More Journalism Follies
In the category of "Sports Topic -- most incredibly stupid commentary", the clear winner over the last few years has been college football's BCS bowl system. Unfortunately, steroids in baseball is quickly becoming a contender.
Any young athlete reading, watching and listening to our sad collection of sports journalists over the last year must think that steroids are magic juice. All they need to do is ingest some of this magic juice and they will turn into a sporting Superman! What's worse -- they could easily conclude that the only way an athlete can get bigger and stronger is to use this steroid magic juice! I've never used any kind of performance enhancing agent (other than skim milk and gatorade), but I know athletes who have. The media coverage we have been getting lately seems perversely designed to convince kids that they should use this stuff.
Reality -- steroids only help an athlete by shortening the body's recovery time from the tearing down which occurs in extremely hard training workouts. This allows the athlete to increase the frequency of his high intensity workouts. So they won't do anything to help an athlete unless that athlete is training at an intensity level that most baseball players are simply unwilling to work.
Second, the result of the increased frequency of intense workouts is stronger and larger muscles. This can help an athlete get faster or jump higher (since these are partly a function of muscle strength), but most of the skills involved in playing baseball (or any other sport) are unaffected.
Third, there are all kinds of performance-enhancing agents. The list used by Olympic sports goes on forever and includes even cold remedies. Very few of these are illegal. Each sport has to work out the rules as to what is permissible.
Fourth, steroids have been used by far more players for far longer in football and basketball. Why is there such a big stink now about baseball and baseball records when other sports have been affected to a far greater extent?
Any young athlete reading, watching and listening to our sad collection of sports journalists over the last year must think that steroids are magic juice. All they need to do is ingest some of this magic juice and they will turn into a sporting Superman! What's worse -- they could easily conclude that the only way an athlete can get bigger and stronger is to use this steroid magic juice! I've never used any kind of performance enhancing agent (other than skim milk and gatorade), but I know athletes who have. The media coverage we have been getting lately seems perversely designed to convince kids that they should use this stuff.
Reality -- steroids only help an athlete by shortening the body's recovery time from the tearing down which occurs in extremely hard training workouts. This allows the athlete to increase the frequency of his high intensity workouts. So they won't do anything to help an athlete unless that athlete is training at an intensity level that most baseball players are simply unwilling to work.
Second, the result of the increased frequency of intense workouts is stronger and larger muscles. This can help an athlete get faster or jump higher (since these are partly a function of muscle strength), but most of the skills involved in playing baseball (or any other sport) are unaffected.
Third, there are all kinds of performance-enhancing agents. The list used by Olympic sports goes on forever and includes even cold remedies. Very few of these are illegal. Each sport has to work out the rules as to what is permissible.
Fourth, steroids have been used by far more players for far longer in football and basketball. Why is there such a big stink now about baseball and baseball records when other sports have been affected to a far greater extent?
posted by Stan at 12:19 PM
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