The Argument Against Steroids in Sports

The Mitchell report today nuked about 80 baseball players for using steroids, human growth hormones and all that other nastiness, save for amphetamines, the "greenies" Mitchell and the MLB know virtually every player takes or took.

Flaws and all, the report makes one salient point: the use of drugs like steroids and human growth hormones gives athletes an unfair advantage over competitors who worry about testicular shrinkage or whether they might fly into a rage and murder their families.

So what's to do?

Random blood tests for an ever-expanding list of performance-enhancing substances conducted by an independent agency. If, as so often said, the majority of players don't use them, the players' union could easily vote to change its position. And if the penalties are severe enough, at least some measure of compliance with reasonable rules would result.

Absent that, how could anyone ever bet a game?

Barry Bonds And The CIA

Barry Bonds today pleaded not guilty to perjury charges stemming from his denial of using steroids and so forth during testimony before a federal Grand Jury. His plea came a day after the CIA disclosed it had destroyed tapes showing its interrogation of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Same thing going on in both.

If Bonds goes to trial, his only defense will be that all the other witnesses are lying or misguided. During the inevitable congressional hearings, the CIA will have to persuade lawmakers and the American people it never tortured people so the destruction of the recordings was simply an oopsie.

Neither will prevail and for the same reason: an utter lack of respect for the average person's innate intelligence and common sense.