What is to be done?

It's a topic that I have debated with only a few people. I don't like talking about it because it threatens the magic of sport that has inspired me ever since I was a little kid. Like so many other kids, I dreamed of being a professional athlete. Michael Jordan was my hero and role model. He's not so much anymore. I don't see his competitive disease as something that I want to emulate, even if it would give me some of the same success that he had. This, among a few other things, dissuaded me from looking at him as an appropriate role model. Any reason for someone to cease being an appropriate role model for someone else is not good, but at least Michael Jordan is not Ryan Braun or Lance Armstrong. At least he didn't cheat and then lie about it to our faces. But for that matter, maybe he did cheat in some way or another. The fact that I now have to ask that question about the pristine athletic hero of my childhood saddens me, but this is what we've come to, and we would be naive not to ask the questions.

I'm not here to point fingers, so I won't. I want to encourage solutions. Major League Baseball is doing a great job, I think, of cutting their losses and fighting the problem rather than looking the other way. The NFL seems to also be taking steps to prevent PED use. The NBA would do well to follow their examples. As MLB is finding out, the problem won't go away overnight. They have been handing out suspensions for years now -- heavy suspensions -- but it still hasn't quite purged the game of that ugly side. It will take time, but everyone needs to get rid of this stuff.

And, yes, it is bad. If we do what some have suggested and just allow everyone to use PEDs, then the games that Americans have loved for over 100 years will turn into a circus, a freak show. Let's watch a bunch of guys who are taking destructive drugs do things that no normal human being should ever be able to do, and let's not care that their bodies will fall apart when they're 45. You might say that it's their choice what they do with their body. Yes, it is, but it becomes a problem when the whole point of their artificial enhancement is to make more of the money that I pay to watch and to add accomplishments to their resume that wouldn't be there otherwise, that can only be accredited to the drugs. I don't want to watch artificial stuff -- someone who cheats their way into strength, power, and speed. I want to watch normal (but very gifted, of course) people who accomplish great things simply through hard work, courage, and fortitude. That's a real hero.