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A Faustian bargain for glory - Joan Ryan, SF Chronical, December 5, 2004
In the course of researching a book some years back, I interviewed a mother who smacked and belittled her daughter, a talented young gymnast, to get her to try frightening new moves on the balance beam. "I once told her I was humiliated to be her mother," the woman said. "I said, 'If I have to literally go out there and get up on the beam with you, you're going to do it. If I have to beat you every day, you're going to do it.' ''
The mother spoke to me about two years after her daughter left gymnastics. "It's real bad what I did," she said. "It's real bad what other parents did. You get so competitive and you want your kid to be the best, and you're going to push, scream, yell and holler.''
The mother got what she wanted, or what she thought she wanted: a trip to Seoul to watch her daughter compete in the Olympics. But she carries in her the guilt and shame of how she got there. Her relationship with her daughter is unlikely ever to heal completely. The girl left the sport with toes so gnarled she couldn't wear high heels. She had 18 hairline fractures in one knee. She struggled with food and weight for years, having downed bottles of laxatives to stay thin.
There was nothing to be done, once it was all over.
Success had a price. The mother always knew that. But she was horrified to realize that the currency had been her child's health and her own one chance at being the kind of mother she once imagined she would be. I began to understand, during that interview, the dark lure of glory and what people are willing to sacrifice and sell for a shot at it.
This is what the BALCO steroids story is about. It is a familiar tale, hardly unique to sports, dating back to ancient Greek fables and, most famously, Faust, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth, knowledge and power. More recently, there was Jayson Blair fabricating stories at the New York Times. He was willing to break every rule, compromise every ethic, for the front-page bylines that signal a reporter's arrival as a star. There was Ken Lay and his phenomenal run of success at Enron. He lied, cheated and risked prison to make himself one of the richest, most powerful men in business.
The steroids scandal in baseball is as morbidly fascinating and classically tragic as any Goethe play. The players -- Jason Giambi of the Yankees and Barry Bonds of the Giants, to name the two biggest stars -- were already wealthy and accomplished beyond imagining. They were among the best of the best, feared and respected, building careers that would be remembered by generations of baseball fans.
But it apparently wasn't enough. They wanted mythic fame, Herculean feats. So, it seems, they were willing to sell their souls to a guy in a chemistry lab. They were willing to risk the parts of themselves -- integrity, reputation, honor -- that, when the legs and arms eventually give out, would ultimately define who they are. Those are the parts that ultimately define who any of us are.
I wondered as I read the BALCO stories about the average person's version of steroids: the temptations in everyday lives to get ahead, the lure of the big payoff, the corner office, the top prize. The guy who pads a resume to beat out other applicants for a job. The wheeler-dealer who fudges the numbers to make sure his face lands on the Salesman of the Year plaque. The parent who pays a professional to ghost- write her son's college-entrance essays.
If there existed a pill that would increase my IQ by 30 points, infuse me with the eloquence of John Steinbeck and virtually guarantee me a Pulitzer, would I take it? Even if the pill were illegal, might damage my health and put me at risk of public humiliation if discovered? What if I knew other writers were taking it, creating an unfair competition for the top writing awards and threatening to unseat me from my job?
I'd like to think I wouldn't take it. But I don't have to answer the question because such a pill doesn't exist. For elite athletes, the question is inescapable in today's world of super competition and super pharmaceuticals. The BALCO story isn't big news simply because athletes have been caught using drugs. We have long known this. What sets this story apart is the scale of it, the enormous consequences.
Giambi developed a pituitary tumor, a common side-effect of steroid use. He has seen his productivity drop. He is likely to be fired by the Yankees, losing tens of millions of dollars in salary that had been, before the steroid revelations, guaranteed. His career could be over, his reputation shot. As for Bonds, despite his dogged insistence that he did not know the substances he ingested and applied to his skin were steroids, every record he has broken and award he has won has lost its shine. I wonder how Bonds will look back now on his historic record of 73 home runs.
Was the feat, as wondrous as it was, worth the price, if indeed the record was made possible through drugs? Could it be worth the pain of explaining to his children why daddy's picture is on the front page of the newspaper in December? Can any career accomplishment be worth that?
No matter what happens now, Bonds' home-run record will share the first paragraph of his obituary with the steroid scandal. One no longer exists without the other. In reaching so desperately for glory, these spectacular athletes doomed themselves to failure. That is the irresistible draw of the story: the O. Henry irony of it all. The athletes' willingness to pay any price for greatness is what, in the end, has brought about their almost certain ruin.
