STEROIDS: VIAGRA for BASEBALL

by Zach C.

As a Cubs fan I once thought it was cool to say: “We don’t need Viagra… We’ve got Wood.� Now, however, I realize that it quite simply isn’t clever, funny, or even the slightest bit cool. In fact, it is a blatant lie, seeing as Kerry Wood has been as impotent a member of the Chicago Cubs as Christopher Reeve’s member after his horse – whose name by the way, contrary to popular belief, was not “Kryptonite�-- bucked him back into a tragically idle stage of his sexual career. This discussion, however, will not focus its energy on tearing apart the Cubs or cheap jokes about the late Mr. Reeves because that would be like beating a dead horse to a bloody pulp and in a potato sack race at the same time (while fully clothed in a Superman costume). Instead, we will talk about the penis performance-enhancing capabilities of Viagra and its blatant comparability to the bat performance-enhancing capabilities of steroids… “Why?� you ask. Well, like Freud once said: “Everything in this world is a phallic symbol; even your once favorite stripper’s post-childbirth, now gender-ambiguous, completely blown out vagina� (Unfortunately, Freud never really said that. But if he did he’d have had a lot more followers; some scumbag/raunchy/die-hard followers at that, i.e. White Sox fans)

Well, on a much less startling note, let’s first envision the steroids of yesteryear. In the world of sports, it was once hookers and blow. This is certainly what helped the Mets conquer the Red Sox back in 1986. Somehow, to me, this makes so much more sense. A real man’s proverbial man-boost really should be an 18-25 year-old hooker and some narcotics. We all know that a struggling sex life is never good for anyone; this omnipotent truth is at the heart of the formula to the lost dreams of all of our fallen heroes. Most of these aging baseball players (namely Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire, three perfect specimens to focus on) dabbled in beautiful young women who all –eventually-- unraveled into sub-par mothers with more dimples in their asses than an overplayed golf ball. Viagra simply couldn’t save these poor souls. You give any man even an overdose of the little blue pill and he’ll still never really be able to turn his sweaty sea lion of a wife into a kinky hooker that’ll go that extra mile and degrade herself just a little bit more by picking up her tip without using her hands… or her mouth… or her feet… Yes, we’ve all seen it done more than once and the physics are equally mind-boggling each and every time .

So, the ‘Cliff’s Notes’ version of this sad fall from potency is that our childhood favorites start off as young and remarkably skinny potential HOFers with good sex lives and decent bats. Then one day they simply can no longer get their rocks off in the bedroom with their aged and perpetually wrinkling wives, even with the help of Viagra. So what they decide to do is compensate for one failing by turning their backs on their sex lives and Viagra altogether, and simply reach for the Viagra of baseball: steroid.

I could ramble on with overtly obvious similes, metaphors, and even worse puns about how old players’ bats increase in strength and speed under the influence of steroids just as old players’ penises do under the influence of Viagra, but that would not only be tedious to read but even more tedious to write. I’m pretty sure even Leo DiCaprio’s brilliantly acted character from What’s Eating Gilbert’s Grape? would understand the figurative connection between penises, bats, Viagra, and steroids… And WOW would it be great to see his happily disgruntled face when the connection was successfully made.

While this aforementioned notion is admittedly tempting to dwell on, I will instead devote more of our time to exploring each of ‘the three amigos’ of the steroids fiasco’s most memorable steroid-related moment or phase (that splash of ‘Spanglish’ was for you, Sosa):

Speak of el Diablo, Sosa seems a fitting place to start. It’s hard to pinpoint one exact moment in Sosa’s steroid saga that really epitomizes what a douchebag he truly evolved into. So, instead, I would like to highlight the fact that during the waning period of Sosa’s steroid experimentations (and --by no mere coincidence-- his career as a whole) it appeared as if he designed and created his own custom-made jersey stacked with elastic bands stitched into his seemingly already undersized sleeves.

