Why is PED use treated drastically differently based upon the sport?

[Roy H.]

Julian Edelman is Superbowl MVP.  He was also suspended for PED use this off-season.  Nobody outside of a few pot-stirrers in the media seem to care about this fact.  Being honest, I don't.  I just assume that 90% of the league is using steroids, HGH, or something else.  Hell, kids on my high school football team were 20+ years ago, and we were a mid-level Maine public high school.

In the NBA, almost nobody is caught using.  I've got to think that's because the NBA doesn't take testing particularly seriously.  The idea that at least some players aren't using banned substances at the very least to help with healing from injury just doesn't seem credible to me.

But then, in baseball, using PEDs is seemingly a mortal sin.  Two guys who are arguably top-20 players of all time -- Clemens and Bonds -- are kept out of the Hall of Fame, while mediocre players like Harold Baines make it in.  Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are essentially erased from history.  We have no idea what will happen with David Ortiz, although his "Big Papi" persona and clutch performances thus far have shielded him a bit for his positive PED test.  Not so for Manny Ramirez, one of the best hitters of all-time.

Does anybody have thoughts on why there's such a wide disparity?  Is baseball seen as more of a "pure" game than others?  Is the NFL taking the problem seriously enough?  Is it a problem at all?  Or is there an argument that the benefits of steroids, etc. regarding healing outweigh the performance enhancing aspect?

[Vermont Green]

It is a good question for which I don't think there is a single answer but in terms of baseball it seems that they really over-reacted when people started to hit 70 hrs on a regular basis.  It was clearly impacting the game in a way that everyone could see so they shut it down.

It seems all sports are less concerned when it is someone using to come back quicker from an injury, as appears to be the case with Edelman and probably others.  Andy Petite for example.  Not sure if Edelman's alleged use would directly impact states like in baseball.

The NBA doesn't seem to have an issue as you note or at least they don't make it public.  It would not stun me if there was use, maybe even LeBron (his head looks a lot like Bond's head looked) but they are certainly not as aggressive as baseball or so it seems.  Maybe if they saw some spike in some statistical aspect like Baseball did, they would react more strongly.

[SHAQATTACK]

thats a dang good question all i can say.

[KGs Knee]

It is a good question for which I don't think there is a single answer but in terms of baseball it seems that they really over-reacted when people started to hit 70 hrs on a regular basis.  It was clearly impacting the game in a way that everyone could see so they shut it down.

It seems all sports are less concerned when it is someone using to come back quicker from an injury, as appears to be the case with Edelman and probably others.  Andy Petite for example.  Not sure if Edelman's alleged use would directly impact states like in baseball.

The NBA doesn't seem to have an issue as you note or at least they don't make it public.  It would not stun me if there was use, maybe even LeBron (his head looks a lot like Bond's head looked) but they are certainly not as aggressive as baseball or so it seems.  Maybe if they saw some spike in some statistical aspect like Baseball did, they would react more strongly.

Yeah, fans seem to care much less when PED use doesn't result in easily observed performance "enhancement".

[Csfan1984]

In the off season or if a player is recovering and not playing I find it to be acceptable. It's when a person is using and competing that I have an issue with it.

[Fan from VT]

For whatever reason, there is a much more “pure” aura of early baseball as well as impulse to directly compare different players from different eras. There is much less of that in football or basketball, probably because the games are so self evidently very different through the years. Some people like to pretend that babe ruthwould be babe ruth today, and of he wasnt, it was only because of PEDs. Of course, they also ignore how early PEDs were used (steroids by 60s/70s, uppers much earlier i believe) and just how watered down the competition was. These early hitters were racking up stats in a segregated league where pitchers were saving their arms throwing numerous complete games and often working extra jobs. Like basketball and football, baseball is utterly different now, but for some reason related to the tradition of counting stats, etc, baseball is pretended to be different.

[Donoghus]

It's an excellent question.  Not sure there is a right answer for the hypocrisy of it all.  A few thoughts, though.

Its a culture thing.  Football is an inherently violent sport.  I think the general mindset among many is that a good deal of football players are using some sort of enhancements but since the sport is so ridiculously rough on the body, it's generally accepted.  These guys almost "need" do something to help with recovery, training, etc because of the nature of the game. 

