‘DN’ Columnist: Why Aren’t We Rioting In The Streets Over A-Rod?

Daily News fitness columnist Kimberly Garrison isn’t part of the Abridged Daily News Columnists, but maybe I should add her if this is what she’s writing regularly. Today, she tackles steroid use in baseball. As you probably know — as even President Obama was asked about it at his first press conference — Sports Illustrated revealed Saturday that Alex Rodriguez (the best or second-best player in baseball) tested positive for steroids in 2003.

Garrison’s column starts off pretty normal, actually: “OH NO, SAY it ain’t so! Not another ugly confession of steroid use in professional sports.” It goes on:

New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, one of the best players in Major League Baseball, just admitted what many have long suspected, that he has used “enhancement drugs.”

Um, no, a lot of people didn’t think he was a juicer. That’s what certain people are so angry about: They thought he had a chance to break the home run record of the guy they don’t like (Barry Bonds) and they thought he wouldn’t be on steroids or HGH (or whatever thing we don’t know about yet) when he did it.

The column actually gets good, then, for a few paragraphs, despite the pointless mention of Bernie Madoff. Garrison writes about how winning at all costs is something our culture condones and that we shouldn’t be surprised when athletes use steroids. (I don’t know why she’s surprised in her lead. Maybe she learned some new information between the first and ninth paragraphs.)

Then it gets super-awesome, super-quick:

On the flip side, quitters never win, but cheaters certainly seem to. There rarely seems to be real pubic outrage at these athletes. The public doesn’t demand refunds on their season tickets. There are no demonstrations or protests about athletes who cheat.

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Update, 4:32 p.m.: Oh, my God. I totally missed this, but a friend pointed it out. Can we print that one sentence again, in bold? Yes we can!

There rarely seems to be real pubic outrage at these athletes.

Ugh, this is what I get for trying to write something serious-ish. I totally miss that Kimberly Garrison is upset about a lack of pubic outrage toward A-Rod. Maybe she wants us to piss on him?

* * *

Yes! Where are the public demonstrations over A-Rod’s steroid use from 2001-2003?! Why aren’t we asking Barack Obama about this? (Oh, wait, we did.) And, hey, what do you know, somebody has sued MLB over players using steroids! And, gee, what’s this, people booed Bonds throughout his last couple years in the majors!

To the contrary, public demand for athletic performance has never been higher. One might assume that, as long as people have their superstars to worship, they could care less how these athletes achieved their astounding feats.

Most sports fans I know are tired of moralizing over steroids. They may hate steroids, they may think every single steroid user should be banned from baseball forever. But they just don’t want to hear the same people writing the same columns every single time another pro athlete tests positive for ‘roids.

The bottom line? As long as there are no significant consequences, steroid use and abuse will remain rampant. The potential for glory, glamour and gold far outweighs the risks. There is just too much money to be made for athletes to perform without doping.

Sadly, this has serious ramifications for our children. Many American teens take steroids - easily found online - to improve their appearance or athletic performance.

How can parents, ethics and education impress our youth when superstar cheaters get a free pass?

Youth: Traditionally impressed by ethics.

Let’s go through this: According to the most recent Monitoring the Future survey (it’s not perfect, but it’s what we got), less than 2 percent of 12th graders used steroids. (There’s a .pdf of some charts here.) Numbers were under 1 percent for 8th and 10th graders. Is that too high of a number still? Um, sure. But in what world does “less than 2 percent” equal “many”? And, hey, what do you know, around 90 percent of teens disapprove of using steroids once or twice! I’m actually pretty enthused after reading those numbers. They’re way “better” than I expected.

The main reasons kids use steroids are, not so shockingly, the same reasons adults use them: To look better, to help athletic performance in order to win games, because of mental issues (muscle dysmorphia). And some people just love taking risks! (I took some of the above info from the section titled “The ‘Role-Model’ Claim” this page about steroids in baseball; it also references a study that said “teens whose role models were sports figures were less likely to have used substances in the past week than teens who had other role models.”)

On the whole, obviously, it’s better for pro athletes to not take steroids or smoke pot on camera or drink beer during Prohibition (sorry, Babe Ruth!). I would guess, sure, there are some kids who have decided to use steroids because they saw Barry Bonds hit long homers. Dumb kids, though. Who would want to be like Barry Bonds, though? Everyone hates him!

A-Rod, too, is being vilified by everyone from Duke sports information director Dick Vitale to… hell, everyone. Pick any column from that second link, a Google News search. Everyone hates A-Rod. People want to take his name off the field he paid for. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says he’s going to make Hank Aaron the home run king again. (Not that Aaron is free of steroid speculation!) What more does Kimberly Garrison want?

Oh. A suspension, probably, or maybe a ban from baseball. That will somehow keep the kiddies off the steroids. Okay, fair enough. Let’s see:

Honestly, I question if sports officials really want to put an end to doping in pro sports. If they’re serious, why not treat steroid offenders like Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback who was vilified for engaging in dogfighting?

Until steroid use carries that kind of stigma, I suspect we’ll continue to hear bad news about professional athletes we thought we could look up to.

Yes! Throw A-Rod in jail! Hell, throw him to the lions! Or maybe make him play for the Detroit Lions, that would be worse. I should note Garrison is not the only person calling for A-Rod to be thrown in jail. I guess that’s what she’s calling for, right? Perhaps she will explain it in her final sentence:

Readers, what do you think?

This is, really, the last paragraph of the column. Incredible. What is it, a blog post?

I don’t really expect the Daily News fitness columnist to deliver insightful social commentary. (I’d say she should focus on fitness. She seems pretty awesome at that, actually. If she wanted to do an A-Rod column, she could write about the dangers of steroid use in developing bodies. But that’s just me.) But what’s amazing about this column is half of it is actually quite good: She gets that people use steroids because of things like American culture, innate human desire or allure of beauty or riches.

Then she wonders why A-Rod isn’t being burned at the stake in the center of New Yankee Stadium.

Sigh. And people wonder why guys like me (who consume far too much media for their own good) end up liking guys like Barry Bonds and A-Rod just to spite people. Well, maybe that says more about me than anybody else. Sighs all around, then.

Original photo by racoles used under a Creative Commons license