To Cheat or Not to Cheat

In the next few days, we should learn the fate of a number of Major League Baseball stars, implicated in using illegal steroids and other treatments to improve performance, among them A-Rod. This comes on the back of several world class track athletes admitting using illegal supplements and the revelations that not only Lance Armstrong, but most of the top cyclists of that era, were involved in cheating. But is it cheating if everyone is doing it? This is a question I have been asking myself for a few years now.

There is no question that “cheating” is on the rise in recent years. Students are cheating at record levels, not only in elite high schools, but in colleges and even law schools across the country. Computers allow players to cheat in low stakes Chess Tournaments, making them all but unbeatable. People are obviously cheating in relationships, though data suggests not necessarily are higher rates than in the past. Corporations and individuals cheat on their taxes and Wall Street traders essentially cheat the market on a daily basis. But is all this cheating surprising? We live in a country that says “win at any cost.” The dramatic speeding of globalization in the past decades has only amplified this competition. And the stakes are higher than ever – particularly as income inequality rises and competition spreads from one country to larger and larger shares of the entire world. Turn on your television or watch mainstream movies and you see greed and individualism as virtues to be emulated, part of the message to win at any cost.

So let’s turn back to sports and its adherence to the Zeitgeist of our epoch. If the stars of a sport are “cheats” it seems hard to argue that they shouldn’t suffer for that cheating, given that their success is the result of an unfair advantage. We see this most obviously in baseball, where statistics are the holy grail of achievement and the Hall of Fame continues to admit any of the known or suspected cheats to their hallowed halls. Yet what if everyone in a sport is cheating? Should those good at not getting caught garner the success, money and fame that comes with their achievements? It seems absurd to make that claim unless you are an extreme Social Darwinist, with a nihilist streak. But what if we simply admit that they are cheating and then say we have a level playing field? Here the argument gets more clouded and places sports within larger debates about liberalism and the notion that individuals seeking their own self interest lead to the best outcome for all. Again, the point is that Lance Armstrong appears to have competed against others who were also using performance-enhancing drugs and beating them at their own game. Yet another issue emerges – most profoundly in baseball, but also in other sports. Should Armstrong’s record of seven straight Tours de France really be compared with clean past legends of the sport like Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurian? Should Barry Bonds home run record really stand against those who didn’t gain the advantage in strength and agility of steroids?

There are rumors that one of the greatest baseball players of all times, Alex Rodriguez, could face a lifetime ban for his role in the current Balco scandal. If that were to come to pass, most Yankee fans would be ecstatic, as would the boardroom. But what would it say of the legacy of the sport itself – which has always, in its way, mirrored the triumphs and tribulations of America itself? Does it symbolize the cost to our spirit and soul of unfettered greed and the corporate takeover of America? Does it augur our future collapse into yesterday girls on the international stage? Or is it merely a fulcrum point to acceptance of drug-enhancement as an acceptable part of competitive sports?

The reality is that sports are big business in America and across much of the globe. The fact that a team (Real Madrid) might pay 85 million pounds, or more, for one 24-year-old player from the U.K. (Gareth Bale), who has had one incredible year, exemplifies how much is at stake. Turning back to A-Rod, the floundering star is still owed over $200 million over the next several years, even if he never plays again (unless the Yanks can void his contract over cheating, which seems unlikely). Athletes are essentially commodities that sell tickets, memorabilia and products to the masses. We like to believe that sports are the one place where competition is fair and talent, effort and motivation are the deciding factor in who wins and who loses – surrounded by a world where justice seems like a woebegone utopian dream. Yet sports have never been completely fair. Teams with more money buy better players and win more often. Sure there are Cinderella stories, but they are generally in amateur sports like the Olympics and college sports – and really only basketball in the latter. When we realize these simple facts, we realize professional athletes are there to entertain us and to make us buy stuff. If that’s the case, why shouldn’t they enhance their skills for our entertainment? We still watch people beat the living hell out of each other for our entertainment, or hit each other with the intent to inflict injury. Both boxing and football have been shown to be detrimental to those who are playing it – but we don’t ask them to stop. So, while sports continue to try to clean themselves up, is it any surprise that cheating continues in more and more surreptitious ways? It is really only cheating if you get caught, or we believe that we should hold athletes to a higher standard then we hold ourselves.