He nodded.“If you’re the defensive tackle for the Oak-land Raiders, facing someone in the trenches, and you haven’t taken drugs and he has, he’ll beat you seven out of ten times—or more. For one thing, his ligaments will be stronger.”
“Bigger muscles?”
“Yes, though that can be a disadvantage. One of the problems we’re now seeing, especially in football, is the number of injuries has escalated because these men now have bodies that are so big and heavy, they slam into one another like a train wreck! Three hundred and twenty pounds of lineman beef, say, a center, crashing into two hundred and eighty-nine pounds of defensive guard. And they’re quick. Big as they are, they’re quick. They’re slamming into each other at speed. And then if one of the linebackers really clocks a halfback, it’s ugly.”
“Do they take painkillers to play?”
“Yes, legal and illegal.”
“And the efforts of the governing bodies are ineffective?”
He nodded.“The coaches are scientists. And then again, let’s lay it on the line, Sister, the American public craves violence. If the mayhem dries up, there go the advertising revenues; there goes the ticket sales to say nothing of all those empty skyboxes. I don’t think the commissioners of any of the professional sports—men’s or women’s—are going to try too awfully hard, although they’ll talk a good game. Again, forgive the pun.”
“Was that a true pun?” Her brow furrowed.
“Uh.” He wondered now, too.
“No matter. Okay, next question. As profit has transformed professional sports, what about college sports?”
“College sports are nurseries for professional sports. Only baseball supports and pays for minor leagues. For the rest of them, they siphon the players right out of college without pouring money into the colleges. A good deal for the NFL and NBA.”
“Why is baseball different in your opinion?”
“It’s such a difficult game to play well. Apart from the phenomenal hand-eye coordination, for every situation there are maybe three possibilities. You really have to think in baseball. It’s not enough to learn your position. I love baseball.”
“Thought you were the halfback on Cornell’s football team?”
“I was, but I played center field for the baseball team. Love baseball.”
“Actually, I do, too.” She sipped her tea. “So the college athletes are taking steroids and whatever?”
“You bet. The coaches are right in there with it or turning a blind eye. You can’t have a kid go home during the summer of his sophomore year, return for football practice thirty pounds of muscle heavier without drugs. Just throwing hay bales on the farm isn’t going to do it, although, truthfully, it will give you a better body.”
“Really?”
“Sure. More flexible. Natural muscle is different than muscle enhanced by steroids. Once you get used to looking for it, you can always tell the difference.”
“Why so?”
“An athlete who has taken steroids has a rounder, fuller look. Essentially, the muscle cell has been pumped up with fluid. I won’t bore you with a long explanation. You and I don’t have muscles like that. Our muscles are less full but have a harder, almost shredded look.”
“I thought the bodybuilders were the ones who got shredded.”
“They do. Lots of purging water from their systems before a contest, but you can still see the difference. The only way I can explain it is those steroid bodies have a real roundness to the muscle.”
“Dangerous?”
“Sure. In excess, the drugs can shut down the liver, shrink the testicles on a man, give men what they call ‘bitch tits.’ For women, we know much less. In fact, we know much less about women on so many levels of medicine that it’s a sin. Man has been the measure of all things.”
“This is fascinating. I had no idea.”
“Sister, kids are using steroids in high school. A kid wants to make All State and then wants to play for Nebraska. He starts shooting up.”
“With the help of the coach or the trainer?”
Walter shrugged.“I really hope that a high school coach knows better, acts as a father to those kids, but,” he said, holding up his hands, “a high school coach is under pressure, too. Although not nearly as severe as the college coach at a PAC Ten school who makes one million dollars a year in salary andGod knows how much in benefits.”
“Good Lord, I picked the wrong sport.”
“Far from it.” He patted Tonto, who now pestered him. “One of the things I most love about foxhunting is that it can’t be corrupted by money.”
“But racing can. Three-day eventing. Show jumping. Drugs?”
He shrugged.“Not steroids. Not for people, anyway. You know more about the horse end of it than I do. I know some racehorses have been loaded with the stuff. Saddlebreds, too. But the drugs in the horse world for humans are almost always alcohol, cocaine, or some kind of painkiller.”
“Makes sense.”
“I have yet to meet a horseman without broken bones.”
“Me, neither.” She sat for a moment. “You haven’t asked why I’m on this track.”
“You’re the master.” He grinned, his white teeth straight, although a few had ragged edges from his playing days.
“Before I get to why, what about human growth hormone? What’s the deal there?”
“It’s extremely important. It may be able to dramatically slow aging. I personally think it needs to come onto the market. We have done enough testing on the stuff. But it is abused by athletes because it will grow muscle and it is theoretically safer, in large doses, than steroids. Some people react to steroid abuse with rages, ’roid rage. Taking HGH doesn’t produce rages. It builds a stronger body, stronger ligaments, which are more important than bulk, as I said before. If abused, the taker will get a lantern jaw, larger hands and feet. You know the look.”
“I do. Acromegaly.”
“HGH is gold on the black market, pure gold.”
“If HGH and steroids create better bodies, what about plain old testosterone?”
“Up to a point, that will help. The body has its limits. You can go over the limit, but you aren’t going to get the kind of dramatic, rapid gain you’ll get with isolated steroids—think of them as turbo testosterone. And all this stuff affects one’s cholesterol levels and liver. There is no free ride.”
“These drugs are on the black market, I suppose, along with mood elevators and stuff like that?”
Again, he nodded.“The odd thing is, Sister, every single person is a different cocktail. Let’s throw out numbers: not real but as examples. Let’s say the so-called average woman pumps out ten cc’s of estrogen and one cc of testosterone. Okay? The so-called average male pumps out ten cc’s of testosterone and one cc of estrogen. If I pulled blood from every member of our hunt club, I probably wouldn’t find one person with an average ratio. Okay, that ratio is made up, but you know what I mean. We really don’t know nearly enough about the human body as an individual unit. You pick up the newspapers or listen to TV and hear the latest scientific study,” he paused, “be wary. You can’t make policy or prescriptions based on tests of even ten thousand people. Yet this is done regularly and on test groups of far fewer numbers. It’s insane. I’m a physician, and I’m telling you it’s utterly insane.”
“Why is it done?”
“Money. Mostly it’s the drug company’s hot desire for ever-escalating profits, but also it’s from public pressure. They want instant answers and easy answers. There is nothing easy about it. One tiny example, the human heart. It’s supposed to be here, right?” He tapped the left sideof his chest. “Well, most of the time, it’s actually here.” He tapped just to the left of the breastplate. “Often it’s here.” He tapped his chest, dead center, a bit high. “And you’d be amazed how many times I find it over here.” He tapped the right side of his chest just offcenter line.