Baseball, on the other hand, is nowhere near as violent.  Baseball is also a game that's deeply ingrained with numbers & history.  So when a blatantly inflated Bonds or McGwire make a run at one of the game's "sacred" records, there is a lot of outcry because it's seen as a tarnish on the game and its all time greats (even though greenies, uppers, etc..  have been used for decades and the game really has never been that "pure").  Also, PED use seemed pretty obvious to the naked eye of who was doping & who wasn't in the game of baseball.  Much tougher to disseminate in football.

Anyways, just some ideas.

[celticsclay]

Could it also be that baseball has the oldest fan base of the major sports and younger generations are more open to all kinds of drug use in general, but also see a nuanced role for healthy recovery from them?

[Amonkey]

I think there a difference in view may have to do with a difference in skill sport versus a conditioned one (which I don't know if that is called). What I mean is that in football and basketball, it doesn't matter if you are the strongest or biggest guy if you don't have the skill to go with it. However, in track and field and baseball, where you have already maximized your ability, steroids can impact it in a way that makes it unfair to others. That may be why there is a great scrutiny of one sport over the other.

[bdm860]

I think part of it comes from former players. 

Now I only causally follow baseball, and don't follow football at all, so I may be completely off here but...

I've heard several baseball players speak against steriods: Joe Morgan, Hank Aaron, Frank Thomas, etc.

So the former baseball players just make a big huff about it.  "I never used steroids, this is a disgrace to the game!"  Even though most of them used something (greenies, corked bats, doctored balls, etc., even steroids).  Personally I feel like a lot of these baseball players are like the stereotypical preacher who vehemently preaches against homosexuality only to get caught later with a gay prostitute.  Looking at you Rafael Palmeiro.

So the former baseball players act like they were perfect, while the former football players don't.  If John Madden, or Troy Aikman, or Howie Long, or Deion Sanders, or whoever the former-player/coaches-turned-analysts are were using their time on-air shaming those caught using, or giving interviews blasting users, PED use in football might be perceived more like it is in baseball.

[nickagneta]

I think it has most to do with the culture of each game.

Baseball, the "national pastime", the game that had a major infamous cheating/betting scandal so close to the game's inception(Black Sox) that it threatened to call into question the integrity of the entire sport, definitely takes cheating, in any way, much more seriously than the other sports. And because PED use can be more easily detected by the naked eye in the difference of each player's results in baseball than other sports, they take PED use much more seriously.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

I don't know the answer to Roy's question, but it certainly is treated differently in baseball as compared to other sports, and I think MLB (and the writers who cover it) are hypocritical in how they treat the issue. Everyone loved McGwire and Sosa when they were singlehandedly saving the sport from oblivion in 1998, then largely cast them aside later. MLB certainly turned a willfully blind eye to everything that was going on, then through a lot of guys under the bus when it wanted to keep up appearances. Good grief, McGwire was using andro, which wasn't even banned at the time. The writers seem to enjoy smearing players after the fact for doing something that wasn't even against the rules, and about which the writers probably had pretty good knowledge while it was all going on.

[Jvalin]

Football is a violent sport. Players get injured all the time. Athleticism/physicality is a necessity (excluding maybe QBs). Not sure whether it would be fun to watch without the PEDs.

Basketball is a whole nother story. You can totally play the game without being athletic, just by being tall and/or having good fundamentals. There are numerous examples throughout the years: Bird, Duncan, the Gasol brothers, Steph, Ginobili, Jokic, Sabonis, Dirk, Porzingis, Carmelo, Z-bo, Doncic, Pierce, Antoine Walker, even less popular players like Kyle Anderson, Jared Dudley, Olynyk etc.

Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of the population cannot play the game at the highest possible level, cause they lack the necessary height. What this means is that players aren't expendable. At least not as much as they are in the NFL.

At the end of the day, it's all about money. Leagues care about TV ratings, advertising revenue etc. way more than they care about what's best for the players. Imo, that's the #1 reason why they turn a blind eye to PEDs. Players themselves care more about money than they do about their long term health as well. So there you have it. We value money more than anything else in life. Our culture is sick to the very core.

Being a European, I have no idea whatsoever about baseball. The same goes for football to be honest, but at least I have watched a few games here and there.

[celticinorlando]

Think LeBron has been on the juice for a long, long time.

[Birdman]

Think LeBron has been on the juice for a long, long time.

Agree