When cheaters play

In a CNN poll I saw this morning, voters were asked the question: "Have allegations of drug use by players made you less interested in baseball?" and here are the results so far:

Yes 59% 38823
No 41% 27213

I have to admit that I was turned off by the reports coming out of the sport of baseball about drug use, for several reasons. It sends a terrible message to kids, and is a concern as to whether middle and high school athletes will follow suit, tempted due to the competitive nature of sports. It also taints the results of the games, because it's cheating.

I would feel the same way if I turned on the NCAA women's basketball tournament playoff games later today and they announced players were caught taking drugs to enhance their play. I wouldn't trust the scores of the games and it would render the competition meaningless in the long run.

And here's another way I would feel cheated as a fan: why should I waste my time watching sports games when cheaters are skewing the results?

However, upon second thought this morning, it occurred to me that it's a good thing that this issue is out in the open now. I know that the way it's handled by the sport of baseball is important to me as a fan, as it would be in any other sport where cheaters were caught. And then there's the other question: what about supporting the players who haven't cheated?

I remember a wheelchair tennis match I played years ago against an opponent who faked an injury, as she had done against many others, just as I pulled ahead enough to win. She delayed the match as I sat out on the 90 degree court, and, because I am a quadriplegic, I overheated and lost the match eventually. I'm not going to say that's the only reason I lost, but overheating does make it very difficult to keep your coordination together. Anyhow, the experience rendered all my practice and efforts meaningless- at least for a week or so. Then I realized that I had put forth my best effort that day and it was useless to concentrate on her and lose sight of all the good things about the sport: that there were very few players who cheated and that 95% of the time the results were a result of pure competition and skill.

What's going on in baseball is not the first scandal in professional sports, but it now presents fans with the same dilemma that athletes face: how to continue to love a sport that you know sometimes has flawed results as a result of cheating.