Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds are great athletes. They are the best at what they do, and they are both the most popular figure in their respective sports. They have had great careers and have a ridiculous amount of accomplishments to their credit. Bonds has won the National League MVP award seven times in his career, Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times in a row. What more could these two men have in common?
Both athletes are under suspicion of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Both deny their use, and the fan base is supposedly divided on the issue. So, why does it seem like so many people want to jump down their throats and find them guilty of steroid use?
People can not accept that there are any amazing athletes, any athletes that work so hard, they can perform well above the rest of their class. Nobody believes that athletes now can have so much motivation to succeed so well. The common assumption is that all athletes are on some form of performance-enhancing drug! Not only does this affect all sports known to man, but it affects the athletes as well. When rumors start flying about how Jeff Francoeur must be on steroids because he is hitting .370, how will it affect the young kid, the Atlanta fans, the Atlanta Braves’ organization?
You see it everywhere now. Just today, I was eating lunch with a couple friends, and we started up a conversation concerning the latest allegations against Lance Armstrong. They both insisted that Armstrong had been on steroids in 1999 because “there was no way anyone wins the most grueling bike race in the world seven straight times.” Or, “He wouldn’t have been able to come back after battling cancer and start winning like that.” Well, why not?
In this case, it’s evident to me that one athlete is guilty, and one is innocent. I still can’t understand why people insist that Barry Bonds is innocent. He admitted that he took the ‘cream and clear’ without knowing what it was, but that doesn’t mean he should get a free pass. Is it just a nice convenience that Bonds had to miss almost the entire 2005 season recovering from surgeries performed on an injured knee? Is there no connection between what steroids to do an athlete’s body and what happened to Bonds?
I’m not trying to take away from Barry Bonds’ accomplishments because he is a Hall-of-Famer in my book. But he didn’t have to cheat to get to that level. It would be bad for baseball if he continues to play, worse if he passed Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list, and the worst if he passed Hank Aaron. Despite his paramount achievements in Major League Baseball, Barry Bonds will always have a tainted record, and an asterisk next to his name.
Lance Armstrong on the other hand, has made a believer out of me. Performance-enhancing drugs can do a lot to change the play of a mainstream-sport athlete, but it can’t do as much to someone like Armstrong. He has to train all year for the hardest cycling competition in the world, and then beat all the other top riders in a month-long event.
Not only did Lance Armstrong accomplish this feat an unprecedented seven straight times, but he did it after battling testicular cancer. You can’t have much more motivation than Armstrong. He stared death straight in the face and came back to defeat cancer and get his cycling career back on track. Armstrong’s body would surely be breaking down by now under the pressure of steroids, but it hasn’t. Even so, after the accusation by the Tour de France director became public recently, many people have jumped on the anti-Lance bandwagon. The public does not expect a star athlete without controversy. When the accusations and details about Armstrong are so hazy, you can’t assume that he has used steroids just because he performed incredibly in France year after year.
The difference between the fans dislike for Armstrong and their dislike for Bonds, is that Bonds was already classified as a jerk, and Armstrong was an American hero. The fans have plenty of jerks to jump on, but have never had someone so important and as admired as Armstrong to turn their backs on. From now on, the fans and the general public need to take more time to analyze the situation, and make a better decision as to whether they believe an athlete is guilty of cheating.
2 replies on “Jumping To Conclusions”
Lance et al. I though the story was well written, but not well thought through. Some of it didn’t ring true. too many sweeping generalizations and not enough evidence to support or refute points. You are blind to one possibility and sure of another. until we see the needle in the arm or the pill in the mouth, everything is going to be “hazy” or open to a fan’s interpretation. As for Bonds being a “jerk,” I’m not sure what you label a man who asks a wife to carry his children “in vitro” and hops ship at his convenience.
comment thanks for the comments…by saying bonds is a jerk i meant that he really is a jerk. i live in the bay area and have attended games, i’ve seen him refuse autographs to little kids and do all sorts of things like that. maybe its just a west coast thing but i assumed he had a reputation of being a jerk.