Cheating

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:08 am

Slate has a story about baseball players, golfers and other pro athletes getting expensive laser surgery to improve their vision (often to 20/15 or better). This gives them a competitive edge. Is it cheating?

http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2116858

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:46 am

Nothing is cheating unless the rules of Major League Baseball prohibit it.

SuchASlot · **Joined:** Thu Oct 21, 2004 12:01 am **Posts:** 1189

Quote:

Nothing is cheating unless the rules of Major League Baseball prohibit it.

A good point, but it disregards the big picture.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 10:34 am

Matthew Grieco wrote:

Nothing is cheating unless the rules of Major League Baseball prohibit it.

Let me rephrase the question: Should it be considered cheating?

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:51 am

ADKbrown wrote:

Let me rephrase the question: Should it be considered cheating?

No. Nor should players who used steroids before baseball banned them be considered cheaters -- though baseball should be appropriately ashamed of not making it cheating.

The only rationale for baseball to prohibit steroid use is that steroids are illegal and harmful to the human body. Laser eye surgery is a legitimate practice. I fail to see why this should even be an issue.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:28 pm

Matthew Grieco wrote:

ADKbrown wrote:

Let me rephrase the question: Should it be considered cheating?

The only rationale for baseball to prohibit steroid use is that steroids are illegal and harmful to the human body. Laser eye surgery is a legitimate practice. I fail to see why this should even be an issue.

An argument can be made that steroids should be banned even if they were legal and void of deleterious side effects. Athletics should be about natural talent honed by training and exercise. Taking injections in the ass as a shortcut cheapens athletic accomplishment. I don't put vision-enhancement surgery in the same category as steroids, but I'm not wholly comfortable with it, either. In both cases, athletes are compensating for a lack of natural ability. Although I'm not worked up about the eye surgery, it seems like a slippery slope. What's next? Muscle implants? Call me old-fashioned, but I think genetic differences add mystique to sport. Babe Ruth and Ted Williams (who said he could see the spin on a pitched ball) were phenoms because of their God-given talents and physical attributes. If science can create phenoms through surgery, training and drugs, then there will be no real phenoms, just athletic Frankensteins. And professional sports will be further removed from ordinary experience.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 4:25 pm

Williams' advantage was that his eyes had an abnormally fast "shutter speed." He could not only pick up the rotation of a ball before most hitters, he could actually see where the bat struck the ball. In "The Umpire Strikes Back," Ron Luciano recounted a demonstration in which Williams hit 10 balls with a bat coated with pine tar, announcing the point of impact after each hit, i.e. "Half an inch above the seam." The marks left by the pine tar showed that he correctly called seven of the 10.

I was thinking that simply improving one's vision to 20/15 or whatever via surgery (Williams' was supposedly 20/10, by the way) would not enhance "shutter speed," but I just called an optometrist friend who explained that Lasik using wavefront technology reduces high-order aberrations, making it much easier to train the eyes to see "faster," which is the key to picking up the rotation of a pitch.

It seems to me that part of the criteria to determine if something is "cheating" is its practical availability. Anyone who can afford it can have laser eye surgery, and the risks are minimal. But there are many, many athletes who won't take performance enhancers, for whatever reasons, even though they're available. That's a matter of personal choice, but it still makes for a non-level playing field, and that's why I consider steroid use "cheating." If everyone can have the same advantages without compromising something or going outside the rules, I don't see a problem.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 5:19 pm

Oeditpus Rex wrote:

It seems to me that part of the criteria to determine if something is "cheating" is its practical availability. Anyone who can afford it can have laser eye surgery, and the risks are minimal.

Interesting post, Oed. I just want to point out that not everyone, at least in the colleges and the minors, will be able to afford laser surgery. Those that can will have an advantage. And there will be players in the majors who could afford it but don't want to risk their eyesight in elective surgery. They will be at a disadvantage. Over time, it's possible that more and more players will get the surgery and evolution will weed out the chickenhearted.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 8:35 pm

Where do you draw the line? The early baseball players didn't have access to modern training equipment. Stick Jim Thorpe next to players from the 1950s and he looks like a pencil. And even before the steroid boom, free agency gave players the financial independence to spend the offseason training.

Then there's the march of modern medicine, Tommy John surgery and the wizardry that the Red Sox team doctor performed on Curt Schilling's ankle in October.

Times change. As long as it's done above board and doesn't involve breaking the law or setting awful role models for children, I embrace it as part of the fascinating evolution of the game.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:26 pm

ADKbrown wrote:

I just want to point out that not everyone, at least in the colleges and the minors, will be able to afford laser surgery. Those that can will have an advantage.

That made me think scouting reports may soon say something like "Good bat speed, makes contact. If we get him the laser, he hits .320 with 30 homers," if they don't already. It could become as common as "Tommy John surgery," paid for by the ball club, but proactive instead of reactive. (Gawd, that sounds like something a publisher would say.)

I can see some guys being "chickenhearted," too. I've thought about Lasik, but the idea of any kind of eye surgery gives me the willies.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 10:08 pm

Oeditpus Rex wrote:

I can see some guys being "chickenhearted," too. I've thought about Lasik, but the idea of any kind of eye surgery gives me the willies.

