by Zach Bigalke

Created on: November 17, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Earl Warren, fourteenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once quipped, "I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures." As true in his time as it is today, the sports page can illustrate the paramount of what humans can accomplish. But, unfortunately, Warren would be shocked by what he sees today in that middle section of his daily paper. Athletes make more collectively for a season of work than some nations can ever hope to see in a year. And they are using these newfound riches to artificially enhance their accomplishments even further... now the failure of man is not just for the front page headlines...

When former U.S. Senator George Mitchell finally releases the findings of his investigation into the prevalence of steroids in the national pastime, it will mark a turning point in the way Americans view their sports and sports figures. This is something that others have had to deal with around the world for decades. When first amphetamines and then steroids became common performance enhancers among athletes in the post-war pharmacopoeia, some became indignant and sought answers while others turned their backs and ignored the issue.

Baseball got bloated in the biceps and in the bankroll precisely because it took a lackadaisical approach to a pervasive and dangerous precedent being set under its nose. Alex Rodriguez would never have been able to amass nearly a half-BILLION during his career without the salary-skyrocketing precedent of performance enhancement, from Jim Bouton's Ball Four and "popping greenies" to Jose Canseco's revelations of "rampant 'roids" in his own expose, Juiced. As athletes got bigger and stronger and faster with implicit approval from the owners and managers and coaches, so too did their statistics... and then the ability to bargain a contract to match those stats followed.

While cycling and track and field and weightlifting and wrestling and other international sports came together under an Olympic-style cooperative to seek ways of curbing use and abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, sports mostly unique to the Americas - and especially the professional-driven sports landscape of the United States - neglected the issue as television revenues and expansion and a wealth of exposure led the financiers of these pastimes to wholly ignore the severity of the dilemma. Everyone had their payday: owners, coaches and players all got their slice

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