They are called PED’s: performance-enhancing drugs. This title is self-explanatory. A player takes them to enhance his performance. It’s cheap, it’s dishonest, and it’s shameful. But most of all – and here’s the rub – it’s effective. Ergo, for anyone not named Derek Jeter (who carries a set of morals built for a family of 5), it’s extremely tempting. The success and the celebrity that baseball’s forbidden fruit promises is alluring, almost seductive, and players take them for the same reasons that Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge. (Luckily for us, sin and death are not spread throughout the world when a baseball player succumbs to the temptation of PHD’s, or our world would probably be ruled by guys like Bernie Madoff and Jerry Sandusky.)
But sometimes PHD’s lie. They promise something they cannot deliver, and players become nothing more than their former drug-free self. In fairness, this is often a result of the player using, not the drug itself. (I doubt that the steroids Alex Rodriguez used were any “better” than the ones Matt Lawton used, but the effects were drastically different.) It’s also a result of big egos and starry eyes, the likes of which run rampant in the MLB, as players freely associate pills and syringes with majestic homeruns and lavish heaps of cash. After witnessing the gaudy success enjoyed by Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc, etc, it’s hard to blame them for this.
But Bonds, McGwire and Sosa share something in common. They were each prolific players without performance-enhancers. They didn’t need to supplement themselves with steroids to reach stardom (whether it’s saddening or maddening that they caved is for you to decide.) Thus when they did use, the results were magnified because they already possessed this foundation of talent. The drugs they allegedly took did not teach them how to hit – there is no steroid that helps you hit the ball the other way or discern balls and strikes. These are natural abilities. (If I took steroids tomorrow, I might pop a few more homers in wiffleball this summer, but I’m not taking over for Mark Teixeira.) I don’t have that in me.
The same goes for middling Major Leaguers. Enter Marlon Byrd.
A former outfielder for the Phillies, Nationals, Rangers, Cubs and Red Sox (and here already is an intimation of his capability) Byrd was suspended 50 games by the MLB yesterday for testing positive for Tamoxifen, a performance-enhancing drug. In an official statement, he claimed that, “Although that medication is on the banned list, I absolutely did not use it for performance-enhancement reasons.’’ He cited a surgery, “private and unrelated to baseball,” as cause for taking the drug. But every accused player comes armed with an explanation. Almost all of them find an escape route leading to their vindication.
Thing is, Byrd probably didn’t even need an out card because I don’t think anyone even read his statement. No one really cared. He’s not a name you see on the leaderboards, he’s not a name you expect to see on the leaderboards, and he’s not a name you know because of loud self-promotion or obnoxious publicity stunts (Nyger Morgan). He’s an average hitter and an average fielder whose name is peripheral to the ones we care about.
And he used PHD’s. He’s like the kid who sneaks a cheat sheet into the test and still gets a C minus. With the aid of Tamofixen, Byrd hit .210 this season in 47 games with the Cubs and Red Sox. He hit 1 home run, collected 9 RBI’s, and amassed more strikeouts than hits. Arizona recently had temperatures higher than his OBP. And thus Byrd not only becomes a villain, but a villain who sucks. Whereas Bonds and Co. played the role of baseball’s Joker, Byrd gets to be that red-headed kid from The Inredibles. No one’s even afraid of that guy.
So to the rest of the Average Joe’s out there, don’t do it. Don’t pop a pill or take a shot or drink some mysterious, bubbling green liquid and wait for yourself to become the Incredible Hulk. It won’t happen. You have to first be good in order to be great.
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