WHY KEEP TESTING FOR PEDS??

     

Since competition began, there has been winning and losing.  The stakes have varied, but humans have always wanted to win.  One could argue this notion is ingrained in our DNA as an evolutionary tool to ensure only the fittest of our species survives.  But that is for another writer and another essay.  Here, we will only deal with the comparatively inconsequential realm of sport.  Much consternation has been displayed by the media (and therefore the fans) this decade about the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) among athletes and how the drugs tilt the field of competition.  This is a knee-jerk reaction to a long-standing problem.  Blaming steroids for cheating in sports is like blaming intercontinental ballistic missiles for war.  The goal of trying to gain an advantage on your opponent has existed since sport has existed and PEDs are nothing more than the latest way to accomplish that.  As long as there has been money to be made in sports, there has been cheating.  As long as money is being made in sports, cheating will endure.  There have been ploys and plots to gain an edge in games dating back to ancient times, and there will be ploys and plots long after PEDs are ancient history themselves.  Testing for these substances by sport organizations has been woefully ineffective and expensive.  Money spent on developing a testing process that is often outdated before it is invented would be money better spent on research and education.  As things stand now, the drug companies and athletes are in a de facto arms race against sports’ governing bodies.  The governing bodies cannot win this race.  Their drug tests and policies are reactionary.  By the time tests are implemented for a certain drug, different drugs are often being used by the athletes that are invisible to the testers.

            In the Ancient Olympics, held every four years, there were several instances of bribing opponents.   Tyrants also tried to win medals for their city by luring champions to represent them instead of the athletes’ hometowns.  In 488 B.C., Gelo of Gela won the chariot race and Astylus of Croton won two other races.  By the next Games, Gelo had taken over the powerful city of Syracuse and “persuaded” Astylus to race for him, using bribes.  The people of Croton were justifiably outraged and punishments were meted out to all involved by the Hellanodikai (judges for the Games.)  Punishment did not stop people from trying to cheat.  In fact, it could be successfully argued that by catching Gelo and Astylus, the judges spurred the next cheaters to be more duplicitous in their actions.  The arms race had begun.

Jumping to modern times, athletes and their teams use science to gain an edge over their opponents instead of primitive (and now totally legal) bribery scams.  Proper nutrition, over-the-counter pain pills, better uniforms, and more advanced training equipment are just a few of the “performance enhancers” our favourite players use.  Pro golfer Tiger Woods, among others, has had laser eye surgery to improve his vision.  No one accused him of cheating even though he clearly used technology to overcome his physical limitations.  Why do we, as a society, draw the line at steroids or other PEDs as illegal enhancements?  The first part of a complicated answer involves the gross miseducation of the public.  Fans likely have no or little knowledge of what a steroid is or how it works.  There is even less awareness about the tests used to detect them.  Most laypeople believe that players are found to have steroids in their system by a simple urine test that comes back with an either positive or negative result.  In fact, urine tests yield results that are interpreted by doctors to be either within or outside of “normal” hormonal levels.  These levels vary substantially from person to person.  Dr. Don Catlin founded the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, the first anti-doping lab in the United States.  As director of this lab, he oversaw the drug testing at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.  He has also been involved in the anabolic steroid testing policies for several pro sports leagues.  During a 2008 interview with ESPN.com, Catlin admitted he did not call a test “positive” unless he had indisputable evidence that would stand up in a court of law.  One can surmise by this statement that a considerable number of athletes have failed to produce urine that is within “normal” hormonal ranges, but have been allowed to continue competing while using banned substances due to faulty test methodology.

In the same 2008 article, Christiane Ayotte, the director of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) lab in Montreal was quoted as saying, “…it is fairly easy, even today, to escape from testing positive.  You don’t even have to use BALCO designer drugs to evade the testing.”

BALCO is officially the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.  It became famous during home run king Barry Bonds’ downfall and subsequent perjury trial.  Bonds, however, was only one of BALCO’s clients.  The lab also helped several high-profile track and field athletes avoid testing positive for PEDs for years against the toughest drug tests in the world.  While WADA and its counterparts in professional sports were trying to invent a reliable urine test for steroids, chemists providing athletes with PEDs had long moved past the steroids to newer and more undetectable drugs.

For example, a BALCO scientist named Patrick Arnold developed Tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, also known as “the clear”, which effectively works as an anabolic steroid.  It was undetectable for several years because anti-doping agencies didn’t know it existed and, therefore, weren’t looking for it.  In fact, agencies only became aware of “the clear” after a disgruntled BALCO employee blew the whistle.    When testing falls so far behind, the question becomes, “why test at all?”

Dr. Catlin eventually developed a test that could detect THG, but it was much too late to have any real effect.  Athletes had already used “the clear” for years, winning medals, setting records, and making millions of dollars.  Also, the drug companies had already progressed past THG anyways.  Catlin noted that even in success, he felt defeated.

“In another five or ten years, is BALCO going to come again? Of course it is, but can you eliminate it?  That’s what puts the limit on testing,” he said.  “There’s only so much you can do.  People are going to be pushing, and there are people who want to use drugs, and they’ll keep trying.”

If one of the world’s foremost experts on anti-doping says this, I think it’s safe to say testing is an inadequate means of stopping users.

