Steroids: bad for sports, worse for hooked athletes

If the record books in professional sports are to mean anything, the use of performance enhancing drugs must be stopped.
More than that, if the men and women who compete are to be protected from themselves, protected from the deleterious effects of using steroids or injecting themselves with human growth hormones, professional and amateur sports bodies are going to have to strengthen their monitoring and enforcement policies.
The focus in recent days has rightfully been on Major League Baseball, which in effect has three strikes against it:
UOf the major sports, it has been the most lackadaisical in its approach to steroid use.
UIf the league and union don't agree to act, government intervention is almost certain.
UBaseball is the holder of one of sports' most prestigious records, the Home Run Crown, and that record is in danger of being grabbed in the next year or two by San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds. He has admitted using two substances provided to him by a steroid pusher, though he maintains he was told that one was flaxseed oil and the other a balm for arthritis.
Bonds is pursuing a policy of less-than-plausible deniability. The tale of the tape shows that in the later years of his baseball career his body bulked up dramatically and he began hitting long balls that exceeded those he hit during what logically would have been his prime.
Chasing the record
Bonds finished the 2004 season with 703 homers, 52 shy of Hank Aaron's record, and at his recent pace he would reach the mark late next year or in 2006. Indeed, MLB promoters were already talking to MasterCard about putting together a season-long campaign aimed at building excitement around the event.
Now, fans have to decide whether they want to see Aaron's record fall to a player whose performance was enhanced by steroids. It's one thing to watch two flamboyant wrestlers pumped up on steroids throw each other around a ring; another to see a sports icon dethroned by a cheater.
And for those fans who are inclined to take an amoral stance -- it doesn't matter to them what an athlete does to enhance his performance as long as he puts on a good show -- we have a question for them to pose to themselves. How would they like their sons or daughters -- yes female athletes have been taking steroids too -- to adopt a whatever-it-takes attitude.
Taking a toll
Athletes who take performance enhancing drugs not only cheat their fellow athletes by taking an unfair advantage, they cheat themselves. These drugs take a toll on a body, both physically and mentally. Temporary gains in physique and performance are offset by severe mood changes in the short run and physical deterioration in the long run.
The San Francisco Chronicle broke the steroids story based on secret grand jury testimony. It has taken some criticism, including a blast from Bonds' agent, for running the story. But the testimony implicating a California laboratory in distributing steroids to athletes was given almost a year ago. It was past time for the story to come out and long past time for athletes, their agents, players unions and professional sports leagues to take action.