Do fans have the right to be upset with players?

Question

Who used steroids before the implementation of the drug testing program in 2002 or HGH before it was included in the testing program in 2005? Do you believe that players had a moral obligation or, at least, owed it to their teammates and fans not to use drugs even though there was nothing in place to stop them?

The high quality of each response is very impressive.

Answer 1

Upset? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. Fans are the reason players are famous, rich, and all to often, unreachable. I believe fans every right to be upset because of one very important aspect to the entire steroid scenario, "intent". Whether the drugs themselves were or were not legal at the time is irrelevant. The intent was to gain an unfair advantage over their peers and that's dishonest.

In the case of Andy Pettitte for example, perhaps he was able to justify in his mind that the use of HGH was only to rehab quicker but he didn't talk to a doctor and he was not under a doctor's care. He went behind their back. Why, because he knew that he might be doing something wrong.

Fans all over sports, not just in baseball have every right to be upset. An honest days pay for an honest days work should also apply in baseball as well.

Answer 2

It's not that simplistic a scenario. Every influential person or group -- other (presumably clean) players, families, friends, trainers, management, coaches, front office personnel, MLB corporate, and the media; anyone with access and suspicions -- that did nothing, even talk (with conviction) about it, was enabling abusers to go ahead and abuse.

Which is what happened. A corrosive culture fostered. Baseball is a competitive enterprise that attracts competitive people, the types who will seek advantages in the quest to play better and win more. Absent prohibition by the governing body, distribution channels developed, a Darwinian example of a free (albeit black) market.

Anyone could have dropped the dime*. No one did. It took an IRS agent rummaging in a dumpster to begin breaking the wall.

This is not to say everyone gets equal blame; the actual users score highest here. But there is more than enough to spread it around to all parties.

* Admittedly, dropped it to whom is a good question, as Selig clearly had a laissez-faire attitude about it. Along with the 1994-95 strike disaster, his administration should be (and will be by those who prefer honest history) remembered for these two monumental albatrosses around his wattlely neck.

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Commentary to Craig: it's not just the pressures that are enormous; the REWARDS can be as well. Everything leads into a massive positive-feedback loop that tempts, has tempted, will tempt, trying to gain that ever-elusive competitive advantage. And for some, that competitive fire burns more brightly inside than any other imperative.

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Adding a general note: while it doesn't carry a lot of credibility, "coming back from injury / healing faster" is a plausible reason, and one that management and ownership would tacitly endorse in a microsecond. Players being paid millions of dollars are not earning that money by staying off the diamond.

Answer 3

I will be upfront and say, as I have multiple times in posts, that I believe the fans share a burden of the responsibility in this.

With sports call in shows, the media and the internet, the fans have had more influence (not power though) over baseball than ever before and as much as teams want winners, fans want it more.
They cost to contribute is variable and controllable and their numbers are far greater.

If you asked a lot of fans if they would like their team to win every single year and have no other team win ever, a lot of people would say 'yeah, that would be awesome, I don't care about the experience for others, I want to be happy myself'
Welcome the new era, not the steroid era, the era of instant (and self) gratification.

The more the fans push for that world series trophy, not being happy with one, but some self serving need to win every single year, the more a team will search for those star players.
The players know that and also know that the perception is that home runs win games. The more home runs you hit, the more 'transparent' value you have, the more you are in demand, the more teams want you, the more teams are willing to pay to satisfy themselves and their fans.
As Chip pointed out to Craig, the payback is huge as well.

That was my fan rant, now on to your specific question.

The hard truth is that it these drugs not being on any banned substance list is the smallest thread on which players could actually balance on.
If more people asked themselves "would my parents be proud of this', 'would my kids understand', 'would I want my child making the same decision' and 'would I be ok if the world knew about this' are questions that we as a society should be asking when making these decisions.
Instead, they ask their accountant, their agent and mostly their supplier, and they all agreed, steroids are GOOD.

Bottom line is if the players couldn't come out and say they are using these knew drugs that they got from a doctor, doctoranonymous.com in fact, then they knew it was wrong and we hoping to profit from deception.

Yes, I think, even though we had a hand in making them, we have the right to be upset.
It's a brave new world and we aren't setting the best example for kids. Can you imagine what life will be like in 30 years when it's all about me?

