Quote:
Originally Posted by dlb
Your argument, GS, appears to be that whatever performance enhancers the fans accept are perfectly okay, while those that might offend the fans are not, even if they are not specifically banned. Is this your point?
|
I had not addressed any sort of scale for degrees of performance enhancement acceptance, so how could the above "appear" to you to be my argument? How did this appear? In a dream? I am unaware of any performance enhancement drugs which the fans have okayed as legit or non offensive to them.
However, if we do establish a scale for degrees of offensiveness, then it would make sense, would it not, to have the greatest contempt for those drugs which contributed the most to altering performances.
I don't see any response from you to my central point. Is it or is it not the case, that the fans of baseball watched the sport under the assumption that they were seeing on the level deeds and not chemically enhanced heroics? Is it or is it not the case that those who did use steroids, did so in a clandestine manner and that they continue to cover up their past/present use? Is it or is it not the case that everyone involved, players, owners and fans, had a full recognition that steroid use was seen as shameful and unethical in baseball?
It may not have been a crime, yet everyone is behaving as though it was crime, especially the "criminals."
And that is the dead center of the ethical line crossed by Barry et al. He knew it was wrong and he did it anyway. He knew the fans would not approve, so he covered it up.
Finally, if "the rules" was really the governing ethic at work here, then why are players reluctant to come out and admit that they used steroids back in the '90's? Why don't they want anyone to know? No shame according to you, it wasn't against the rules. So why do they act ashamed?