Review of Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008) by V H — 21 Jul 2008

In [i]Bigger, Stronger, Faster*[/i], Chris Bell does his best Michael Moore impersonation as he investigates the use of steroids in America.

To Bell, who claims to have taken steroids himself only briefly, performance-enhancing drugs are as American as apple pie. He sees our culture as one which demands that we win at all costs, thus practically requiring that our athletes do whatever it takes to become the best. He talks to professional musicians who take drugs to help them focus during concerts and students who take drugs to improve their concentration during tests and suggests that it only follows that athletes be allowed take drugs to improve their performance as well.

When Bell was growing up, he and his brothers "Stinky" and "Mad Dog" were chubby little dorks who idolized the professional wrestlers they saw on TV. Inspired by their heroes, they started lifting weights in the basement and soon they'd transformed themselves into muscle-bound big dorks.

Mad Dog went off to play Division I football and called home the first week asking his father for money to buy steroids, because all the other kids were taking them. Mean old Mr. Bell said no, so a weightlifting uncle stepped up and helped him out with his first buy. After college, Mad Dog's steroid usage continued as he became one of those second-rate WWE (formerly known as WWF until the panda-loving World Wildlife Fund sued them) wrestlers who gets paid to be pounded in the ring by the big-name guys. (Not that wrestling is fixed or anything.).

Stinky also took up a career which relies on big muscles: powerlifting. Other than during a brief break while he and his wife attempted to conceive Stinky Jr., he's also been on steroids most of his adult life.

Both brothers are desperate to succeed and are willing to do whatever it takes to give them an edge. The only problem is that since according to just about every athlete or coach Bell interviews, everybody takes steroids, instead of getting an edge themselves, they're just eliminating everyone else's edges.

Besides extensive interviews with his steroid-loving brothers and his anti-steroid parents, Bell also talks to dozens of others ranging from Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis to Floyd Landis to a doctor who says steroids aren't harmful when taken properly to a father who blames steroids for his son's suicide.

Health concerns aside, my own opinion of steroid usage by adults is essentially "why not?". I'm all for fairness, but it's not as if the playing field is level in the first place. It's not like the guy who practices the most and trains the hardest is going to necessarily come out on top. Why complain about steroids giving athletes an unfair advantage when so-called "god-given talent" is so unevenly distributed to start with? How is growing up to be seven feet tall any less of an unfair advantage than taking steroids? Huh? Huh?

If Bell is attempting to convince us one way or the other, he fails miserably. His only conclusion seems to be that steroids are the natural result of Americans' drive to be the best, so it really doesn't matter whether they're ethical or not or harmful or not -- we have no choice but to take them.

To me this is a pretty ridiculous argument. Are we Americans really all that competitive and driven to be the best? Don't most of us just coast along on our mediocrity realizing that the odds of ever being the absolute best at anything are incredibly slim?

And if we're really a country that only loves winners, how do you explain the Chicago Cubs? They keep selling out Wrigley Field game after game, year after year, and yet they haven't won a World Series since 1908.

I, for one, have come to accept my averageness in most endeavors and to revel in my few areas of above-averageness. Unfortunately, my only real areas of talent -- parallel parking and catching grapes in my mouth -- have yet to become Olympic sports, but when they do, I guarantee I'll be right there doping with the big boys.