, and if he can last a few more seasons, maybe he will leave a financially secure widow at 50.
Never mind, for the moment, what baseball's fixation on power and better things for better living through chemistry have done to the sacred records. Doesn't this culture of drugs tell your kids that they can't compete unless they're willing to risk their health and maybe their lives?
The baseball union resists realistic drug testing. The owners invested all that public money in building new homer-friendly stadiums, and they don't want to taint the results.
We spend millions on nostrums - a baby aspirin a day - that might reduce the risk of heart attack by 20 percent. What about drugs that double the risk of heart attack or damage the liver? The liver is a useful organ.
We know a drug for anemia - EPO - that enables blood to carry more oxygen. It killed some bike racers. We have mostly short-term non-information, except for Lyle Alzado, who said football-enhancing steroids were what was killing him. Doctors found types of cancer in him that are rare in younger people.
What happens in the long term? "We don't really know," my doctor-expert said. The opinion is that there is damage to the endocrine system, particularly to the reproductive system, liver damage, blood vessel damage.
In the short term, there is suspicion that muscles are so strengthened that connective ligaments and tendons are pulled apart, typically in chronic knee injuries. There also is large bone growth, often increasing hat size and the size of the jaw. We've noticed a number of athletes with braces; maybe they couldn't afford them as teenagers. Acne eruptions on the face and back are suspected effects. It's hard to apply Clearasil to your back.
What are we to think when even Joe Torre notes that Jason Giambi looks slimmer? Giambi did have surgery on his knee for a condition similar to McGwire's, didn't he?
A study years ago asked athletes if they'd risk death at 50 to win a gold medal now; an overwhelming number said yes. Wouldn't it be effective if it could be proven to athletes that their homer-juice made them impotent? Or is the lure of the spotlight greater even than sex?
Now that the people from BALCO have been indicted, will some of our most prominent baseball players be called on to testify? Will what they say and what if indicted sellers tell baseball something it doesn't want to hear?
Maybe we don't care. Unless we think about sons or daughters who can't compete without risking their health and their ability to have children.
