By DAN LE BATARD
THE MIAMI HERALD
January 14, 2008
Just one time, above all the noise from media members shaking their torches and pitchfork-wielding politicians following instead of leading, I'd like to hear one thoughtful athlete cut through the crud and say that he/she isn't sorry for anything other than this ridiculous hysteria surrounding our fun and games.
No more lame B-12 excuses. No more homespun "I took human growth hormone just so that I could get back to aid my teammates, city, church and community." No more finger-wagging lies before Congress or 60 Minutes or federal grand juries.
Just once, I'd like to hear an active athlete/entertainer surrounded by a steroid scandal rise up and be honest and unafraid the way retired Charles Barkley can be when he says that, if it meant the difference between being poor and rich, he would have popped illegal pills "like Tic-Tacs" and spent all his time sticking needles in his ample posterior.
Can you picture it?
The scandalous swirl that envelops Marion Jones and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (but, inexplicably, not Shawne Merriman) being countered by one brave and defiant athlete standing in front of the cameras and saying the following to America:
"Yes, I used HGH. Used it all the time, illegally, under the supervision of trainers I pay well to keep me at optimum efficiency.
"My body is a business and a source of great profit in the entertainment industry, and I've hired the best mechanics to keep this machine running right.
"I'm sorry that is something you tolerate from the governor of California and Rambo but not me.
"What I do for a living hurts physically, and the hormone helps me heal. Craig Biggio destroys his stomach lining by taking 12 Advil a day. I did this, which is actually safer. I'm not sorry for that. I'm sorry you don't understand the world where I work. I'm sorry I'm surrounded by ignorant judgments and name-calling and sports McCarthyism. But I'm not sorry for being competitive and looking for advantages in medicine the same way I did in film work, scouting reports and training techniques.
"I take cortisone, a steroid, to keep my shoulder and back from screaming. I had Lasik surgery, lasering my eyes, to improve my vision. But with your arbitrary moralities, you are blurring the line for me so much between what is allegedly natural and allegedly unnatural that not even those Lasik lasers help me unblur it.
"There is no sense of proportionality here. The difference between pain-killers such as cortisone and healers such as HGH isn't nearly as large as the difference between how you react to the former and the latter.
"Legal and illegal? Whatever. Growth hormone has been at the core of ethical debates for four decades. Marijuana is arbitrarily illegal, and alcohol is arbitrarily legal. I took ephedra all the time when I could get it legally at any vitamin store early in my career, but then the government banned it. Androstenedione was legal in my sport one year, not the next.
"I'm not sorry for trying to make myself better. It is what I've done all my life, and it's part of why I'm great at what I do. I do what is necessary to stay atop a cruel and competitive ecosystem.
"You cheer my competitive spirit when you aren't busy judging it now. You love how much I care right up until I care too much. You can call it cheating if being judgmental makes you feel good, but I called it the difference between keeping up and falling behind.
"Why are you gasping? Too honest? You wanted a bowed head and contrition and lies like those from all my broken peers who aren't really sorry for what they did as much as they're sorry for how you react to it?
"All I'm sorry about is that you folks have become irrational because of absurd Congressional hearings and the feds trying to wiretap middle reliever Jason Grimsley and a flimsy Mitchell Report that cloaked gossip in credibility and smeared names just to justify 20 months of work and $20 million in wasted dollars.
"Let me put this in human terms:
"I added years to my career. Would you deny yourself a fountain of youth from which everyone else in your workplace was drinking if it meant falling behind? How many of you wouldn't take a magic potion to keep doing something you love for extra years? How many of you wouldn't do it if it provided a better life for your family by getting you from Triple A to the major leagues with all the accompanying benefits?
"So you can say my work is forever stained. That's fine. But y'all can kiss my asterisk."
