SPORTS: April 14, 2008 Issue

GOD—ENHANCED PERFORMANCES

PETE PACIOREK

"IMAGINE WHAT YOU could do if you got on the juice." Suggestions that I start taking steroids came my way many times during my professional baseball career. I was playing at a time when reliance on performance—enhancing drugs was a serious and persistent temptation to many ballplayers looking for an edge.

Sometimes it can be tempting to take what seems to be the easy way out of a situation. It might be to lie about something, procrastinate, cheat on a test, or use drugs illegally to make the human body more powerful. At this point, however, I was rescued by my upbringing in Christian Science, which had taught me that these are false foundations on which to build a life or career.

The Bible makes it clear that such foundations will eventually fall or fade away: "He that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great" (Luke 6:49). Regular prayer has convinced me that we need to stick to the spiritual high ground rather than look for shortcuts.

About the author

Pete Paciorek played nine years of professional baseball in the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers organizations. He is now head baseball coach at Principia College in lllinois.

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