Give and Take: Roids, Performance Enhancers, Stuff
I'm enjoying this ongoing debate in the Sauna immensely. We're really beating each other with birch branches now, Chris! Here's Chris's comment to my steroids post last week, with a new response from me:
Chris wrote...
I disagree. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that steroids are more prevalant in the NFL than they are in MLB. In fact, the evidence points in the complete opposite direction.
The football players who have tested positive are the best players in the league. Merriman. Shaun Rodgers (top five DT in Madden '07, for instance). Sauerbruan. Super Bowl champions. Second-tier players /teams simply are not testing positive.
That's not true in baseball where everybody is testing/admitting guilt. Barry Bonds, yes. But also Ryan Franklin. Jason Giambi? Guilty. Jeremy Giambi? Ditto. Raffy Palmerio. The entire Mariners farm system. (Which is a gawdawful farm system).
While it seems possible that steroids would benefit NFL players more than MLB players (a point which Klosterman uses to jump to conclusions that he admits he cannot prove), it also seems true that only the best players are being found guilty. It seems equally easy and logical to argue that the others aren't taking steroids.
I think my argument incorporates steroids in bike racing -- the only sports where we are absolutely sure doping is a massive problem -- better than Klosterman's. Good riders/teams are testing positive at least as frequently as bad riders/teams. That mirrors MLB, but does not resemble the NFL.
So, anyway. I think steroids are a problem in football. That is obvious. But the difference between MLB and the NFL isn't that steroids are so widespread in football that critics cannot personalize the issue.
Klosterman suggested that "over time, we won't be able to separate Merriman from the rest of the puzzle (which MLB has so far successfully done with Bonds)."
I think Klosterman is ignoring the evidence which points to a much more fundamental point: NFL fans don't care.
On this blog, I've documented a number of non-story NFL controversies. (To read those, search "steroids" in the upper left hand corner of the blog).
NFL steroids controversies, though, like Lance Armstrong doping controversies, have zero traction in the United States. In these sports, we only care about winning. Baseball fans have a fundamentally different ethos: history means something.
I think people will find that the controversy disparity makes much more sense when viewed through that lens.
Paul wrote...
I guess I just performance enhancers are a bigger problem in the NFL because I have a perception that it's a different players' culture. Baseball is a much more individual game: one player batting at a time. It seems to me, then, that players would make individual decisions to use stuff. That's why crappy guys right up to stars are getting caught.
The NFL is such a team game, that there must be more peer pressure to use stuff. If 4 offensive lineman are using, and the 5th is struggling, you'd think there'd be some pressure for the 5th to start juicing.
That's why I think the revelation that whole teams seem to be, at the very least, having access to steroids is important. I just don't think that would happen in baseball, where players are getting caught individually. And I think it must happen with most if not all NFL teams.
So I guess that compared to Chris, I'm drawing more conclusions from the Steelers' doctor buying $150,000 of HGH then from who is getting caught by tests. Drawing conclusions about steroid use based on who has gotten caught by tests is like drawing conclusions about what the dinosaurs were like based on fossils.
[OBSCURE SEGUE ALERT]
Scientists have discovered only 1000 different species of dinosaurs. That's about a quarter of the known species of mammals alive today. And dinosaurs were around about three times as long as mammals have been so far. That means that we know nothing of the somewhere around 70% to 90% of the dinosaurs that ever existed.
[END OBSCURE SEGUE]
My point is, if you look at the steroid testing list, you're looking at a list of dumb people, who wandered into tar pits. The smart ones are going to get away with it. The only way they're going to be caught is from the paper trail. That's how the 2004 Panthers and the 2006 Steelers have been caught. The rest of the NFL has been a little luckier. So far.
Chris wrote...
I disagree. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that steroids are more prevalant in the NFL than they are in MLB. In fact, the evidence points in the complete opposite direction.
The football players who have tested positive are the best players in the league. Merriman. Shaun Rodgers (top five DT in Madden '07, for instance). Sauerbruan. Super Bowl champions. Second-tier players /teams simply are not testing positive.
That's not true in baseball where everybody is testing/admitting guilt. Barry Bonds, yes. But also Ryan Franklin. Jason Giambi? Guilty. Jeremy Giambi? Ditto. Raffy Palmerio. The entire Mariners farm system. (Which is a gawdawful farm system).
While it seems possible that steroids would benefit NFL players more than MLB players (a point which Klosterman uses to jump to conclusions that he admits he cannot prove), it also seems true that only the best players are being found guilty. It seems equally easy and logical to argue that the others aren't taking steroids.
I think my argument incorporates steroids in bike racing -- the only sports where we are absolutely sure doping is a massive problem -- better than Klosterman's. Good riders/teams are testing positive at least as frequently as bad riders/teams. That mirrors MLB, but does not resemble the NFL.
So, anyway. I think steroids are a problem in football. That is obvious. But the difference between MLB and the NFL isn't that steroids are so widespread in football that critics cannot personalize the issue.
Klosterman suggested that "over time, we won't be able to separate Merriman from the rest of the puzzle (which MLB has so far successfully done with Bonds)."
