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  When Barry Bonds started a legitimate chase for the greatest record in sports history, this should have been one of baseball's crowning achievements. Passing Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron on the road to sport immortality would be like calling Alexander Graham Bell on your iPhone to congratulate him on his new invention. Unfortunately for the sport, Bonds' connection to steroids has had the sort of effect on Major League Baseball that a meal of grits, Oreo hot fudge pie, and the Ebola virus would have on any normal digestive track. This whole topic has opened a healthy debate into the effects of performance enhancing drugs on the sports world.



  Poker is not immune to this topic. Anyone who looks at a poker tournament from the outside would not immediately think that performance enhancing drugs were part of the sport. The only pharmaceuticals that one would associate with these "athletes" are either something for an upset stomach, or a medicine mixed in to the morning Bloody Mary to chase away a hangover. The truth is that drugs to help improve one's performance are becoming an issue in poker.



  Drugs like Ritalin were originally invented to help the brains of the MTV generation to continue working even when the PS3 has been turned off. Such drugs have made it beyond the target audience of fidgety school children, and are now in use by poker players who wish to achieve a hyper alert mental state. Some people are screaming foul and equating this with the baseball steroid scandal.



  There are good arguments on both sides of the issue. Although steroids won't help a player put a bat on the ball, it may add a few feet to the ball's flight. Drugs that artificially help a player maintain a high level of focus won't help them from a strategic standpoint, but may take mental fatigue out of the equation. Is this a fair advantage for a player to have?



  Regardless of one's opinion, the cream will always rise to the top regardless of what they are, or are not taking. Babe Ruth managed to smack more homeruns in fewer games than anybody in the history of baseball. Amazingly enough, many of his most memorable dingers came when he was drunk off his ass. Modern athletes need to take steroids just to stay in his shadow. In short, pharmaceuticals are no substitute for true talent.