Ditto. I'll just stick with the glasses.

Brian · **Posted:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:16 pm

To me the problem is one of three areas: illegal, hazardous or disruptive. If it's illegal it should not be in baseball. If it's hazardous, it should not be in baseball, even if it happens to be legal. If it's too disruptive, you have the right to keep it out of baseball even if it's legal and safe. If laser eye surgery meant that 10 or 11 players were hitting .400 every year and scores were 35 to 32, or Tommy John surgery meant that pitchers were throwing four or five no-hitters in a row, you have the right to say, "That's not baseball; go play Xtreme Stickball or something." So far these surgeries seem to be legal, safe ways to reach the upper range of human ability, but mostly, just to regain the ability you lost.

By the way, Slate has a recent article on why it's probably impossible for any pitcher to ever get much faster than 100 mph.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:06 am

Brian wrote:

So far these surgeries seem to be legal, safe ways to reach the upper range of human ability, but mostly, just to regain the ability you lost.

MG asked where you draw the line. I don't know. As I said, I'm not terribly worked up about the eye surgery, but it does differ from Tommy John surgery in that athletes are not restoring lost ability but enhancing their normal eyesight.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:42 am

Fair enough. But it still doesn't bother me so long as it's considered safe and legal. I suppose I'd draw the line at robotic implants. When the players become cyborgs, then I'll worry that the game is no longer a sport.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Wed Apr 20, 2005 2:07 pm

Brian wrote:

By the way, Slate has a recent article on why it's probably impossible for any pitcher to ever get much faster than 100 mph.

Slate obviously doesn't account for the onset of Steve Austin surgery.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:29 am

An old slang expression for eyeglasses is "cheaters."

When players began wearing contact lenses, some folks wondered if that was fair.

I agree with those who favor restrictions on steroid use.

And I understand the opposition to the new eye surgeries, based on the unfairness resulting from expense, but I'm not sure I oppose it. Life isn't fair.

I also understand why some players (and copy editors), fearing harm from surgery, shy away from it. A friend ended up with worse eyesight after the first operation and little improvement after the second before leaving copy editing.

PunkOnce · **Posted:** Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:55 am

I've read much discussion on this board about the ways in which the (sports) media create an environment in which steroid-based cheating is inevitable. Okay, fine.

But I keep thinking about a different media failing: would the steroids story have been that difficult to break before now? Before pondering the symbiotic relationship between Barry Bonds and sportswriters in creating Bonds' public image, I'd want to know: why wasn't the steroids story reported years ago?

Surely there have always been athletes who knew steroid abuse was going on and had a *strong* desire to see it stop. Baseball pitchers would be near the top of that list; also any team staffers (trainers? doctors?) who are genuinely concerned about their players' well-being. Plus it doesn't seem to me like the people pulling this scam are the kind of master criminals who are good at covering their tracks. Someone please correct me here, but it seems to me that *anyone* could have broken this story back when a cube-shaped Jose Canseco was 40-40'ing his way into the record books.

Which all just contributes to the impression that sports journalists are cheerleaders first and reporters second. In fact I can easily imagine some young reporter on a big-city metro going to his editor with this story idea -- maybe even during 1998's summer of Mac and Sammy -- and being told, "If you want to write that story, you're going to do it in Akron."

And the Albom flap just reinforces the impression that standards in that nook of the journalism business are way, way low. When my first editor in Houston (an ex-Chronicle reporter) referred to all sports sections as "the Toy Department," I thought he was just being mean (because I liked sports, plus he was mean). Ever since then, however, all the evidence I've seen has been on his side.

Would anyone like to take the other side of this argument and bring me back to earth here? For instance, most people on this board are more knowledgeable about how sports departments actually operate, I'm sure.

Brian · **Posted:** Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:34 am

The beat writers are probably not in the best position to do the big investigative piece about steroids, being too close to their sources and having daily stories to grind out.

They've never been friendly with Barry Bonds, though, in the way they were with Pete Rose, who kept them from seeing things by being a loveable storyteller. They gave Bonds a hard time over the years about many things. They also grilled Mark McGwire about the andro that was found in his locker, although they probably weren't motivated to destroy the rousing story of the home run chase that year. They haven't been easy on Sammy Sosa either.

The sight of various average-sized infielders coming to spring training bulked up and hitting for power caused some murmurs, and maybe a 12-part go-for-the-Pulitzer series has been launched for less reason. They had a few warning signs that something was going on, such as the Ken Caminiti case, but with no testing, it's hard to have enough evidence to go to print with anything. For a long time, it was just workplace gossip.

It wasn't until a long, complicated investigation by the FBI and IRS, and grand jury leaks, that the San Francisco paper was able to do some reporting.

Even now, despite a huge pile of circumstantial evidence, nobody can go to print with what they think Bonds did. Jason Giambi tells the world he's sorry, but can't say what he's sorry for. McGwire and Schilling changed their stories when they were under oath before Congress. At least the minor leaguers are getting cleaned up.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:45 am

That answers that.

Now we'll resume our suspension of steroids talk for the time being.

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