For the most part, however, the only thing certifiably bad about steroids is that they may improve athletic performance. Somehow we've decided that the only hardworking professionals who shouldn't be permitted to enhance their performances are athletes. Amphetamines were staples in professional training rooms in the sixties and seventies...

Then there is the myth that steroids are turning players into freaks. Players have always been freaks. That's what makes them so different from the rest of us. No normal person can throw a baseball 98 miles an hour. Normal people can't run a slant-in and catch a football with a 250-pound linebacker waiting to cream them...