Answer 4

I think that fans have the right to be upset, they feel like they were decieved by the players that they loved. I do not think that anyone should be punished by MLB for doing something before the rules were in place; I think that any punishment should be dealt with by legal means by prosecutors. They knew that these things were against the law and still took them, they knowingly did something to gain an advantage, whether that advantage was coming back quicker than expected or whether it was hitting the ball an extra 50 feet...the intent was to decieve the public into thinking they were better than their natural ability actually was!

On the other side though I can see why a player would do it. If youcould take something that you knew (at the time) you would get away with and it would help your performance get better and possibly give you a bigger contract then why not do it. Several people may say that they would have never done it but they are not in the postion to say what they would have done. I think that anyone that has that kind of competitvness in their blood would know that they would take anything to get an advantage!

Answer 5

HGH and anabolic steroids were illegal to use without a doctor's prescription. But fans have no right to be upset with athletes. The steroid monsters of wrestling and football have been around long before the Mitchell Report.

I doubt that Arnold Schwarznegger would had parlayed a superior career (rather than dominance) in bodybuilding to the mega movie star (I think he would have had a respectable movie career, like Steve Reeves) to governor of California, had he not used steroids.


The whacky ideas floating in congress now are to build more jail cells, rather than independent sport specific testing. Removing the financial incentives to juice would have the desired effect of cleaning up the drug abuse pervasive in baseball, football, hockey, basketball and wrestling. What is proposed now merely calls for athletes to take drug vacations in foreign countries where using HGH and steroids is legal and the use of physicians (with physician /patient privilege) to monitor the drug use .

What Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds did wrong was to not build a wall of attorneys and physicians around themselves to keep public disclosure of their drug use from ever surfacing. Any professional athlete who can aspire to a even a 6 figure salary will simply study the errors of these athletes to not get caught.

Schwarznegger's case illustrates how human performance drug use has been around since the early 1970's. One can look at ALL sports records in ALL major sports with a jaundiced eye. The list of great athletes of over the past 35 years who I consider to had never used steroids/HGH is far shorter than the list of athletes I would consider possible to probable use.

Answer 6

I think they have more of a right to be upset about the use of steroids than HGH, given that the laws on steroids have for years been more clear than those regarding human growth hormone.

Personally, I have a hard time getting too angry with them, because I can understand the reasons for taking them. These guys were just trying to gain any advantage they could to either make it to the majors (guys like Nook Logan), to fend off aging (Clemens), or to become a better player (Brian Roberts). It's easy to cast stones at them for what they did, but I think the pressures on these guys are pretty enormous. That's not excusing what they did, but I can understand the motivation.

If anyone has a right to be angry, it's their teammates and the guys who were passed over for a shot at the majors in favor of the users. By not playing on a level field, they may have taken opportunities from others.

Answer 7

Frizzer. I'm surprised at you. This is Major League Baseball we're talking about. The commissioner and all in his office, the Players Association and all the agents, the writers, the ushers, the vendors -- they'll all tell you the same. Fans ain't got no rights. Fans are not only the lowest on the totem pole, vermin are more highly regarded. Sure, one can complain. You might just as well expect 75 cent gasoline or a yes or no answer from a politician, though, if you expect it to do any good.

Answer 8

I have no reason at all to hate or be upset with any professional athlete that took drugs. It's their bodies and not mine that's getting polluted by HGH and steroids.

I'm not sure if they have a "morals clause" in their contracts, which makes sense and was a phrase taken from the "Juwanna Mann" movie..... If at all possible, all future athletes signing pro contracts should have their teams and agents include that "morals clause" to avoid having these types of issues and problems within sports. They'd have to act like model citizens from now on!

Answer 9

Actually in my opinion this is a lot of hoopla over very little. To suggest people weren't doing "performance enhancement" long before steroid abuse became buzz words is silly. I'm also not even sure I agree that an adult taking steroids and putting themselves at major risk for self damage should be illegal.

There are those who will say wrestler Benoit killed his family due to steroid use but this seems an extreme that can't be proven to me. All the press we've seen about various sports seems to show steroid use is endemic in sports (including Olympics) yet somehow they don't all murder their families. Therefore it seems the biggest proven risks are to the players themselves. If they do it despite those risks then they are adults and know why they chose to do so.

Answer 10

Yes! The People Who Have Season TIckets Or Plans Are Paying A Lot Of Money To See Ther Fav. Teams Win!