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What if Doping Were Legal?A Slate thought experiment.

By Daniel Engber
Posted Monday, Aug. 6, 2007, at 11:39 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

With the help of their trainers, though, players would soon figure out the best way to improve their endurance and maximize their strength gain. At that point, you'd start to see uniform improvement around the league. If every player were similarly inflated, individual stats would start to regress toward the mean. In his classic essay "Why No One Hits .400 Anymore," Stephen Jay Gould argued that better training regimens and talent scouts have already improved the quality of baseball players across the board, which has had the effect of reducing variation in talent. A doped-up Albert Pujols would still be much better than a doped-up David Newhan, but the relative difference between them would be diminished. In other words, they'd both be closer to the league average. No one bats .120, but no one bats .400, either.

Gould's theory may not be borne out by the historical record, but his logic could hold for the druggy future. With no tests for steroids, baseball performance would become more tightly clustered. A guy like Ichiro might lead the league while batting .280. A guy who hit .250 might ride the pine. And let's not forget: Players who got injured would spend less time on the disabled list; performance-enhancing drugs could keep all-star careers going deep into their 40s. (Eventually, someone would break Cal Ripken Jr.'s record for consecutive games played.) Once again, the quality of on-the-field play would improve, reducing variation across the league. This might make for more parity, with tight pennant races and close games filled with home runs and strikeouts. Teams would regularly take the pennant by winning just 83 or 84 games.

But legal problems would throw off the competitive balance from time to time. Remember, performance enhancers have become widespread, but many remain on the black market. If drug abuse became an open secret in the pros, federal agents would converge on clubhouses in regular sting operations. Every once in a while, a network of major leaguers would fall to drug charges, and a few players might end up doing time. Young players might even wonder if the DEA is planting narcs in the minor leagues.

Some baseball fans would tire of the drama; others would long for the game they grew up watching. At some point, a group of wealthy investors would get together and form an alternate "clean" league, marketed to the old-timers and the prudes. (In real life, some sports—like competitive weightlifting—have already developed separate circuits for dopers and nondopers.) In this alternate league, players would undergo compulsory, random drug tests throughout the year. The commissioner's office would follow David Stern in implementing strict codes of conduct and personal style, to further enhance the league's wholesome image.

The differences between the clean and dirty baseball leagues would begin to look like the differences between NCAA and professional basketball. Some fans would gravitate toward the former, with its human-sized players and conservative approach to the game. Others would keep tuning in for the colossal spectacle of MLB …

We could go on and on. But now it's your turn: What do you think would happen if doping were decriminalized? Would sports be ruined, or would we march into a doped-up golden age?

Send your ideas, considered or far-fetched, to . (You can also post a message in the Fray.) In a few days we'll post a roundup of the most imaginative and enlightening submissions.

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Daniel Engber is an associate editor at Slate. He can be reached at .
Photograph of the San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds by Jamie Squire/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Genetic manipulation is coming for both microorganisms and their human hosts, too. Parents wealthy enough will be in a position to choose what sort of muscle density their offspring will have, their height, their metabolic rate, their vision, the properties of their microbes, anything and everything that might enhance athletic performance. Look out into the future far enough and it's not hard to anticipate divergence of humans into multiple subtypes specialized to excel in specific roles. The unmodified human, drugs or no drugs, will be at a competitive disadvantage - and it will be true in more fields than sports.

Peer even further, and you might anticipate the rise of multiple species, all descended from humans. Or mostly, at any rate. The possibility of gene insertions from other species looms large.

One likely fact stands out. Early adopters will reap a competitive advantage. Some, perhaps many, of the tweaks that will become possible will be initially accessible only to the privileged who can afford them. The big story of the 20th Century in sports was the growing dominance of sport by athletes with humble roots. That won't necessarily be the story of the 21st.

I'm calling my bookie and betting on Harvard to sweep to a national championship in 2035.

--UrgeIt

(To reply, click here.)

Given that cycling tests its athletes much more rigorously and for many more substances and possible doping method than any other major sport, to assume cycling is more full of dopers does it a great disservice, but also lets everyone off too easily. It seems terribly naïve to assume that doping isn't rampant in most major league sports. Combine virtually non-existent penalties, lax or no testing, and salaries far beyond what the average professional athlete could get outside of sports and you have a system guaranteed to produce results. What the extensive and highly invasive testing regime professional cycling has taught us is that if an athlete can cheat, he will. Athletes will cheat even when it's likely they'll be caught. We already know what professional sports will look like with unchecked doping: we have it now.

--dizzyj

(To reply, click here.)

Purity of sport ended when athletes became professional. When athletes can only compete with the help of dieticians, sports psychologists, professional stretching coaches, and computerized stroke analysis, what's the point of holding back on drugs? Is there really a difference between shooting up with steroids and shooting up with a customized diet goo made with the precisely the right balance of pre-digested amino acids? Will Saletan already made the argument that lasik for pitchers is essentially the same as doping. Why are drugs used to aid recovery any different from a customized two hour massage after every work out to remove lactic acid buildup from muscles? And frankly, who the heck cares if a bunch of guys (and women) with bodies that are essentially freaks of nature want to make themselves more freakish? If the only way to become a professional athlete is to start training at birth and have every physical, psychological, dietary, and environmental aspect of your life controlled by someone else, there's just no connection between the weekend softball game and Sunday afternoon with the Yankees.

--junopwd

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