News: Steroid Use As Bad As Terrorism? Peter Gammons Compares Alex Rodriguez To The Boston Marathon Bombers
Blog Entry #10
By Dan Chaiet, Senior Editor – Steroidal.com
Peter Gammons, a well-known sports journalist, in a recent interview compared Alex Rodriguez to the Boston Marathon bombers stating “He wants to blow up the world. You know, he’s like the marathon bombers. It’s just, he’s going to get them.” However, following the radio interview, Gammons promptly apologized for the insane comparison.
Anabolic steroids are a hot topic in sports, especially baseball over the last 10 – 15 years. Scandal after scandal has repeatedly surfaced over the years involving anabolic steroid and PED (performance enhancing drug) use among baseball players, from the Mark McGwire prohormone scandal in the early 2000s to the BALCO scandal in the early-mid 2000s, all the way up to the Mitchell Report and the recent baseball steroid scandal involving Alex Rodriguez et al. It has come to the point where many are questioning the massive amount of money being spent on the attempts to police the MLB, including the time and money spent on congressional hearings over the matter.
However, Peter Gammons’ recent quote raises a pretty important question when it comes to the whole anabolic steroid issue – and this is not just a steroids-in-sports issue, but a moral issue of how we (as society in general) have been conditioned to view anabolic steroid use in general. Of course, every thinking human should know and understand that there is a very large fundamental difference between anabolic steroid use in sports (where it may be against the rules to do so) and recreational anabolic steroid use by the average individual who simply wants to grow muscle quicker and get stronger in the gym on a weekly basis.
Of course, the bitter sentiment that many MLB fans have towards Alex Rodriguez and other anabolic steroid using MLB players can be understandable, as many believe and feel that their sports heroes have cheated, and therefore the fans might feel cheated as a result. But perhaps this bitterness has turned into hate, and this hate has gone way too far out of proportion at this point? Dare I say that this hate for anabolic steroids and those who use them has gone so far out of proportion that it has reached a danger point socially and morally? When we start to compare anabolic steroid users to terrorists – like the Boston Marathon bombers – something is very wrong. Frighteningly wrong.
The status-quo and the social perception of anabolic steroids is stunningly biased, considering the fact that many elite level sports athletes have been convicted of drunk driving (http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/02/17/miguel-cabrera-swigs-from-a-bottle-of-scotch-in-front-of-a-cop-gets-arrested-for-dui/), spousal abuse (http://deadspin.com/182933/brett-myers-punched-his-wife-in-the-face), and even rape (http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/48562782.html) and more. However, none of these morally despicable acts have been treated or regarded anywhere near as horrible as the use of anabolic steroids in sports. Furthermore, what is problematic is that this attitude has spilled out onto those non-athletic and non-competitive individuals who merely use anabolic steroids for their personal reasons to further their personal physique and athletic goals.
If a particular sporting body or organization lists anabolic steroid use against its rules, it is understandable that if an athlete breaks the rules by using anabolic steroids, he or she would be committing a moral breach within the sport. However, it should not be considered a moral breach in society. But dragging all anabolic steroid users into that same blanket treatment is definitely leading us in the wrong direction, and could very well become dangerous in the long run (let alone the fact that these attitudes towards the athletes are far too extreme to begin with as well).
Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/world-series-dreaming/2013/11/steroids-baseball-sin/
