ABSTRACT

In some respects, public attitudes towards drug use appear curiously ambivalent for, though most people would strongly deprecate both the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport and ‘drug abuse’ within the wider society, it is almost certainly the case that, in modern Western societies, we have come to be more dependent on the use of prescribed drugs than at any previous time in history. As we shall see in Chapter 5, the increasingly widespread acceptance of drugs in everyday life provides an essential part of the backcloth for understanding the use of drugs in sport. Some aspects of the ambivalence surrounding public attitudes towards

drug use – and in particular towards drug use in sport – are occasionally brought into very sharp focus. In sport, the use of drugs to improve performance has not only been prohibited under the rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for some four decades – and also, since 2003, under the World Anti-Doping Code drawn up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) – but it is also a practice which normally calls forth the strongest public condemnation, often coupled with a strong sense of moral outrage and with calls for severe punishments for those found guilty of a drug-taking offence. However, such public condemnation and the associated moral outrage can, on occasions, be strangely muted. A particularly clear illustration of this is provided by the case of the American baseball player Mark McGwire who, in September 1998, set a new record for the number of home runs scored in baseball in a single season. It is difficult to overemphasize the significance of McGwire’s achievement within the context of sport in the United States. The home run record is arguably the most significant record in American sport and, as McGwire approached the record, news of his latest home run was frequently presented as the top story on TV newscasts across the United States. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle (13 September 1998), Joan Ryan described how she watched on television as McGwire hit his record-setting home run while two children from next door played in her house. Ryan’s evocation of the excited atmosphere of triumphal record-breaking and hero-worship is worth quoting at length:

With one gorgeous swing in the fourth inning, McGwire sent the ball over the left-field fence. I punched the volume way up. ‘Look! He did it!’ I said in a voice that must have alarmed the two children. I sounded as if I either might cry or start tossing furniture. ‘What?’ the girl said. ‘McGwire broke the home run record!’ The roar of the crowd 1,700 miles away in St. Louis thundered

through my living room … McGwire skipped to the first base like a Little Leaguer, leaping and

punching the air, so swept away he had to double back to touch the bag. The Cub’s first baseman slapped him gently on the backside as he passed. At home plate, McGwire scooped up his 10-year-old son and kissed

him on the lips. Teammates poured from the dugout to envelop him. But soon McGwire broke away to climb into the stands and embrace

the children of the man whose record he had just eclipsed. Then he took a microphone and thanked his fans, his team, his family and his God. I had known McGwire during his days with the Oakland A’s, and I

never thought of him as particularly charming or humble, eloquent or joyful. But now he was all those. He was Paul Bunyon and George Bailey. I understood that it was not just the historic record that held me to

the television set. It was the uncommon joy of watching a man rise so magnificently to the occasion. In a year when our most powerful men have been diminished by

their lack of courage and class, McGwire played his role as if scripted by Steven Spielberg … McGwire’s dignity and humility lifted everyone around him. Fans who

caught his home run balls returned them to McGwire rather than cash in with collectors. McGwire’s rivals repaid his respect in kind… The strength of McGwire’s character got people to deliver the best in themselves. I looked at the two children from next door… They’ll know baseball

only in the era of musical-chair rosters and autograph auctions. They’ll hear the old-timers, even as we did growing up, talk wistfully about the good old days, when heroes were heroes and the game was pure. ‘These’, I said out loud, ‘are those days’.