There sure has been a lot of talk about steroid usage in the news lately. Namely pertaining to professional athletes. This bothers me only slightly. What bothers me surprisingly isn’t the fact that they are using steroids, but the fact that it is newsworthy at all. Of course we all get to hear the ‘news’ that Brad and Jennifer broke up, and the ‘news’ that woman got lost in a corn field. With no corn in it. (Isn’t that a dirt field?) So in these cases, we are shown that anything is indeed newsworthy.

Thus my complaint can’t really be that this is news so much as that it shouldn’t matter enough to ever make it into the news. Who the hell cares if they use steroids? If Jose Canseco wants to pump up so he can knock one over the fence, I say more power to him. So to speak. Why should this bother us?

I liken this behavior to one-upping in Super Mario Brothers. You get extra lives so you can go further. Or it’s like buying an extra five bucks-worth of lotto tickets. A better chance at winning. Those who want to look like pimple farms and jarheads can shoot up for a little extra power on their hits. What’s to stop the pitcher from loading up and adding a few MPHs to his fastball? The whole reason they play is for competition, no? It’s all a big game. So how is it that we’ve suddenly changed the standards to such that doing what you can to be better has become unfair? As long as everyone has the same chances of success in his game, it’s fair. Which it isn’t anyway, because some guys are built bigger and stand taller already.

Take boxing, for example. They make sure that the two opponents weigh really close to the same exact poundage before a championship fight. Or they used to anyway. This is to even the scales. Again with these puns?! They don’t do that in any other sport. So it’s already unfair if you ask me. So who cares about adding more muscle via steroids? Everyone has the option to take them (outside the law, of course) so why is this unfair?

I do think we should keep them out of schools, not because it would make Friday night football more competitive, but because it is a drug and kids shouldn’t blah blah blah. But I say let it be in professional athletics! If someone wants to beef up, let him! Then we can focus on outlawing the important things. The things that really make the competition unfair. Things like robotic arm implants, and super servo joints with hydraulic muscle accelerators. Now those things are unfair!