Pro

“Players have always looked for an edge… Until there is effective drug testing that can guarantee that users are going to get caught, the game will have players who are willing to use any substance that might give them an edge. In the 60s and 70s players were popping greenies like 10 year-olds at a Skittles factory. In the 80s, the amphetamines of choice was cocaine. Each decade something else comes up that promises if not to make a player better, will at least make them better able to play through fatigue…

And why wouldn’t they do this? I’m tired of so-called moralists acting outraged that players could do such a thing. Are you telling me that you wouldn’t consider taking some substance if it potentially made you better? Especially if you were in a profession where 2.5 million dollars a year is the average salary. Especially if you knew that there would be no drug testing. Especially if you knew that many other workers in your field might possibly be getting an advantage over you…

I don’t have any problem savoring the prose of Poe or Burroughs, even knowing they were junkies. I don’t run from the room when I hear Nirvana or Alice in Chains rumbling through the speakers, just because their lead singers killed themselves using heroin… Personally, I don’t have a big problem with some of baseball’s greatest records being broken by athletes who are under suspicion as cheaters.”

June 9, 2006