Legalize It?
Shortly after the calendar flipped to 2010, Steve posed a hypothetical question which, among other things asked:
In any event, casting my own ambivalence aside, what are your thoughts on “The Hypothetical A-Rod HGH Question”? Would it “taint” the Yankees 27th World Championship? Why? Why not?
I’m not interested in debating the merits of this line of thinking as each person is entitled to their opinion on the subject of performance-enhancing drugs. Personally, I’ve always felt that although the topic was important, its treatment by fans and media alike was self-serving and reeked of hypocrisy; I’ve never had much tolerance for Moral Majority-style modes of debate.
I bring this up because J.C. Bradbury of Sabernomics blog has written on the topic of HGH use a handful of times, including a piece in this week’s ESPN The Magazine which calls for the legalization of HGH. In The Magazine, he writes:
The uninformed public calls HGH a performance-enhancer, but researchers know better. Testifying before Congress in 2008, Thomas Perls, an HGH expert, said, “There is no credible scientific evidence that growth hormone substantively increases muscle strength or aerobic-exercise capacity in normal individuals.”
From the two links (along with others on Bradbury’s site) and the excerpt above, we hear at least some voices questioning the conventional mainstream viewpoint that HGH is a performance-enhancing drug. And although there are still reasons to be skeptical — Bradbury certainly isn’t an HGH expert and the medical opinions he cites may also have biases or credibility issues which we don’t know about — one wonders if HGH is banned in baseball simply because we’re too puritanical or simple-minded to accept that our initial instincts about a subject might be wrong.
Bringing it full circle back to Steve’s hypothetical about A-Rod and a potentially-tainted world championship, it bears asking: if Bradbury and the experts he refers to are correct — that HGH isn’t a true performance-enhancer and should be legalized — then doesn’t that totally strip away any argument of a so-called “tainted” championship?
…McGwire insisted that nearly a decade of steroid use did nothing to aid his home run totals…
Do you believe that to be true? I don’t.
I played ball, albeit never professionally, and only at the lowest scrubby levels. Nonetheless, I can testify, WITHOUT QUESTION, that I was a better ball player after I started lifting weights and adding muscle to my frame. If I had to put a number on it, I would say that my game improved by 75% once I was stronger – by my estimation.
So, for me, the question is: Can HGH be used to improve your ability to work out more often, more intensely, and with faster recovery – all leading to greater gains in muscle and overall conditioning? If yes, then it’s a performance-enhancer. If no, then it’s not.
That all said, if the answer is “no,” then why take it at all?
“Tainted” championship? Unless every player can be screened to make sure none of them are using ANY banned substance, to the notion of a “tainted” title, I say:
feh.
Just a tack on to my other comment…googling around, I found more than one sudy that shared the following thoughts…that again show HGH is a performance-enhancer for those willing to do the work after taking it…
For those who strength train and/or participate in sports, HGH has been shown to lead to improved levels of sports and exercise performance. HGH will not, in of itself, increase skill levels, but it will allow one to work longer and harder to develop those skills in their chosen physical activity.
Another extremely important benefit for anyone that is physically active, is that as their levels of HGH increase, their bones and ligaments and tendons will be strengthened. HGH regenerates the processes that builds healthy tendons, ligaments, and increases bone density. This can help in avoiding common sports and exercise related injuries due to a weakness in any of these joint and bone related components.
Steve, you beat me to it. If we classify steroids as “performance enhancing”, anyone who says that HGH isn’t performance enhancing is either blatantly lying or uneducated. The overwhelming research shows that it increases your strength at an ARTIFICIAL rate, that wouldn’t be achieved without the drug. That seems to fit the definition of performance enhancing.
Whether we care about HGH-use is a completely different story from whether it is “performance enhancing”.
And I agree with Evan – calling any championship “tainted” doesn’t make sense because we never know what anyone on any given team was taking. It’s too hard to start singling out certain championships because then where do we draw the line? One player took steroids once? Two players? Multiple uses? HGH use? Who knows?
@ Steve Lombardi:
@ jrk:
I think you both missed the point. Steroids and HGH are not the same thing. To say that HGH is a performance-enhancer because it assists in a steroids cycle is missing the point because these scientists are saying that HGH alone doesn’t provide performance-enhancing benefits.
As to the question of why ballplayers take HGH, Bradbury addresses that in both the links I provided and in the magazine article I excerpted.
why shouldnt athletes be allowed to take things that heal them faster and make them better?
why shouldnt regular folks have the chance to take something that makes them feel better and look younger and be more healthy?
I think MJ’s point is that HGH doesn’t count as a PED because all it does it strengthen your body and increase your energy. But there are those who would argue that a stronger body and increased energy would in fact “enhance performance,” and that HGH is rightly banned by the IOC and NCAA. Now Willie Mays has admitted to taking pep pills during his playing career. Do they count as PEDs, and if so where do we draw the line?
I don’t think that I have an issue with guys taking stuff before it was banned. After all, if no one told them that they couldn’t/should’t take it, then who’s at fault.
Willie Mays falls into this group.
But, clearly, since MLB had rules in place on PEDs, anyone who used any drug (HGH included) that was on the banned list is then cheating – since they’re going against the rules.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Not that I expect it to happen but, if HGH were ever legalized, then it wouldn’t be against the rules and we could all loosen our panties from the horrible bunch they’ve gotten into…
@ Steve Lombardi:
Willie Mays falls into this group.
______________
Mark McGwire falls into this group as well, since before 2002 MLB had no official policy on steroid use among players. So why isn’t he in the Hall of Fame?
@ Tresh Fan: Same reason as Dave Kingman. Big Mac could hit the longball – but the resy of his game, for the most part, had some holes.
@ Steve Lombardi:
Rubbish. That’s not why McGwire isn’t in the Hall and you know it.
Steve, the difference between Mark McGwire (career 162 OPS+) and Dave Kingman (career 115 OPS+) as hitters is about the same as the difference between Mickey Mantle (career 172 OPS+) and Bobby Murcer (career 124 OPS+). Murcer and Kingman both received less than 1% of the votes cast their only year of eligibility, Mantle was elected handedly in his first year of eligibility, McGwire has gotten between 20% and 25% for four years running now.
@ MJ Recanati: McGwire has 1,626 career hits and a lifetime BA of .263
There’s not a non-P/C/MI/MGR in the HOF with less than 1,700 hits and a career BA under .270
@ Tresh Fan: OK, maybe Kingman was a bad example. I should have used Adam Dunn.
If Dunn plays five more years and puts up his normal numbers, is he a HOF at the end of that?
@ Steve Lombardi:
If Adam Dunn is named to 12 All Star teams like Mark McGwire, and
if Adam Dunn finishes in the top 7 in MVP balloting 5 times like Mark McGwire, and
if Adam Dunn breaks the single season homerun record like Mark McGwire, and
if Adam Dunn wins (ahem) a Gold Glove like Mark McGwire, and
if Adam Dunn finishes with a career OPS+ of 162 or higher,
then yes I’d say he might just be headed for Cooperstown.