By Josh Fleer
Sports Assistant
We’ve got a problem with cheating.
Tim Montgomery, the world’s fastest human, just testified before a federal grand jury in San Francisco about his connections to the new designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Testimonies from more high profile athletes will come in the next few weeks.
Nearly 40 athletes have been subpoenaed, including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, boxer Shane Mosley, several NFL players, including Oakland Raider linebacker Bill Romanowski and even more track and field athletes.
This week Major League Baseball will announce the results of its steroid testing, which won’t include testing for THG until next year.
MLB’s testing is really a survey to find if more than 5 percent of players are juicing, in which case action will be taken in following years.
One only needs to look at a player’s baseball card from a few years ago to become suspicious of the dramatic change in dimensions of the player.
The hunch is that the test results, with or without THG, will force baseball to proceed with further testing, before the rap on roids becomes blurred to those within the subculture of athletics.
Athletic leagues, for both amateurs and professionals, recognize the need for intervention and have formed methods to crack down on performance enhancing drugs.
Testing for illegal substances continues to progress. UCLA just created a new test to identify THG, designed to be undetectable.
Despite these efforts, we all know those willing to sell their soul to achieve will always find ways to beat the system. The same goes in sports as well.
The well-advised know what kinds of steroids will wash out of their body within a couple of days.
The crafty find ways to flush the steroids out of their system.
The addicts take additional masking drugs.
The hygiene-indifferent inject urine into their bladders.
The in vogue use untestable designer steroids.
When we hear the names of those allegedly involved, Barry Bonds, Shane Mosley, we cry for justice to be served. Cheaters!
“Shed him of his single-season home run record!”
“Strip him of his welterweight title belt!”
But perhaps those of us who believe so strongly in the indecency of such immorality shouldn’t be so quick to cast the first stone.
An equation of sorts can shed some light on the plight of these athletes:
When the athlete’s desire to win is greater than the athlete’s moral convictions, unethical conduct is the result.
Response, for many, to this most recent drug bust resulted in repulsion of the uncovered impurity in sport.
The exposure of their desire to achieve beyond ethical levels causes us to denounce the athletes.
Some call for even more rigid league guidelines to curb access to the playing field for these offenders. Others blame the methods of testing in order to catch the cheaters.
During the next couple weeks, as the new THG tests continue to reveal more abusers and as baseball unveils the percentages of its players who juice up, perhaps it is not only their images on Sports Center we should shake our heads at.
When has our own will to achieve in life allowed us to beat the system and stretch our ethical convictions?
November 13, 2003