In the course of researching a book some years back, I interviewed a mother who smacked and belittled her daughter, a talented young gymnast, to get her to try frightening new moves on the balance beam. "I once told her I was humiliated to be her mother," the woman said. "I said, 'If I have to literally go out there and get up on the beam with you, you're going to do it. If I have to beat you every day, you're going to do it.' ''
The mother spoke to me about two years after her daughter left gymnastics. "It's real bad what I did," she said. "It's real bad what other parents did. You get so competitive and you want your kid to be the best, and you're going to push, scream, yell and holler.''
The mother got what she wanted, or what she thought she wanted: a trip to Seoul to watch her daughter compete in the Olympics. But she carries in her the guilt and shame of how she got there. Her relationship with her daughter is unlikely ever to heal completely. The girl left the sport with toes so gnarled she couldn't wear high heels. She had 18 hairline fractures in one knee. She struggled with food and weight for years, having downed bottles of laxatives to stay thin.
There was nothing to be done, once it was all over.
Success had a price. The mother always knew that. But she was horrified to realize that the currency had been her child's health and her own one chance at being the kind of mother she once imagined she would be. I began to understand, during that interview, the dark lure of glory and what people are willing to sacrifice and sell for a shot at it.
This is what the BALCO steroids story is about. It is a familiar tale, hardly unique to sports, dating back to ancient Greek fables and, most famously, Faust, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth, knowledge and power. More recently, there was Jayson Blair fabricating stories at the New York Times. He was willing to break every rule, compromise every ethic, for the front-page bylines that signal a reporter's arrival as a star. There was Ken Lay and his phenomenal run of success at Enron. He lied, cheated and risked prison to make himself one of the richest, most powerful men in business.
The steroids scandal in baseball is as morbidly fascinating and classically tragic as any Goethe play. The players -- Jason Giambi of the Yankees and Barry Bonds of the Giants, to name the two biggest stars -- were already wealthy and accomplished beyond imagining. They were among the best of the best, feared and respected, building careers that would be remembered by generations of baseball fans.
But it apparently wasn't enough. They wanted mythic fame, Herculean feats. So, it seems, they were willing to sell their souls to a guy in a chemistry lab. They were willing to risk the parts of themselves -- integrity, reputation, honor -- that, when the legs and arms eventually give out, would ultimately define who they are. Those are the parts that ultimately define who any of us are.
I wondered as I read the BALCO stories about the average person's version of steroids: the temptations in everyday lives to get ahead, the lure of the big payoff, the corner office, the top prize. The guy who pads a resume to beat out other applicants for a job. The wheeler-dealer who fudges the numbers to make sure his face lands on the Salesman of the Year plaque. The parent who pays a professional to ghost- write her son's college-entrance essays.
If there existed a pill that would increase my IQ by 30 points, infuse me with the eloquence of John Steinbeck and virtually guarantee me a Pulitzer, would I take it? Even if the pill were illegal, might damage my health and put me at risk of public humiliation if discovered? What if I knew other writers were taking it, creating an unfair competition for the top writing awards and threatening to unseat me from my job?
I'd like to think I wouldn't take it. But I don't have to answer the question because such a pill doesn't exist. For elite athletes, the question is inescapable in today's world of super competition and super pharmaceuticals. The BALCO story isn't big news simply because athletes have been caught using drugs. We have long known this. What sets this story apart is the scale of it, the enormous consequences.
Giambi developed a pituitary tumor, a common side-effect of steroid use. He has seen his productivity drop. He is likely to be fired by the Yankees, losing tens of millions of dollars in salary that had been, before the steroid revelations, guaranteed. His career could be over, his reputation shot. As for Bonds, despite his dogged insistence that he did not know the substances he ingested and applied to his skin were steroids, every record he has broken and award he has won has lost its shine. I wonder how Bonds will look back now on his historic record of 73 home runs.
Was the feat, as wondrous as it was, worth the price, if indeed the record was made possible through drugs? Could it be worth the pain of explaining to his children why daddy's picture is on the front page of the newspaper in December? Can any career accomplishment be worth that?
No matter what happens now, Bonds' home-run record will share the first paragraph of his obituary with the steroid scandal. One no longer exists without the other. In reaching so desperately for glory, these spectacular athletes doomed themselves to failure. That is the irresistible draw of the story: the O. Henry irony of it all. The athletes' willingness to pay any price for greatness is what, in the end, has brought about their almost certain ruin.
