Men with Balls: The Professional Athlete's Handbook

by Drew Magary

  2. USING THEM IS TANTAMOUNT TO CHEATING. Taking a substance that makes you stronger or helps you improve your recovery time is nothing more than cheating. Unless that substance is creatine, which, despite never having been studied on a long-term basis, is okey-dokey. Why? Because it only helps you a small amount, whereas steroids and human growth hormone are exponentially more effective. You see, you can improve yourself, you just can’t improve yourself too much. You’re already a really fucking good athlete, okay? You don’t have to rub everyone’s face in it. That really pisses people off.

  3. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING INTO YOUR BODY. If you want to stay clean, you must be vigilant. No excuses. You are a pro athlete now, so everyone will expect you to be an expert in advanced body physiology. So get cracking. Go to Section XII, Subset A, Section 12, Article 8 of your league’s collective bargaining agreement and look up which substances are banned. Then cross-reference that list with the ingredient labels of each and every product you buy. Of course, some of these substances may be legal in trace amounts, so you’ll have to check the percentage of a certain ingredient, then write out a proportional equation to figure out the exact metric amount contained in a single pill, and then double-check the CBA to make sure it is equal to or below that value.

  The media says this is an easy thing to do, so I don’t want to hear you complaining about it.

  4. NOT ALL PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING SUBSTANCES ARE BANNED. There are many performance-enhancing supplements that are perfectly legal to take and taste like complete and utter shit. Products such as Weight Gain 5000, or Joe Weider’s Super Whey Fuel, or anything else at GNC that will make your sweat smell like pet food. These are all substances that give you some of the benefits of cheating without technically cheating. The key is knowing the difference between a drug and a supplement. You see, a drug is an ingestible chemical compound that is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. A supplement is an ingestible chemical compound that is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. You see how that makes sense? Good.

  5. YOU CAN TOTALLY GET SOME AT ANY GOLD’S GYM. Let’s say you decide to cave in to the pressure and take performance-enhancing drugs. The first thing you need to know is where to get them. And let me tell you, Gold’s Gym is the place to go for steroids and / or closeted gay sex partners. Just stroll on in, head to the free-weight room, and look for the forty-five-year-old Italian guy who looks like a personal trainer but is actually just a customer harassing other customers about remembering to work the negative. He’ll be the one doing shoulder shrugs in jeans, a tank top, and Lugz boots. Ask him to spot for you. Compare workout routines. Grunt together. In no time, you’ll have yourself a shady friend who will latch on to you like a goddamn lamprey. After a week of hanging out together, tell him, “You know, Todd, I’m really hitting a plateau on my dead lifts.”

  Say no more. Within seconds, words like Clomid, Clenbuterol, and buffalo mating stimulant will pour out of his mouth. He’ll procure every known steroid for you to sample, direct from the nearest Mexican apothecary. He’ll show you how to use them. You can inject them, swallow them, rub them in, smoke them, insert them as suppositories, drop them on your tongue, spray them in your nose, or bake them into cranberry muffins. Your new gym friend will show you the best way to do it, and then do it with you! Then, you two will wrestle naked in the steam room for an hour. Within days, you’ll find yourself more powerful, more energetic, and more prone to slamming your loved ones against the wall at the drop of a hat. Welcome to your new body, my friend. Soon, the aggressiveness you try so hard to rein in off the field will consume you entirely. You’ll be like a superhero, with bonus raping ability.

  6. IF YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE A PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING SUBSTANCE, TAKE HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE. There is no reliable test for it yet. So binge away. Oh, sure, people will say there’s “anecdotal evidence” of you cheating. And yeah, there are a few horrifying physical side effects, such as cranial doubling. But who gives a shit if it bags you an extra $100 mil? So you have an abnormally large head now. Big fucking deal. Buy an Escalade with a sunroof. Problem solved.

  7. IF YOU TAKE THEM, YOU ARE IN GOOD COMPANY. Using steroids doesn’t have to be your dirty little secret. Find a teammate or a group of fellow players and make it a dirty big secret. It’s much more fun to engage in illicit behavior in groups. At least, that’s what I’ve found. The number of professional athletes who have allegedly used PEDs is huge, and only growing: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Floyd Landis, Mike Webster, Lyle Alzado, Darrell Russell, Sammy Sosa, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, and pretty much the entire roster of the WWE. Sure, many of these people are dead, or disgraced. But, should the same fate befall you, you’ll at least have someone to commiserate with.

