Monday, March 14, 2005
I Hate Mondays: Steroid Gambling
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Using steroids, aside from the rare instance where a doctor's prescription is rendered, is illegal.
Betting on sports, outside of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or any government lotteries, is also illegal.
Who could ever imagine the cataclysmic ramifications of using steroids or betting on sports while actually being a professional athlete in the sport itself?
While we can only speculate about the first scenario (since steroid rumors have only recently begun circulating), we do have evidence of the latter situation.
Remember Pete Rose?
It was 16 years ago to the month when we started to hear through the grapevine that a soon-to-be Hall-of-Famer was linked to betting on sports.
First there was scoffing, followed by denial, and then most people passed it off as a one-time incident. We know how that ended.
Fast-forward to March 2005, and we could be facing a similar predicament.
It seems like baseball probes are constant nowadays. First Victor Conte and Jose Canseco drip a few drops of blood into the water and now the sharks are circling to uncover chronic steroid users.
Take your pick: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, or Sammy Sosa, they are all current hot-spots for steroid allegations. Let's use someone like Jason Giambi as an example. After all, he's all but admitted to prolonged use of an illegal drug — literally.
What sort of punishment should result?
Well, Pete Rose bet on baseball games that he managed, possibly fixed some, lied about it until he was caught and was banned for life.
Jason Giambi has knowingly injected steroids, an identified prohibited drug, and by doing so has cheated his sport, his teammates, and his fans. First, he lied about it, then after he was put under oath and forced to admit it, he did, and then apologized.
Both stories have a similar undertone, don't they?
Looking back in hindsight may be tricky, but even though baseball's testing policies have been lenient in previous years, the drug was still barred. More importantly, steroids without a prescription has always been barred by the law.
Since it's unlikely that BALCO requires a doctor's note, Giambi and Co. have been consciously breaking the law for years.
And what is the penalty? Well, next time they do it and get caught, they will serve a 10-game suspension.
That's unacceptable. If the dirt is uncovered, and there is evidence to prove that any single or several baseball players have consistently been using steroids, they should be banned for life.
Betting on sports is one thing, particularly since Rose bet on the Reds every time (allegedly). At the very least it leaves the door open a smidgen for optimists to believe that Rose was just hoping his team would win every outing.
Injecting a needle, rubbing cream all over your body, or trickling drops under your tongue are unconventional ways of surreptitiously enhancing your performance. The door isn't open for optimism at all. Very few people poke sharp-pointed instruments into their body naïve of the consequences. Players that engage in these actions are directly cheating, and when it comes to sports, there is nothing more debasing than fraud.
Just think what happens to Olympic athletes who try to bend the rules. They are ousted and excommunicated. Baseball players who have steadily used steroids in the past should go the same way.
Con artists and America's favorite pastime mix like Mondays and me.
"It's not illegal if you don't get caugh." — Anonymous