Stardate 20010822.1443 (On Screen): There are a number of reasons why I like baseball better than any other sport. One of the reasons is that there isn't any preferred body type to play the game. When you look at baseball players, they basically look like normal people. There are big men and small men, thin and muscular and even somewhat fat. But if you were to see a professional baseball player in civvies walking down the street, he wouldn't stand out in the crowd. Such is not the case for basketball and football. It always blows my mind when watching basketball (when I can bring myself to do it) to hear someone who's 6'5" tall referred to as "short", but in a game where 6'11" is the norm, he really is. And while really tall men don't compete in football, almost all football players tend to be physically very beefy.
A kid who wants to be a baseball player will simply exercise and try to get into decent shape. So if he doesn't make it, he won't have done himself any harm. But for basketball and football, it is more serious. Since they genetically engineered human growth hormone, the price of it has fallen drastically and the supply of it is much greater. It used to have to be refined out of the pituitary glands taken from cadavers, and it cost a fortune. It was restricted for use to certain individuals who suffered from a certain kind of dwarfism. But now some parents who want their kids to be football players or basketball players have taken to acquiring illegal supplies of growth hormone and inject their sons with it regularly. This makes them grow faster and put on more weight, but it is fraught with peril and can have serious medical consequences later in life. (discuss)