  8. YOU WILL BE TESTED FOR THEM. Random drug testing is a staple of every major league’s collective bargaining agreement. Unless you play baseball, in which case your test will take place on March 3 at 3:00 p.m. sharp every year. Don’t forget!

  Here’s how the testing will go down. You will receive a call from league officials to report to team headquarters. A league official will then meet you in the foyer and escort you to the bathroom. Then, he will escort you to the handicapped stall for privacy. Then, he will make you strip naked, checking underneath your scrotum for any smuggled bags of clean urine. Then, he will tug on your penis to make sure it is not a prosthetic. Then, he will have you urinate into a brandy snifter. He will then swirl the urine three times, take in the bouquet, and give it a taste. Depending upon whether or not he disapproves of it, he may then elect to spit the urine out. That’s his decision. He will then have you fill the specimen cup. This cup is then sent to a lab in Alabama, where the urine is placed in a vial and spun around real fast in one of those bitchin’ centrifuge things. Then, a lab technician will test the urine. If it comes up positive . . . BOOM! One-month suspension. You’d think the process was punishment enough.

  9. TESTING CAN BE BEATEN. You may also think this process is foolproof, but it is not. Are you urinating your own urine? You asshat. Only amateurs do that. Check online for random strangers who will happily sell you pouches of clean, injectable urine for testing purposes, or just for partying. You can also procure powdered urine, which looks and tastes exactly like Crystal Light. Or you can choose to “cycle” your steroid use in order to test clean during the months of the year you know testing is taking place. It’s based on the same principle as timing ovulation, which may also come in handy for you down the road, since using steroids will cause you to grow vestigial female reproductive organs.

  10. IF YOU TEST POSITIVE, NEVER ADMIT IT. Always blame a tainted supplement. Or blame a Snickers Marathon bar. No one knows what’s in those fucking things. Or blame Miguel Tejada. No one ever buys these defenses, but that’s beside the point. Blaming a scapegoat keeps you from having to admit that you did steroids, and that’s all that matters. But you have to stick to your story. Reporters will urge you to come clean, telling you it can only improve your image. Don’t believe them! It’s the notorious Schaap trap! They’ll fuck you blind! Stay strong, my friend! The longer you continue to deny it, the less interested people become in whether or not you confess.

  There’s also the added bonus that the longer you lie, the more apt you are to begin believing the lie. And once you’ve phased out the reality of your circumstances altogether, it’s like it never happened. Your slate is clean!

  Deeply Penetrating the Numbers

  The percentage of athletes using steroids has long been the source of great speculation. But now, I have acquired the official percentages by sport. Here they are:

  Also, if you test positive for drugs, always appeal the ruling. Urine can be mishandled, spilled, or even switched with other urine. Scientists are legendary for their clumsiness, so take advantage.

  Oh, fuck! You got hooked on illegal drugs!

  In addition to being tested for
performance-enhancing drugs, you’ll also be tested for illegal recreational drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, and that saucy little temptress known as marijuana. A positive test for illegal drugs will merit a suspension without pay. This despite the fact that they have no performance-enhancing qualities, except in professional table tennis, where cocaine can make you unstoppable.

  But let’s skip the practical reasons to avoid drugs for a moment and focus on the moral reasons. Doing illegal drugs isn’t just a crime, it’s a sin. You can only take legal, prescription drugs engineered by multi-billion-dollar corporations that operate with little to no congressional oversight. That’s the ethical way to take drugs. Otherwise, abusing illegal drugs is wrong.

  That is, unless you’re doing them correctly. If you do drugs the right way, holy shit. I mean, seriously, holy fucking shit. You will become an ethereal spirit transcending multiple planes of existence. Every neuron in your body will pulse with red-hot, orgasmic joy. Every step you take will feel like a growing leap toward the stratosphere, and suddenly all that is good in life will collide into one gigantic white dwarf of ecstasy. You will feel as if your heart has burst from your chest and risen to the heavens. I tell you, people who say getting high isn’t worth it have never been high. It’s amazing.

