Jonathan Zimmerman: Steroid scandal challenges American sports myths
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century" (Harvard University Press, 2006).]
Major League Baseball players are taking steroids! It's an outrage!
Nobody should be surprised by Thursday's report from former Sen. George Mitchell linking 89 baseball players to performance-enhancing drugs. There were several local players named in the report, of course, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. But we already knew that ballplayers were juicing, and we'll probably learn the names of still more violators in the weeks and months to come.
So the interesting question isn't about the players, who, with a few exceptions like Pettitte, are mostly keeping quiet while they lawyer up. Instead, it's about the rest of us. Why do we care so much? What's wrong with taking steroids, anyway?
Sure, these drugs injure athletes' bodies. But many sports injure athletes, too. At least 50 high school and junior-high school football players have died or sustained serious head injuries on the field over the past decade; by some estimates, at least half of all school players have sustained a concussion.
At the professional level, meanwhile, injuries limit the average length of an NFL player's career to four years. And many of these injuries continue to plague players for the rest of their lives, with symptoms ranging from memory loss to chronic back pain.
So it's not about health. If the real reason for banning steroids was that they were bad for you, we'd have to ban football, too.
Instead, our antipathy to these drugs reflects their challenge to a basic American myth: individual merit. In our country, we like to believe, people rise and fall based on their personal abilities, effort and initiative. Sports embody this grand national story, replayed every weekend on your living-room television screen. And steroids refute it, suggesting that people with the best pills - not the best skills - rise to the top.
That's why so many of our metaphors about fairness and equality come from the world of athletics. Pleading for greater federal assistance for blacks, President Lyndon B. Johnson likened their plight to a track runner who had been shackled for centuries.
Even after we removed the shackles - of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination - the runner would still be at a disadvantage. So he needed a "Head Start," yet another sports metaphor. And one day, we might hope, Americans would compete on a "level playing field."
Only, they don't. Despite our shared mythology, we all know that we live in a deeply unequal society. Our sports are no different. In athletics, as in life, the field is anything but equal. And we all know that, too.
Consider that the vast majority of college athletes come from well-to-do suburbs, not from the inner cities. Starting in elementary school, their parents drive them long distances to compete on "travel teams." They get the best facilities, the best coaches, the best summer camps. A level playing field? Hardly.
And the best illustration of that fact comes - ironically enough - from Brian McNamee, the trainer who allegedly injected Clemens and Pettitte with performance-enhancing drugs. Back in 2000, as a strength coach with the New York Yankees, McNamee wrote an article in The New York Times denying the widespread use of steroids in the major leagues. Yes, McNamee admitted, players were "stronger, faster and smarter" than their predecessors. But their achievements reflected their superior facilities, he explained, not their new pharmaceuticals.
"Today's teams have athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, massage therapists, chiropractors and nutritionists," McNamee wrote. "Did Roger Maris or Babe Ruth have this when they played?"
The answer, of course, is no. But neither do most athletes, period. McNamee's remarks remind us that inequality permeates every aspect of our lives, including sports. The best athletes are not simply the ones who are blessed with the most natural talent or the ones who try the hardest. They're also nurtured by an enormous, expensive network of schools, teachers and coaches. And in these social realms, some of us are simply more equal than others.
If McNamee really did inject Clemens and Pettitte with performance-enhancing drugs, as the report alleges, he gave them an unfair advantage. But it pales next to the boost that rich kids receive, every single day, just by being born in the right place at the right time.
In sports, as in life, we want to believe that we've earned what we've got. The steroids scandal won't change that. After the offending players are disciplined and the testing procedures are tightened, we'll pat ourselves on the back and declare that the playing field is level once again. And we'll pretend that the best man wins.
Major League Baseball players are taking steroids! It's an outrage!
Nobody should be surprised by Thursday's report from former Sen. George Mitchell linking 89 baseball players to performance-enhancing drugs. There were several local players named in the report, of course, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. But we already knew that ballplayers were juicing, and we'll probably learn the names of still more violators in the weeks and months to come.
So the interesting question isn't about the players, who, with a few exceptions like Pettitte, are mostly keeping quiet while they lawyer up. Instead, it's about the rest of us. Why do we care so much? What's wrong with taking steroids, anyway?
Sure, these drugs injure athletes' bodies. But many sports injure athletes, too. At least 50 high school and junior-high school football players have died or sustained serious head injuries on the field over the past decade; by some estimates, at least half of all school players have sustained a concussion.
At the professional level, meanwhile, injuries limit the average length of an NFL player's career to four years. And many of these injuries continue to plague players for the rest of their lives, with symptoms ranging from memory loss to chronic back pain.
So it's not about health. If the real reason for banning steroids was that they were bad for you, we'd have to ban football, too.
Instead, our antipathy to these drugs reflects their challenge to a basic American myth: individual merit. In our country, we like to believe, people rise and fall based on their personal abilities, effort and initiative. Sports embody this grand national story, replayed every weekend on your living-room television screen. And steroids refute it, suggesting that people with the best pills - not the best skills - rise to the top.
That's why so many of our metaphors about fairness and equality come from the world of athletics. Pleading for greater federal assistance for blacks, President Lyndon B. Johnson likened their plight to a track runner who had been shackled for centuries.
Even after we removed the shackles - of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination - the runner would still be at a disadvantage. So he needed a "Head Start," yet another sports metaphor. And one day, we might hope, Americans would compete on a "level playing field."
Only, they don't. Despite our shared mythology, we all know that we live in a deeply unequal society. Our sports are no different. In athletics, as in life, the field is anything but equal. And we all know that, too.
Consider that the vast majority of college athletes come from well-to-do suburbs, not from the inner cities. Starting in elementary school, their parents drive them long distances to compete on "travel teams." They get the best facilities, the best coaches, the best summer camps. A level playing field? Hardly.
And the best illustration of that fact comes - ironically enough - from Brian McNamee, the trainer who allegedly injected Clemens and Pettitte with performance-enhancing drugs. Back in 2000, as a strength coach with the New York Yankees, McNamee wrote an article in The New York Times denying the widespread use of steroids in the major leagues. Yes, McNamee admitted, players were "stronger, faster and smarter" than their predecessors. But their achievements reflected their superior facilities, he explained, not their new pharmaceuticals.
"Today's teams have athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, massage therapists, chiropractors and nutritionists," McNamee wrote. "Did Roger Maris or Babe Ruth have this when they played?"
The answer, of course, is no. But neither do most athletes, period. McNamee's remarks remind us that inequality permeates every aspect of our lives, including sports. The best athletes are not simply the ones who are blessed with the most natural talent or the ones who try the hardest. They're also nurtured by an enormous, expensive network of schools, teachers and coaches. And in these social realms, some of us are simply more equal than others.
If McNamee really did inject Clemens and Pettitte with performance-enhancing drugs, as the report alleges, he gave them an unfair advantage. But it pales next to the boost that rich kids receive, every single day, just by being born in the right place at the right time.
In sports, as in life, we want to believe that we've earned what we've got. The steroids scandal won't change that. After the offending players are disciplined and the testing procedures are tightened, we'll pat ourselves on the back and declare that the playing field is level once again. And we'll pretend that the best man wins.