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In light of Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers, Mark Kriegel of FoxSports.com wonders which of the "corrupted numbers" from baseball's steroid era should forever carry asterisks.
He suggests a very recent one from pro football: 6. As in six Super Bowl titles for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won four of those in the 1970s, two of them coming against the Dallas Cowboys of the relatively lean and hungry look.
Kriegel writes:
Where to draw the line on cheating in sports — does Gaylord Perry give back all his grease-stained victories — is problematic, indeed.
As the lead character in the 1962 movie Hud says, "You take the sinners away from the saints and you’re lucky if you end up with Abraham Lincoln."
Happy belated birthday, Abe. Wish you were here.
— Vince Langford
Posted at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (
He suggests a very recent one from pro football: 6. As in six Super Bowl titles for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won four of those in the 1970s, two of them coming against the Dallas Cowboys of the relatively lean and hungry look.
Kriegel writes:
"Do the Steelers reach six without steroids?
They won four titles in the Seventies. But those teams — the offensive linemen, in particular — had a notorious, and not undeserved, reputation for abusing performance-enhancing drugs.
Let's not deign to indulge the standard excuse that steroids were legal back then. Winked at, perhaps. But legal, definitely not. The NFL didn't have a full-blown steroid policy — by which I mean one with required testing and proscribed punishments — until 1989, a full 15 years before major league baseball. But as is the case in baseball, misuse of prescription drugs was always prohibited."
Kriegel makes his case well, pointing out that "the anecdotal evidence is as damning as it is overwhelming." He proceeds to cite a number of Steelers who admitted to taking steroids or alluded to the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs on those teams.They won four titles in the Seventies. But those teams — the offensive linemen, in particular — had a notorious, and not undeserved, reputation for abusing performance-enhancing drugs.
Let's not deign to indulge the standard excuse that steroids were legal back then. Winked at, perhaps. But legal, definitely not. The NFL didn't have a full-blown steroid policy — by which I mean one with required testing and proscribed punishments — until 1989, a full 15 years before major league baseball. But as is the case in baseball, misuse of prescription drugs was always prohibited."
Where to draw the line on cheating in sports — does Gaylord Perry give back all his grease-stained victories — is problematic, indeed.
As the lead character in the 1962 movie Hud says, "You take the sinners away from the saints and you’re lucky if you end up with Abraham Lincoln."
Happy belated birthday, Abe. Wish you were here.
— Vince Langford
Posted at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (
