So today, Roger Clemens begins his trial for perjury and obstruction of Congress. Clearly he shouldn't have lied under oath (some might argue he shouldn't have testified at all). Regardless, as per many descriptions of Clemens, the dude's full of ego and felt like the Teflon Don (and how did that all work out for Gotti?), and now it seems like he's going to get his comeuppance. Here's the link to ESPN's story.
Apart from the stupidity of lying to Congress, many talking sports heads keep stating that those players who succeeded during the Steroid Era (circa 1995-2005) because of drug enhancements, including Clemens, should not be included into the Cooperstown or if they are inducted, they should have an asterisk next to their names and accomplishments.
Why?
You can't call them cheaters. A cheater, borrowing from the many dictionary definitions of the word, is someone who breaks rules and attempts to deceive others that he or she broke the rules in question. Merely breaking rules is not enough to call someone a cheater (e.g. when a persons gets a two minute minor in hockey for elbowing, he broke the rules but is not labelled a cheater). Merely trying to deceive others regarding one's actions is not cheating. It seems like there is a two-part test to cheating: rule breaking and attempted deception.
Until 2005, if I understand correctly, there were no rules banning the substances such as the variety of steroids. It's why persons like Alex Rodriguez, among others on the Mitchell Report, have not been suspended. Precisely because there were no rules in the first place to break. Whatever you want to call those on the Mitchell Report, I don't think the word "cheater" applies.
You can, perhaps, make a moral argument against drug enhancements. Although this is a *huge* issue that I won't get into here (and many have written on this subject), if there is no harm being caused by the drug, I don't understand how it is different from ingesting protein isolates or having newer, better equipment. Regardless, assume all steroids and drugs are morally impermissible. You still can't call Clemens and Co. cheaters. They may have acted in a morally wrongful manner, or have been pressured, directly or indirectly, to take drugs. Still, they're not cheaters. If they didn't cheat, why shouldn't they be inducted into the Hall of Fame, or why should they have the dreaded asterisk?
Is it a matter of sportsmanship? Well, some people (Jose Canseco, among others) claim that the majority of ball players were on something nefarious during that era. If so, can it be unsportsmanlike?
So again, why the outrage toward the Steroid Era? Why should they have an asterisk next to their feats?
Thanks for an interesting post, Diego.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to take issue with your claim that Clemens and Co. are not cheaters. You are, of course, correct that prior to a certain time there was no concrete legislation or rules that governed enhancements and on this view, you would also be correct in saying that users of these drug would thus not be cheaters. There were no explicit rules that they broke in doing so, even though they did deceive others about their activities.
But it does seem to me that that's much to narrow a view on the issue. Surely, even if there were no written rules against "artificial" performance enhancement drugs that these individuals could break at the time, there is good reason, or so it seems to me, to think that there were fairly unambiguous implicit rules against such conduct. Admittedly, this is murky territory, but I would argue that there is a sense in which sporting competitions (unlike martial competitions like war) are about showcasing and challenging what the athlete can do, not what his team of biochemists and pharmacists can cook up. There are, then, implicit rules to the effect that it is the athletes themselves that will be competing against each other, without assistance from third parties.
An athletic feat, it seems to me, can only be so called if it is, in fact, the feat accomplished by the athlete. What Clements and other achieved, while noteworthy in its own right, was not their achievement in any comparable sense. It was the achievement of the people who developed the relevant drugs that allowed Clements to what he did.
I would therefore have to conclude that Clements and other steroid users are cheaters. They did break the rules, implicit as they may be, regarding fair competition by effectively increasing the size of their roster or team to include the people who developed their drugs. In the same way that we would likely call a soccer team sneaking it an extra player onto the field a cheating team (disregard the complexity of trying to hide that from others).
Cheers,
Dmitri
Not to put too fine a point on this, but there can't be implicit rules in sports. There may be implicit norms, perhaps, but not implicit rules. Hence why there are 'rule books'. Sports function, if you will, on a civil law system, as opposed to a common law system.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, although I won't argue for it here: why are certain drugs permissible and others not? It can't be because certain drugs enhance performance but others do not. All drugs are designed to enhance performance (otherwise, there would be no point in taking them). Drugs are made illicit in sports due to the harm they pose, not because they enhance. Again, this is a really big point that needs further argumentation.
Yeah, totally disagree with you on this one, Dmitri.
Alright, perhaps a poor choice of words then. But you saying that if I break a norm (of fair play, say) and attempt to hide that fact from others I am not a cheater simply because there was nothing against it in the rule book? I think that's a little too narrow of a view on cheating. Perhaps it not as serious a case of cheating, one that would not necessarily require any sort of equivalent punishment as cheating the rule book, but cheating it is nonetheless, or so I would say. Furthermore, I doubt many rules would remain in said rule book if they were not included by virtue of embodying and making explicit some of the otherwise implied norms of competition and sportsmanship.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I never said that some drugs are alright and others are not. I'm actually kind of a hard-core purist when it comes to sport in that I am quite against any sort of augmentation (I include high performance sports attire and equipment in this category as well) or enhancement - its athlete vs athlete for me, or its not really sport. (Yes, I know that pretty much forces me to call pretty much all sport into question, and I bite that bullet) So perhaps that makes my opinion that much less valid.
I know that the reason used for banning substances in sports is harm, but I entirely disagree with that sort of nanny-state argument. Physical training poses a harm as well and by that same token should be banned as well. In my books, for all its worth, drugs ought to prohibited by virtue of giving unfair advantage and, if "fair" advantage is attained by everyone doping up, by virtue of taking away from the inherent nature of sport competitions.
Cheers,
Dmitri