Say it ain’t so
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- December
- 14
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the argument linking kids and steroids: Athletes take performance enhancing drugs, and kids become vulnerable because they either idolize and want to mimick their doping heroes or they’re young athletes who want to perform like the pros and follow the lead by “juicing.”
Well, tonight I heard former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell announce his long-awaited report on performance-enhancing drug use in major league baseball. The debate on this will go on for some time, and the report will be discredited by some, over-hyped by others.
But what hit me most about all this was the call I got in the midst of Mitchell’s press conference today. It was my son. He was watching at his mom’s house and couldn’t believe that some familiar names from his beloved Yankees were named.
Now, the rest of us will debate that list and the players on it for months and years to come. We’ll go on at the water cooler at work about Mitchell’s Boston ties and the high percentage of current and former New York players on this list—along with the lack of ties to the Red Sox. We’ll comment on how most of the players named were on the steroid radar anyway. We’ll speculate on the names that should be there but weren’t. We’ll even defend a player or two on the list, primarily if they play for our team.
But the bottom line is that a kid’s heart was broken today, and that just sucks.
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 12:54 am by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon.
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Jorge,
What Boston bias ties does Mr. Mitchell have exactly? He was a senator from Maine was he not? And if I remember correctly Roger Clemens and Johnny Damon are ex-sox players before going to the evil empire. Are you surprised by the names on the list? You shouldn’t be. What does your son think of Mr. Vick?
Bosox Fan;
Since you asked, Mitchell has been a director of the Boston Red Sox since John Henry bought the team in 2002.
But you entirely miss the point. I apologize if you feel your team was slighted in my posting, but you might want to note that this is a parenting blog, not a baseball fanatic blog.
My question to you is: Were your own children indifferent to the Mitchell report? That’s more to the point.
Thanks for reading.
Jorge,
Mr. Mitchell resigned as a director. I think you owe Mr. Mitchell an apology for implying bias. Your real beef as a Yankee fan should be with Mr. Deluca the dealer who kept records.
BoSox Fan;
Again, this is a parenting blog. If you are a parent, I’d love to hear your input. If not, there are plenty of baseball fan sites where you can chime in on your team loyalty issues.
Jorge, you have to find a way to turn this into a good lesson for your son. Several lessons actually.
You could teach him the difference between image and reality, and that sometimes people are not what they appear to be.
It could also be a good time to open a discussion of which human traits are truly admirable. Our society tends to worship athletic talent to the point where those who have it are exempt from many of the rules that others have to play by. Maybe you could bring up some examples of people who are truly doing admirable things, and compare them to the athletes named here.
You could also point out the risks inherent in violating ethics to get ahead. He’ll hear many times in the years ahead that ‘nice guys finish last’ and that it’s necessary to do unethical things to get what you want out of life, and this could show him the downside of taking that philosophy too far.
David;
Yes, these are things I’ve discussed with him, particularly the image vs. reality part. We have an opportunity to go backstage with a rock band he loves next time they tour, and I expressed to him ahead of time that, if it happens, he should not be disappointed if they band members are not stellar individuals. These stories abound, where celebrities treat fans, even young ones, badly, and I want to minimize any potential disappointment ahead of time.
In terms of the steroid/HGH issue, I think he’s old enough to understand it’s wrong, but that it happens. He understands that in a competitive setting, some will gain an edge to get ahead, wrong or not. And he knows it’s the wrong path to take.
Jorge, I think it’s so important to just live this philosophy with our kids. The TV, radio, movies, coaches, parents at the meets, colleges, etc. all put so much pressure on kids and it filters to ours one way or another. In my experience, just the way we deal with things on a moment to moment basis in conversations makes our kids ‘streetwise’ or ‘intuitive’ about people. They have to learn to question, so we have to build it into our parenting. I can’t even count the kids that I know who lived for sports that are now adults with bad knees, shoulders, etc. They never had a chance at the ‘big leagues’ but the coaches and parents treated them that way.
It’s always heartbreaking when our illusions are shattered but with proper parenting and role models in many areas (sports, doctors, teachers, dad himself), kids are resilient. It’s like falling down and cutting your knee; if parents let their kids feel the little pains and don’t overprotect them and help them through, when the big ones come they’re more able to deal with them.
This is all part of the same slice of pie—life.