  Now, this all comes at a price. Illegal drugs are addictive and can ruin your career. Is it worth alienating your friends and losing your job just so you can do drugs? Probably not, unless the shit you get is really potent. Let’s go through each drug one by one and see the bodies left in their wake.

  Marijuana

  The Victims: Ricky Williams, Nate Newton, Isaiah Rider, probably a bunch of dipshit snowboarders

  The Danger: Marijuana is cheap, plentiful, all-natural, has very few known side effects, is not chemically addictive, and even has some healing properties. That’s what makes it so dangerous. Pot’s inherent harmlessness is what draws so many athletes to it, and that can be very harmful. It’s understandable why so many jocks love the chronic. You train all day long, then spend all night busting your ass in front of a crowd of forty thousand people throwing ice at you. You can hardly be blamed for heading home, sparking up, and then just chilling the fuck out with some strongass ganja that makes everything look like it’s in Claymation. But beware! You may grow to enjoy chilling the fuck out so much that you decide you don’t really feel like doing much else. Ask Ricky Williams. That guy loves pot almost as much as I love reading Sally Forth every morning.

  Pot also makes you fat. I can tell you my physique is the direct result of numerous evenings smoking up and then eating Coffee-mate straight out of the canister. Pot can also make you gay. No joke. One time, in college, I smoked up and thought, You know, under the right circumstances, I’d consider nailing a dude. That freaked me out for, like, a week.

  Worst of all, smoking pot makes you, almost instantly, a staunch defender of pot. One toke, and you’ll soon find yourself calling the DEA “fascist pigs,” organizing progressive rock festivals with Tom Morello, and taking up the inevitably futile cause of legalizing pot in America. If there’s a bigger waste of time than smoking pot, it’s fighting for your right to smoke it. That’s the one side effect of weed no one talks about: it can make you the world’s laziest tightass.

  Cocaine

  The Victims: Steve Howe, Shawn Kemp, Len Bias, Dwight Gooden

  The Danger: Cocaine can cause heart attacks, overdoses, brain damage, and, worst of all, sniffles. George Carlin once said that cocaine makes you feel like having more cocaine. But he never said why. Well, I’ll tell you why. If you happen to be someone who is insecure and unhappy, there’s no quicker way to speed right through life than snorting rails off a toilet seat every morning. You’ll be fifty years old in no time flat, and that much closer to the end.

  Cocaine’s allure also lies in the fact that it’s a huge party drug. It makes women extremely libidinous. I mean, look at Lindsay Lohan. That girl’s had more men inside her than FedExField. Once a woman does cocaine, she loses all her inhibitions and becomes singularly obsessed with finding a cheap sexual thrill. That’s why I suggest not doing cocaine yourself, but rather keeping it on your person at all times to give away to the honeys.

  Ecstasy

  The Victims: None that I know of, but if you see another player extending his touchdown dance past the nine-hour, fifty-five-minute mark, he’s probably on it.

  The Danger: Ecstasy can cause severe dehydration and accelerate your heart rate. But, more important, it will turn you into a real dipshit. One hit, and you’ll find yourself making weekend trips to Ibiza, listening to Sasha & John Digweed albums that were passé even before the turn of the century, sucking on glow sticks, and walking up to other men and saying, “Oooh! Can I touch your hair? I feel so incredible!” Guhhhhh. Leave ecstasy to the Eurotrash. Real Americans do drugs that come from Latin American rebel war zones partially funded by the U.S. government.

  Besides, ecstasy is too easy to take. If you want to get high, it shouldn’t be as simple as taking a pill with a lightning bolt on it. You should have to bust your ass trying to smoke, shoot, or snort that shit. An earned high is way more rewarding.

  Heroin

  The Victims: None that I know of, but if you can shoot heroin and then go out and play quarterback an hour later, then you must be some kind of superhero or something.

  The Danger: Are you kidding? Did you not see Trainspotting? You see babies crawling on ceilings, man. That’s fucked.