Now, I must admit I’ve never had big biceps and probably never will but even if I did wake up one morning with freakishly big arms I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t tamper with my white button-up in such a way as to put an exclamation mark on the fact that I’m forfeiting my testicles for not just my ability to turn pop-ups into homeruns during company softball games, but also in an attempt to further punctuate the superficial appearance of my new arms. Just like a porn star shouldn’t get a cock ring unless he wants spectators to be awe-struck by his decision to get a penis enlargement, similarly, a baseball player shouldn’t ever differentiate himself from his teammates by tweaking his jersey in such a manner as to expose his decision to get testosterone-assisted arm enlargements. Wasn’t the concrete language barrier distance enough, Sammy? Remember: unnecessary special elastic = the cock ring; both are simply too painful even just to look at.

Moving right along to something less painful to look at but arguably even more painful to partake in, we will examine the patented McGwire forearm pump. When Sosa and McGwire were neck and neck in the race for “who could hit more asterisk-marked homeruns,� I remember being at a game seeing Sammy and Mark trying to shatter each other’s forearms while also releasing pent up testosterone-induced rage all at the same time. I had seen this from them countless times while watching games on TV, but only in person was it completely clear to me that these men had more testosterone pumping through their systems than all of the fraternities east of the Allegheny Mountains combined… And it was simply scary. This is when it really hit me. I thought to myself, “McGwire is definitely juicing too� Little did I know at the time, I would one day grow up to try to recreate the keen acts of the McGwire/Neanderthal cross-breed once I got to college and learned that “blacking out� was not merely a phrase for when terrorists casually crash into our power hubs. By junior year in college, my friends and I slowly coaxed the McGwire forearm pump through its de-evolution process; we stuck to the original blueprint but tweaked it into a much more intense and much less accurate blast of rage: the frat pump.

The frat pump really only appears at the bar, usually very close to closing time. It commonly comes into play after you or one of your buddies punches the one kid at the bar that doesn’t have any friends in attendance on that particular night and/or after doing a shot of So.Co. and lime (while pretending like it’s 151). Needless to say, some mornings I reluctantly awoke from long nights of binge-drinking wondering if I had a good time. If my forearms looked like I used them to brace myself while getting hit by a bus, well, then the answer was always invariably: yes, yes indeed. So, if nothing more came from McGwire and Sosa’s indirect public display of/admittance to using steroids than my friends and I figuring out one more way to look more like Arnie Grape at the bar (refer again to above picture). Well, then so be it. The simple truth is that McGwire let down Cardinals fans all over the world (or actually probably just in Missouri) by going arm for arm with the guy that literally framed his use of steroids with pretty little elastic bands, our very own Sammy Sosa.

Moving on to a bigger and better bone to pick, we must discuss that fine moment in baseball when Bonds picked up the giant syringe that some ingenious ex-fan threw onto the field. There was a split-second of utter bewilderment on Bonds’ face as he realized that what he held in his hand was not the turkey baster that Tom Cruise would one day use to impregnate a drugged Katie Holmes, but rather, a giant syringe! Bonds’ face at this moment in time really is worth a thousand words. At this point in his career, it was more than obvious that he was just another old ball player who had turned to steroids; therefore, giving the media an opportunity to actually freeze-frame a syringe in his hand was worse than adding insult to injury. This would be much like running over Floyd Landis’s favorite childhood bike with a cherry red pick-up truck after he tested positive for both elevated levels of synthetic testosterone and herpes simplex II.

For the average baseball fan, these instances are not merely fodder for a good laugh or a witty joke. Being trapped in our athletically-inferior existences, we also can’t help but think that all of these men simply deserve the bad publicity that now haunts them. I guess the moral of the story –if there is one- is that much like Viagra can kill an old man with a bad heart, so too can steroids kill a baseball player with no heart at all. But this, of course, is all just speculation.

“If anyone has any f*cking clue where to get the peyote Zach was smoking when he wrote this, please call me ASAP. Anyone got another good analogy about steroid use among aging athletes?� – Tello Real