Let them eat ‘roids

Purists hissed. The chattering class cried foul. Dissenters howled, claiming the game never would be the same.

Reaction to baseball’s latest steroid revelations? Not quite.

Roughly three decades ago, the American League adopted that most egregious of competitive affronts: the designated hitter. And ever since, the game’s devotees have lamented the introduction of a tipping element designed to boost scoring and interest in a sagging sport.

All of which sounds vaguely familiar.

Of course, none of the above is meant to suggest moral equivalence between Rafael Palmeiro hitting for a pitcher and performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Nor does it hint at a pending Viagra joke.

Rather, the comparison is intended to raise a serious, if sacrilegious, question: What if the knee-jerk outrage over “flaxseed oil” is just that? What if the steroid sanctimony is utterly misplaced?

What if athletes were free to juice?

“It comes back to death,” said Dr. Robert Ruhling, director of the Human Performance Research Laboratory at George Mason University. “You can’t pussyfoot around it. People are going to die. And who’s going to be responsible? The athlete, the doctor or the organizing body?”

Ruhling probably is right. Maybe allowing steroids in sports would be irresponsible and immoral, akin to repealing seatbelt laws. Perhaps a national pastime rippling with chemically addled sluggers would signal the end of the Republic as we know it.

On the other hand, an end to drug bans could be much ado about very little, a seminal moment to match the invention of the Segway.

With federal prosecutors knee-deep in the BALCO mess and politicians like President Bush and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, weighing in, one thing seems obvious: There’s another side to consider, the possibility that steroid prohibition makes as much sense as, well, Prohibition.

After all, if you can’t play devil’s advocate, you don’t understand your own convictions. Which is just how the devil — or in this case, Victor Conte — likes it.

Should a drug-filled Olympics ever come to pass, the rationale would look something like this:

Testing doesn’t work

American shot putter Adam Nelson formerly worked for Merrill Lynch. Once, while meeting with a client, he was interrupted by drug testers.

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