  Meth

  The Victims: Todd Marinovich

  The Danger: Preferred drug of choice for thirteen-year-old Nebraskan white trash, meth is the rare drug that causes you to lose your teeth and develop open sores all over your body. The appeal of that is undeniable. And, for the many young people in Middle America who get hooked, it totally beats hanging out outside the Old Navy again. Still, I’d suggest avoiding it. Any of the above drugs gives you a way better high, and are far more fashionable.

  Crack

  The Victims: Lawrence Taylor, Darryl Strawberry, Dexter Manley

  The Danger: See the following page.

  HEAR IT FROM A CRACKHEAD!

  Help! There are centipedes all over me!

  by Darnell Taylor, Crackhead

  Help me!

  Help me!

  My God, you have to help me! There are centipedes all over me!

  Can’t you see them? How can you not see them? My God, they’re all over my body! I feel them burrowing into my skin! My lips are turning white! My fingertips are cracked! Ahhhhhh! Help me!

  NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU, YOUNG DARNELL.

  Oh, no! The Centipede Queen has found me! Quick! Find something to beat her away with! A magazine! A PR-24! Anything!

  THERE IS NO HELP FOR YOU NOW, YOUNG DARNELL. WE HAVE DUG DEEP AND MADE A NICE HOME FOR OURSELVES HERE. YOUR CAVELIKE NOSTRILS WILL MAKE A FINE MATING HABITAT, INDEED.

  You’ll never take me alive, Queen! NEVER! Please, help me! Can’t you see that they’re real? Don’t abandon me in my darkest hour! You and you alone can help me find the precious White Stones of Jersey City! Wait in the back alley behind the Gristedes, and a man named Fabrice will appear. He is a purveyor of valuable crystals contained in very small Ziploc bags, and he’ll be able to save me! Please! Do it with all haste!

  IT IS TOO LATE, YOUNG DARNELL. TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE.

  No, no, NOOOO!

  Chapter 10

  It’s About Goddamn Time

  Money

  Mother. Fucking. Paid.

  You know, I’ve spent a majority of this book coaching you on avoiding certain kinds of behavior and outlining troublesome scenarios that may occur as a result of your newfound fame and fortune. And frankly, I’ve been a bit of a buzz kill. I apologize. I’m a douche. I certainly don’t mean to paint your new life as a pro athlete as something horrible. Quite the contrary: as a modern pro athlete, you’re entitled to an income and perks that would make Curt Flood shit a brick. So it’s time to sit back and enjoy it. What
kind of luxurious life awaits you? Consider the game of MASH I designed just for you, on the following page.

  Have a friend draw little ticks in the center box until you say stop. Count the number of ticks in the box, and that is your magic number. Count through each option consecutively until the magic number is reached. Then cross off the option that you land on. Do this until there is only one option left on each side. As you can see, you will be left with either a Mansion, a Mansion, or a Mansion; a stripper, a cheerleader, or an actress; a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, or a Bugatti; and anywhere between twelve and fourteen children. Sound good to you? Fuck and yes.

  The best part of having lots of money is that it allows you to buy things that let other people know that you have lots of money: mansions, limos, speedboats, white tigers, etc. Items like these aren’t merely status symbols. That’s a shallow way of thinking. No, these material goods are victory symbols. You excelled at sports long enough to earn a $40 million guaranteed contract. In the game of life, you just won! You have fuck-you money now! Game over, baby! Everything you buy with that money is a tribute to your triumph over having to spend the rest of your life working like a sucker, like everyone else has to. Every fancy house you buy is a stop on the endless victory parade that is your existence. It’s not superficial. It’s a celebration. And anyone who thinks otherwise is, pardon my French, a fucking tightass.

  So let’s shop! I’m taking off the hat of Life Coach for this chapter and putting on the hat of Personal Stylist. It’s made of pink satin and has gorgeous yellow feathers sticking out of it. Follow me, girl!

  If it doesn’t have a home theater, you’re a pussy. Choosing a house.

  Allow me to take you through your new 30,000-square-foot dream house. Many pros make the mistake of tying up all their money in new estates and then personalizing them to the point of having little to no resale value. I don’t want that to happen to you. I have listed below twenty-six state-of-the-art amenities for your new home. I suggest including only twenty of them. It prevents your new home from becoming a financial albatross, one that only Billy Joel would be stupid enough to buy.