The past few weeks the media have zeroed in on suspected steroid use by some well known baseball players who have set new records for home runs. The bat swinging looks to be Herculean in nature, but the suggestion that steroids have helped the ball out of the playing field has caused a cloud of suspicion to envelope the kings of swat.

Much has been said and written on the subject from many points of view, and now I am going to look at it from yet another perspective, one that hasn’t been done. The perspective is from two points seen in scripture about what God expects of humans and the resulting conduct of not following God. 

The Bible says that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that when anything that is done to deliberately harm or destroy that body, it is wrong. And connected to the issue at hand, it is known that steroids harm the body and can cause untimely death. It makes no difference whether one is a believer or not; sin is sin in either case.

The other aspect of the behavior deals with the new records that have been set. The question is, “Are they legitimate?” If chemicals were used to enhance the performance they aren’t valid from my point of thinking. From the Biblical view the records are a lie since the performance of the players didn’t stem from only their natural ability. The steroid factor must be considered which makes the records very suspect.

An argument was made about Roger Maris in 1961 breaking Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs with 61. The Ruth record set in 1927 was done in 154 games and Maris hit his 61 in 162 games. The feat of Maris earned him an asterisk because the season was longer by 8 games. But the asterisk didn’t do credit to Maris or Ruth.

The Babe averaged a bit more than one home run (.3896103 per game) every three games. Using that average for a 162 game season, Ruth would have hit 63 home runs, with all things being equal. Therefore, Maris would have been 2 home runs short of the record. Neither Babe Ruth nor Roger Maris used performance enhancing drugs and neither were muscle bulging big necked athletes. And the baseballs they used were not as lively as the ones used now. However, the balls Maris hit were much livelier than those in Ruth’s day, so Ruth’s record is even more awesome when all the facts are known. Yet Maris is deserving of the record since the difference in the baseballs is an unknown quantity and no drugs were involved. The asterisk was finally removed from beside the Maris record when baseball commissioner Faye Vincent declared Maris the rightful owner of the record earned in a legitimate manner.

And in the present discussion of steroids, the word legitimate is the focal point. If in fact drugs were used and it can be proven, then the new records are phony and should be removed, which will restore both Roger Maris and Babe Ruth to their rightfully earned place in sports history. They deserve no less than that for their honest effort in setting the records without chemicals other than that found in food they ate. 

If it can’t be proven that the players under suspicion used steroids, a cloud is none the less hovering over the records they set. An asterisk should be placed beside their numbers with the notation, suspected chemical enhancement by the record setter. Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and all the other hitters with records of note deserve nothing less since the new records may well be a lie. 

© 07/25/2011 DEC