I had to go down to the coast not long ago and stopped off in Crab Apple Cove to have a beer at Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse, and it was my good fortune to meet up with Uncle Percy B. Hand while there.  He was out campaigning for a spot on the town council, and several of the folks in the bar had been watching ESPN's coverage of all the hoopla about performance enhancing drugs.  The most recent squawk is about steroids in baseball.  Since he's running for political office, somebody there at Chuckie Phat's asked him what his stand was on steroids in sports.

Percy's been watching television and like everybody else had developed some opinions about what should be done about performance enhancing drugs in sports.  He suprised me by telling the questioner that he was in favor of performane enhancing drugs . . . in sports or anything else.  And then he went on to explain why.

He stated first off that he thought we ought to keep a close eye on it at the high school level, but he said above that, he didn't give a damn what the players took.  If they were dumb enough to take the stuff, then they deserved the bad shit that happens to them when they get caught doing it.  I should have expected a common sense answer from him, but I didn't expect him to have thought it out so well.

He cited some examples of how stupid it is to ban performance enhancing drugs.  Take steroids for instance, he said.  There's some evidence that it causes injuries, but these guys play rough and dangerous sports to start with, so who gives a shit?  And if taking them makes you more able to play a rough game like football, again, who cares if there's long term damage?  If you're dumb enough to put your health on the line for money, then you should suffer the consequences.  The players had choices to make, and if they decide to use steroids, then more power to 'em.  As for bicycle riding, he really hooted at that one.  So they dope up to compete.  So what?  It's just a bicycle race . . . and there's lots of money at stake, so let 'em take any damn thing they want to.  It's just business, right?  And think what you want about performance enhancing drugs, they make the game (whatever it is) more fun to watch.  Players get paid more, team owners make more, fans are given great performances, so what's the beef?

In fact, Percy says, we ought to use sports as a great training ground for performance enhancing drugs.  Instead of banning them, we should encourage them and then keep a close eye on what's being used.  That way we could pick out the best ones, and when we found through some serious testing that they really did cause long term ill effects, we could discourage using them.  On the other hand, when we found a drug that did the job and didn't cause problems down the road, then go for it.   In other words, these athletes would be lab subjects for us.  If they worked on them, enhanced their performances, then we might ought to consider giving them to people in other walks of life.

Percy says the American auto industry has suffered in recent years because they can't turn out good vehicles anymore.  We just don't have workers skilled or dedicated enough to build good cars like the Japanese do . . . so maybe we ought to consider performance enhancing drugs for auto workers.  And what about people in the medical businesses?  Instead of letting our doctors turn into drunks, we ought to give them injections of performance enhancing drugs.  Even the people working at fast food restaurants might benefit from a shot of zip juice every now and then.  Wall Street would prosper, as would education from top to bottom.  The military would work at peak efficiency, and . . . well . . . you get the point, right?

And best of all, we could start giving performance enhancing drugs to the folks who need it most of all - folks who actually run the government.  Yeah, we need to have a law requiring all Congressmen to take regular injections of it, and all those folks who fill up the government administrative offices could sure use it.  Most of all, Percy points out, we need to inject the president himself . . . that if we could pump his dumb ass full of performance enhancing drugs, he might not start any more wars before he leaves office.  Percy went on and on about how we could improve performance at all levels of government, business, education, medical services, the military, and lots of other things.  And when and if that happens, we'd owe it all to those athletes who got out there and showed us just how good (or bad) performance enhancing drugs can be.

Besides, he said, sports ought to be good for something other than just entertainment.  Considering how much money we spend on it, there's got to be something worthwhile we can actually get out of it.  In short, Percy says we need to rethink the steroids thing for baseball . . . or any other performance enhancing drug used by athletes.  In the end it might be some performance enhancing drug that saves all our asses . . . and then you'd have to thank a jock for that.

And you know, if I lived in Crab Apple Cove and voted there, I'd sure as hell vote for Uncle Percy.

C. Duhon,  12/12/07