Steroids and Baseball...

Mark McGwire admits he used steroids (Surprise?). Everyone beats him up over it. Haven't we seen this before?

Everyone seems to get in an uproar over steroids intruding into professional sports (namely, baseball), but is anyone really that surprised? Do we really believe that football players get that big just from working out? That basketball players jump that high for that many years because that's natural? That athletes in general can sustain the level of exertion they do for that duration with no assistance? The "people" and the sports writers all lambaste professional athletes as "cheaters" who take "the easy way out", and who lack ethics, but I think a careful evaluation of what "cheating" is, may be in order here.

First off, I don't advocate cheating, but what exactly does it mean to "cheat"? Lets ask the experts:

OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
1. act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.
2. deprive of something by deceitful or unfair means.

CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH DICTIONARY
1. to behave in a dishonest way in order to get what you want:

MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY
1. to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud.
2. to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice.

So, basically, the consensus is that cheating is using dishonesty to gain an unfair advantage. Well, what does that mean?

Is dishonesty passive or aggressive? Direct or indirect? What constitutes an advantage that is "unfair"? This may all seem like I'm trying to defend steroid users, and to some degree I am, but that's not my true intention. What's really more important to me is getting beyond the doublespeak and codewords to what's really being said - or at least what I think is being said. After all, I don't have the patent on comprehension.

Under current public standards, steroid use would fall under passive cheating. You take a positive action, but one that does not directly affect the opponent - it only affects you. Only through affecting you, do the steroids have an effect on your opponent (by your defeat of them), so this is indirect. The opponent never saw, heard, felt, or otherwise knew what was happening. He just knows he lost.

And now for an example of aggressive cheating. If you're an ice skater, then hitting another ice skater with a pipe during competition in order to ensure they can't compete is aggressive cheating. You have directly taken an action toward your opponent. You have not done anything to enhance your ability, but you have actively hindered theirs.

Well, by my standard, aggressive cheating is the only true cheating. Otherwise, everything one does to gain an advantage is cheating.

If I use some secret method to enhance my ability (gain an advantage) at something, yet choose not to share that information (dishonest), then I've bettered myself in a way you cannot also access to better yourself (unfair). Well, doesn't this happen everyday?

When a coach comes up with a new way of structuring an offense that hasn't been discovered, or a new style of defense that is harder to penetrate, does he go across the field and tell the other coach? When a player adds an extra bit of speed, does he tell the guy guarding him how he did it? Even in drawing up plays, do teams then tell the other team what they're about to do?

When a broker / trader gets a hot tip, does he call all of the other brokers / traders with competing firms and share it? Now of course, you would argue that insider trading is illegal. And I would counter with two things:
1. Just because something is illegal doesn't make it morally wrong. (see: jaywalking, double parking, marijuana (possession, smoking, growing, transporting, whatever), driving without insurance, urban base-jumping, etc., etc., etc.) In fact, interracial marriage used to be illegal.
2. Without insider trading, there would be NO wealthy investors. It happens. It is an open secret. It is rarely prosecuted. It is not cheating. It WOULD be cheating, if to get that tip, you hired someone and paid them to break into another trader's office and steal it. But if all you did was listen to a voicemail that said "This is (name of a guy you trust) - Buy Kelloggs stock today", I defy the idea that it was cheating. If this didn't happen, no one would invest, because without these tips, the business is too speculative (despite how speculative it already is). It is necessary in order for the business to survive.

By the standards we impose on steroid users, exercising is cheating. So is studying, practicing piano or anything else. There is no unfair advantage gained by an athlete using steroids. All athletes have the access and the finances to make use of steroids. If they choose not to, that's their decision. Just like if I choose not to lift weights, then I choose to lose to the guy who does. If I choose not to study, I choose to not pass the test that the person who studied passed. Can people still become better without using steroids? Yes. But people can be strong without lifting weights and people can pass a test without studying and without stealing the answers (I've done that last one myself - often).

Cheating would be if the player modified the ball or other equipment that did not belong to him (bases, goalposts, baskets, etc.) for only his or his team's gain, and no one else's. To use steroids is to enhance yourself, not to de-enhance others.

So should steroids become an everyday part of sports and life? Should kids be using steroids? Absolutely not. But that is a different question. That is a question of drug abuse, chemical dependency, long-term health, self-esteem and a host of other issues, and it is a discussion that needs to be had, but it is not a question of cheating.