I think Klosterman is ignoring the evidence which points to a much more fundamental point: NFL fans don't care.
On this blog, I've documented a number of non-story NFL controversies. (To read those, search "steroids" in the upper left hand corner of the blog).
NFL steroids controversies, though, like Lance Armstrong doping controversies, have zero traction in the United States. In these sports, we only care about winning. Baseball fans have a fundamentally different ethos: history means something.
I think people will find that the controversy disparity makes much more sense when viewed through that lens.
Paul wrote...
I guess I just performance enhancers are a bigger problem in the NFL because I have a perception that it's a different players' culture. Baseball is a much more individual game: one player batting at a time. It seems to me, then, that players would make individual decisions to use stuff. That's why crappy guys right up to stars are getting caught.
The NFL is such a team game, that there must be more peer pressure to use stuff. If 4 offensive lineman are using, and the 5th is struggling, you'd think there'd be some pressure for the 5th to start juicing.
That's why I think the revelation that whole teams seem to be, at the very least, having access to steroids is important. I just don't think that would happen in baseball, where players are getting caught individually. And I think it must happen with most if not all NFL teams.
So I guess that compared to Chris, I'm drawing more conclusions from the Steelers' doctor buying $150,000 of HGH then from who is getting caught by tests. Drawing conclusions about steroid use based on who has gotten caught by tests is like drawing conclusions about what the dinosaurs were like based on fossils.
[OBSCURE SEGUE ALERT]
Scientists have discovered only 1000 different species of dinosaurs. That's about a quarter of the known species of mammals alive today. And dinosaurs were around about three times as long as mammals have been so far. That means that we know nothing of the somewhere around 70% to 90% of the dinosaurs that ever existed.
[END OBSCURE SEGUE]
My point is, if you look at the steroid testing list, you're looking at a list of dumb people, who wandered into tar pits. The smart ones are going to get away with it. The only way they're going to be caught is from the paper trail. That's how the 2004 Panthers and the 2006 Steelers have been caught. The rest of the NFL has been a little luckier. So far.
posted by Prof. A at 7:44 AM
4 Comments:
So...only the good players are the dumb ones? Only the good teams are the stupid teams? Only the super stars are wandering into tar pits?
That doesn't pass the smell test, as they say.
The Steelers purchase is definitely helping to drive us to different conclusions. I wrote two long paragraphs about that in my earlier comment, but deleted them, because I already write too much.
For the record, I refuse to believe that only the caught players are guilty. That's not my point. More aggressive testing would likely catch players with a wider talent disparity -- but that's true in both leagues.
However, I absolutely believe that caught players are a subgroup of users and, in the NFL, that group is shockingly specific: the elite players. In MLB, that group is random: pitchers, hitters, boppers, speed guys, all-stars, and scrubs.
I can certainly relate to yours and Klosterman's psychological profiling of an NFL steroid user, and it even makes sense, but there is no evidence for it. I think it is unfair to "go there" before there's any proof at all.
Also, I think the evidence in MLB is that steroids are a clubhouse culture thing in baseball, too. I mean, Canseco said he injected people, and they injected him. That's, uh, well. Canseco is crazy. He could be a special case. Umm. My bad. I'll grant that.
Here's my logic, and I'll admit, it's mostly based on assumptions that I can't prove
A-Baseball is a more individual sport than football.
B-Baseball players are going out and getting their own drugs.
C-Football players are being supplied with drugs by team doctors.
D-If B and C are true, it follows that there are more baseball-related individuals out there buying drugs than football-related individuals.
E-So the reason more baseball players are caught is that there are more baseball people out there wandering around the tar pits.
F-Plus, baseball players have to look out for themselves. Football players getting the drugs from their team doctors have their team doctors look out for them.
The other question is whether MLB and the NFL are doing an equally good job of testing. Since both leagues are being super shady about performance enhancers, there's no way of knowing. But MLB has been under much, much stronger pressure, so I'd guess they're doing a little better job.
So, then, the only dumb teams are two teams that made the Super Bowl?
I mean, OK, it's a blog and it's the Internet, but shouldn't My Opinion Is Based On Assumptions And Cannot Be Proven sort of color the conclusions you draw? And shouldn't Klosterman be held to some sort of higher standard when he says the same sort of thing?
I say yes. So, let me say this loudly: "Boooo". "Boooo".
Also, for the NFL and MLB and all the legions of guilty players: Booooo.
I think the most interesting arguments related to steroids aren't 'Do we care' (only with regretable infrequency) or 'Should we?' (i say yes) but instead: Should we openly usher steroids into the games?
I think that might be an appropriate — and insanely depressing step. (Although I have thought about this question many times, I haven't answered it conclusively myself. It seems entirely possible that I could Mitt Romney — er, John Kerry — on all your asses).
But, sanctioned steroids in athletics? Ancient Rome, here we come!
That's definitely valid, about me making an ass out of "u" and "me." But I think my conclusions, while not provable, are still reasonable.
As far as making steroids legal... I'll think about that and get back to you.
Post a Comment
<< Home