I was very surprised a few days ago when I heard someone say that the use of steroids in professional sports was no big deal. The explanation was that, if, as it seems, just about everyone is doing it, then it really shouldn’t matter. If everyone is taking steroids, then the playing field will remain even.
What needs to be understood, however, is that fans don’t just pay good money to see a great performance. Does the crowd go nuts when Bonds or Giambi knocks it out of the park? Of course. Baseball isn’t the most exciting sport in the world, but what makes it worth it are those brief moments of greatness. Fans want to see athletes succeed; they want to see them at their best. One might say, then, that steroids would make the game even better: increased performance for increased intervals. However, what makes these moments of greatness so cherished is not the raw exhibition of talent and athletic prowess.
Break it down into its simplest terms: a big man hits a little ball really far with a stick. On the surface, it is not spectacular at all. What makes it special is what fans attach to it. Sport isn’t just about performance; it’s about human performance.
Sports are all about human achievement and our sense of solidarity with those who make those achievements. There is a feeling of pride when an athlete attains greatness; it is a tribute to what humanity is capable of. Athletes set the bar at a place where most of us won’t be able to reach it, but we can all aspire to and admire that.
And someday, because of humanity’s tendency to improve itself, those records will be broken. We can take pride in that, pride that a fellow human being can endeavor to be better and meet his or her goal. Naturally, we feel more solidarity with an athlete from our own country or our favorite professional team, but we feel that solidarity regardless of an athlete’s origins.
But the use of steroids flies in the face of all of that. Steroids make it cold and artificial. Steroids take the credit for human achievement out of the hands of athletes and put it in the hands of guys in lab coats. It may get even worse. As genetic engineering becomes more and more advanced, it’s inevitable that in at least some countries, particularly those with fewer scruples about such things cough Russia cough, engineered athletes will become a reality. It’s not who works hardest, or who’s hungriest. It’s whoever happens to have the best pharmacist or geneticist. If you in any way diminish the humanity of sport, then you diminish that which gives it its greatest appeal.