Major League Baseball (MLB) has been the most scrutinized of the North American pro sports when it comes to PED use.  The moral outrage has led to U.S.  Congressional inquiries and federal trials involving players and trainers.  It also led MLB to enact the toughest drug policy in North American sport.  That’s fantastic public relations for the league, but the testing is still sorely deficient.  One of the fundamental flaws of baseball’s policy is that it relies heavily on punishment.  Numerous sociological studies over the years have proven that punishment is not a good deterrent for future wrongdoing.  Preventative education is far more successful.  Teaching both major leaguers and younger players about the effects of PEDs would be more effective in making the game safer.    

Ex-major leaguer Chad Curtis, who was never linked to steroid use, told Sports Illustrated in 2002, “There are two things that might stop a person from using steroids: a moral obligation — they’re illegal — and a fear of the medical complications. I was 100 percent against the use of steroids. But I must tell you, I would not fear the medical side of it. I fully agree you can take them safely.”

Players are concerned with winning and making money.  Drug testing is far down the list of worries, even for athletes that are using PEDs.

Drug testing in sport is an antiquated notion.  Even experts dedicated to ridding sport of PEDs agree it is a losing battle to attempt to legislate athletes who have so much to gain by cheating.  The average minor league baseball player makes around $50,000(USD) a year.  According to ESPN, the average annual salary in MLB in 2011 was $3,297,828(USD.)  If taking a drug to enhance your performance could reap that kind of reward with only a minimal risk of being caught, who would turn down the offer?  Sports agencies should abandon testing athletes and work with drug companies to try and have some control over what processes are being used.  Testing is only a means of proving what happened in the past.  WADA, MLB, and all other organizations need to shift their paradigms and look to improving the future.

SOURCES FOR STEROID PAPER

1. “Code of Dishonor”, by John Donovan in Sports Illustrated.  Published June 8, 2006. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/web/COM1054224/index.html
2. “The Case For Performance Enhancing Drugs”, by Matthew Herper for Forbes.com.  Posted May 20, 2011.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/05/20/the-case-for-performance-enhancing-drugs-in-sports/
3. “Cheating During the Ancient Olympics”, by N.S. Gill, About.com Guide in 2008 http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/olympics/tp/073008OlympicCheats.htm
4. Information on Dr. Catlin’s career found at http://antidopingresearch.org/about_dr_catlin.html
5. “U.S. pro sports leagues still trail in drug-testing arms race”, by TJ Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada for ESPN.com.  Posted on May 22, 2008  http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?id=3408399

STEROID QUOTES

“There are two things…I fully agree you can take them safely.” Quote Source: Sports Illustrated Magazine, June 3, 2002

Quote found at http://www.baseballssteroidera.com/bse-memorable-quotes-steroid-related.html

BARRY LARKIN: Hall of Famer?

 Yesterday, ex-Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin was informed he had been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the esteemed members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).  He must have been ecstatic when he got the news.  As ecstatic as I was dumbfounded.

Larkin’s playing career spanned the same seasons (1986-2004) as my peak baseball watching years.  I always thought he was a good player, but not elite.  It was a warm and fuzzy story when he played his entire career with his hometown team and special that he won a World Series there, but a Hall of Famer?  Larkin is not due any post-career recognition in baseball.  Maybe a Barry Larkin Appreciation Day in Cincinnati, but that’s it.  I understand fully the importance of Larkin being generally loved by the media and being a member thereof since 2008, when he took a job with MLB network.  Being friendly with the media shouldn’t warrant a Hall of Fame nod.  Larkin was also a really nice guy by all accounts and I don’t recall him being in much trouble ever.  And, he had a nice career with pretty good numbers.  That said, his behaviour off-the-field doesn’t mean his performance on it should be amplified.

It is also telling Larkin was inducted this year.  The year before the BBWAA will be forced to weigh in on Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and their respective worthiness.  The entire steroids controversy is a subject for another article (or several books), but voting Larkin into the Hall of Fame largely because he’s a nice guy is a bigger travesty than writers potentially leaving Bonds and Clemens out because they are not.

As an avid baseball fan, Larkin was never considered by me to be worthy of enshrinement in the Hall.  I must have missed the games when Larkin redefined his position like Cal Ripken Jr. or made magical plays with his glove like Ozzie Smith.  He was, at best, the top shortstop in the National League for a few years in the early 1990s.  That is to say he was the tallest dwarf.  Shawon Dunston and Jose Vizcaino were his competition.  Being a better player than your contemporaries when your contemporaries were Kevin Elster and Dickie Thon doesn’t make you bound for Cooperstown!  Had Larkin played in the American League during his career, he would have been no better than the third best shortstop in his league at any time, behind Ripken Jr., Alan Trammell, Tony Fernandez, and later Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Nomar Garciaparra.

Here are Larkin’s 162-game averages, according to baseball-reference.com, side-by-side with a current mystery shortstop:  (Keep in mind Larkin was hurt a lot and only played 150 or more games in 4 of his 19 seasons.)

            LARKIN                                                                     MYSTERY SS

AVG     HR     RBI     R     SB                             AVG     HR     RBI     R     SB

.295      15        71     99       28                             .286        11        69       90     22

The numbers are not much different.  A few percentage points here and there, but the statistics tell similar stories.  One variance not seen in the numbers is that Mystery Man is a two-time World Series champion.  In his first Series, he ended game 7 in extra innings with an RBI single.  In his latest World Series, he was named MVP.  Anyone who thinks Edgar Renteria should be in the Hall of Fame, put up your hand…he’s the Mystery SS.  I hope at least 86% of BBWAA members have their hands up.