Peanuts and Crackerjacks and Steroids

[Lightning Rod]

So now the Congress of the United States is going to take up the fabulously important issue of steroid use among baseball players.
This this has nothing to do with real legislation, it's pure show business. I'm waiting for them to call hearings to make Hollywood stars swear that they haven't had plastic surgery.

The question of whether Barry Bonds or Rafael Palmeiro uses a little free-base testosterone to help them bulk up is about as relevant to the lives of the American people as whether or not George Bush hooved lines of coke off a mirror twenty years ago, but our Congress finds it either necessary or gratifying from time to time to stage this kind of dog and pony show.

On St. Patty's Day a congressional committee will hear testimony on the steroid problem in the sport of baseball. The Poet's Eye expects to see a lot of green that day in Washington.

The committee has issued subpoenas, for Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas, as well as three baseball executives and union head Don Fehr. At this writing it is not clear who will show up (except Canseco, who is promoting a book.) But you can expect the requisite horror stories from victims of steroid abuse or their surviving parents and talk about how it is ruining the game (which is a crashing bore to begin with in my estimation) and about how these heros are leading the youth of America straight to pharmaceutical hell. Something has to be done to preserve the integrity of the American Pastime after all and root root root for the home team and a hot-dog and a beer.

The Poet's Eye doesn't see what all the fuss is about. Professional athletics is based on performance enhancement. Weight training is a performance enhancer. And vitamins and nutrition. And knee surgery. Where do we draw the line? Should we allow only unblemished virgins to compete?

The answer is that we don't draw the line. Each athlete has to decide how to train and prepare his body and what techniques and sacrifices to make in that effort. If he wants to stress and torment his muscles by lifting weights or if he wants to torture his chemistry with hormones that will make it hard to live past fifty, that should be his business. The rules of the game don't start until the players walk onto the field.

Ah, but it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the old ball game. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Steroid Party? If you have, you are not suitable to reprezent de Peepul ov Kali-fornia." If they want to know about steroids, they should subpoena Arnold.

Our success oriented society is based on performance enhancement. An MBA degree from Harvard Business School is a performance enhancer. The crash course that you bought to prepare your high school junior for the SAT's is a performance enhancer. Coaches and teachers and personal trainers base their livelihoods on performance enhancement. We have weight loss studios and vocational schools and hypnotists and driving ranges, all selling performance enhancement. You can't open your email in the morning without being greeted by messages promising enhancement to the size of your penis or your breasts or your bank account.

What office worker hasn't enhanced his performance with a shot of caffeine in the morning? Talk to a truck driver sometime and see if he has used performance enhancers to make a long haul. The military gives amphetamines to its pilots and commandos. According to Pete Gent and Hollywood Henderson and other insiders, America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys ran on a mixture of stimulants and painkillers in the 1970's.

Performance enhancement is the American Ideal. Trounce the competition any way you can. If you are having trouble with your taxes, move your company offshore. If the other company is getting more market share, sue and cry 'monopoly' and pay your lobbyists more to enhance your performance.

The American Ethic includes a clause about getting the edge on your competition in any way you can. If that includes questionable accounting practices or skillfully navigating the wormholes in the tax codes or buying legislation that will benefit your pocketbook or taking a pill before an exam or skin-popping some testosterone before you step up to bat or whatever way you have of going into that phone booth and emerging as Superman, that's fine, because it's the American Way.

To have Mark McGwire or Sammy Soso called before a congressional committee to testify under oath about taking steroids is like requiring Angelina Jolie to come before Congress and swear that she didn't have a quart of collagen in each lip. That's a performance enhancer. Let's get Michael Jackson to testify that he has a real nose. Our government is looking like Fox News. Tabloid government on steroids. Not that there haven't been shows like this in the past. The McCarthy hearings come to mind and the Clinton Impeachment was almost as good as the OJ trial in terms of box-office. I suppose we should be glad that our elected representatives don't neglect the value of entertainment.

The Poet's Eye notices that there are better things for our Congress to be paying attention to than whether a home-run is legitimate or not. Just little things, like our soldiers dying in Iraq and our seniors cracking their pills in half to avoid the institution of bankruptcy to which they soon will not be entitled. Before this government gets on its high horse about steroid use, they should all be tested for drugs themselves.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
--Casey at the Bat
by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

[mnaz]

Nice write, LR.... and completely on the money. Our current government.... the vanguard of fair play and morality....