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Doug Glanville played for the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Texas Rangers from the mid 1990s to 2004. He writes an op-ed for the Times, and it’s a refreshingly authentic and personal and fresh angle on the temptation to take steroids:
Human nature wants to put the brakes on that rate of change. While your clock is ticking, faster, stronger and younger players are setting up their lockers next to yours. They usually have better sound bites and lower salaries, too. In 1998, I was the new kid in Philadelphia, battling Lenny Dysktra for the center field job. Five years later, I was mentoring another new kid, Marlon Byrd, so he could replace me. Faced with that rate of career atrophy, players are capable of rash, self-serving and often irresponsible decisions. Enter steroids.
The best thing I’ve read on it so far.
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The tempation to sacrifice integrity purely for success is not limited to sports by any means. No extra sympathy for the temptations faced by athletes than by any other in this day and age. Character is character regardless of your particular job or context, and it has never been easy.
wow Joel, you are so right. I appreciate your sayiung that character is character. Our integrity is really all we own, when you look at the situation honestly.
Glanville sucked.
Frankly, I don’t see why people are so up in arms about steroids in baseball. Sure, they are performance enhancers, to a degree. However, numerous studies have shown no, repeat no, increase in strength from HGH. Steroids? They don’t help you swing a bat or hit a ball or control a curveball.
Besides, pitchers today get ligament replacement surgeries. Hitters get lasik. Those are performance enhancers, yet they are not banned.
These are grown adults. Let them make their own decisions. It’s not like steroids are heroin or cocaine; some may develop problems, but not all.
Ahem, simple question, have you ever stood in the box and stared down a 90 mph fast ball? Have you ever been down by one, had two strikes and wish for all the world you had something on the next pitch? I’m not justifying anything . . . just saying I understand. It doesn’t make it right, but when you’ve been “da man” everyone talks about since you were 14 and you are looking at retirement at 32 . . . that’s temptation. Glad Jesus understood the First Stone principle.
ADIOS, one could also make a case for athletes being excessively pampered and privileged–even the ethical players. But that is not my point either. I say that doing right is equally hard for us all. It is only complicated by the excuses we try to throw into each other’s faces for not doing right. Our culture is proficient at playing the “we-have-it-worse-than-others” card and it just doesn’t play with God.
When Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin throw the first stone,” he was not also making excuses for the sinner in question and neither was the sinner.