"When Something Seems Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is"

Here's my disclaimer: I'm on a major rant here that's been brewing for years. It's long and opinionated. Read on if you'd like...

Here's the thing - I have had it with our athletes and their use of steroids. To be honest, I'm nothing more than an armchair complainer about this mess we've created as a country, society, world - whatever. I'm not claiming to be an expert, nor am I claiming to have researched my opinions at any great length. Just some poking around on Google and I've read a lot of articles about it. I'm also sticking just to the topic of sports and steroids and how I see it as evil. I'm not so naive that I don't realize that there's a very glamorous side to steroids too; such as way scary acne, man boobs, shriveled testicles, and female body builders who look like award-winning heifers in bikinis.

All that's another blog for another day.

I've never been THAT into sports. I do enjoy a good baseball game or golf match, and I love watching the Tour de France, just for the drama and intensity of it all. Those guys do amazing things day after day after day. I respect that their sport doesn't happen in 2 to 4 hour bursts of effort. They have to haul their sore butts on their bikes day after day and pedal all day. I also look forward to the day when one of the riders reaches out and clothes-lines one of the idiots on the side of the road who can't help but stand in front of him and wave his arms at him frantically. I will laugh for at least an hour.

The problem is, too many of our athletes are no longer athletes. They are cowards. And it makes me really mad. Of course, I have the freedom of turning the other way, and not giving them my money or my time. And mostly, I don't. But really, my own personal boycott is making no difference to anybody. They don't care if I'm there watching them. If we could get sports fans to turn away by the millions, that's when changes will be made. Yeah, that's gonna happen.

The problem as I see it, is that we are at the point of no return. Our cowards cannot de-drug themselves and go clean. They've gone way too far down this bad road and they've taken their sports with them. They're all superheroes in their fields now, and it's due in large part to the enhancing drugs that they rely on. It's like these athletes, both the users, and the ones who keep the using hush hush, have walked into a giant field of poop. And at this point, no matter which direction they turn, they can't get out of that field of poop without walking through a lot more poop.

Can you imagine a Tour de France, or a major league baseball game today sans steroids?? Boooooorrring! We want records set every single time! We want to see Floyd Landis come from nowhere and sprint up a mountain like the bionic man and THEN SEE HIM WIN THE RACE!! WOOOHOOO!!!! Oh,...wait, what's that? Never mind. Turns out he was doped up. Take the man's title away. We want Barry Bonds to hit 500 homeruns in a single season!!! What a man!! Oh, hold the phone. He's been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to his steroid questioning. It's the American way. We want, we want, we want. We want bigger and better every single time, and the only way we're going to get that is with drug use. This is the way is must be.

And this is also true for those athletes who don't use themselves, because even if they don't use, their fellow cowards do. And nobody's telling on anyone.

Where does it stop? Can it stop? Not until everybody's hand is out of everybody else's pocket and we know that will never happen. I won't blink an eyelash the day I learn that the president of the United States funds steroid use in sports. I can see it coming. Because if the baseball players can hit homerun after homerun and hit new records every season, the cowards get richer, their owners get richer, their agents get richer, the governing bodies of baseball get richer, the cities get richer, and every palm that's getting greased on the way is getting richer, and you can't tell me that it doesn't involve some slimy politicians. And that same palm greasing scenario plays out in every sport.

Our race horses are drugged, for crying out loud. Regarding horse racing, I read an article in the May 2008 issue of Popular Science magazine that says this, "The more intriguing and divisive issue surrounds medication. The entire sports landscape is engulfed in the performance-enhancing debacle and horse racing is no exception. From anti-inflammatory drugs, to pain relievers, to steroids, drugs are administered—often legally—to just about every racehorse in America. While increased performance raises competitive balance issues, the ability of the drugs to mask pain that puts injured horses on the track gives legitimacy to PETA’s cries of animal cruelty.....Humans choosing to play through the pain are revered as courageous. Humans masking the pain of a defenseless horse would more appropriately be branded cowards."

You can read the entire article here, if you want: http://www.popsci.com/score/article/2008-05/why-race-horses-are-dying. Race horses are so drugged that they can't even feel their pain. And they run blindly in their numb state and break legs on the track as they are whipped by their jockeys and then they're euthanized right there on the track. Wow, what fun! What an awesome sport!

It disgusts me. And here's the kicker. These people, in most every sport, are making bajillions of dollars off this drug farce! And we have homeless moms sleeping on the streets with their babies! I'm not a politically active person, which is funny because I have opinions about everything, but when I think about that overblown salary thing for more than 2 minutes at a stretch, I become Communist really fast, and would vote in a heartbeat to grab those astronomical salaries away from those corrupt cowards and give it to the homeless moms. Or to cancer research. Or alzheimer's research. Someday, and in my own world, I guess.

Those who I really feel sorry for are the kids. Take the little girl who has a poster of her hero Marion Jones on her wall.

Only to have Marion disgraced and crying on TV. Crying not because she took drugs and lied about it for years and finally has a conscience about that, mind you, but because she was exposed and forced to admit that she'd been lying for years about her drug use. How do you explain that disgrace to a kid; that every title Marion had won since the year 2000 had been stripped from her? And she's not the first athlete to fall from grace and she's far from the last.

What about Lance Armstrong? Either he used illegal drugs to win one or more of his 7 Tour de France titles, or he didn't. He's either the biggest villian in doping or the saddest tragedy to come out of it. Without a death bed confession by a knowing key person, the world will probably never know. And that's sad, because either Lance or his fans, and definitely the Tour, is being done a huge disservice, and either way, shame on Lance if he did dope, or if the press is wrong, shame on us for crucifying him for it. I don't even want to watch the Tour de France anymore, because I've gotten to where I can point out the guys who will be fingered for doping and will have their Yellow Jersey taken away. They're the ones who just sprinted up the mountain alone, or who are ahead day after day. Like they're robots.

"If something seems too good to be true, it probably is".

And it won't get better. There's always a newer, better way to dope so that nobody finds out. There's always the fellow coward who doesn't dope, but who won't blow the whistle because shoot, he's not stoopit! What kind of idiot is going to speak up about that? Is there no integrity in sports anymore? You can bet that none of the officials will point fingers. They're all making a nice living too. So how and when does it stop? Why are we so weak and corrupt as a society that this is acceptable? To even one of us?

One thing's for sure; the original Olympians - you know, the guys running around throwing javelins in loin cloths, if anything at all? - must roll over in their graves every time the Olympics come around. Look what a joke the amazing games they started has turned into.