My dad gave me a leather skipping rope when I was 15. He’d been a boxer. “Skipping will make you a stronger tennis player,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone. Make it your secret weapon.” Athletes have always had “secret” weapons. But when does self-help become cheating?

It’s a fuzzy line. We might all agree that skipping rope isn’t cheating and injecting steroids is, but what about those points in between?

What about Tommy John surgery, replacing a damaged tendon with one from another body part? John’s the former major league pitcher who had the pioneering procedure which bears his name. Thousands of athletes have had it. But isn’t surgery just as artificial – and therefore just as wrong – as shooting chemicals into your butt?

My personal favorite for confusing the issue is blood doping. The practice of increasing the concentration of red blood cells – and subsequent endurance – through transfusion reportedly started in the 1970s and was finally banned in 1986. Enter the hypobaric or altitude chamber, where oxygen levels simulate thin air at high altitudes. The body responds to less oxygen by producing more red blood cells, giving athletes increased aerobic endurance. You know, almost exactly like doping, without transfusions. It’s popular and legal. You can do it in your sleep! Isn’t it cheating? What if it’s called cheating tomorrow?

We don’t know when athletes started using steroids, for instance, but there was a lag between when they were first used and when they became popular. Then there was another lag before they were banned. The same is true for blood doping, used by the US Olympic Cycling Team back when it was legal.

Jim Bouton, former major league pitcher and author, summed up the athlete’s perspective: “I said in Ball Four, that if there was a pill that would guarantee a pitcher would win 20 games but it would take five years off of his life, we’d all be taking them.”

Athletes will always seek an edge and sports testing will always lag behind the latest “secret weapons.” If we don’t know who started using what, or when, how do we know which performances to discount? In fairness, we don’t. Tomorrow’s improved testing shouldn’t alter yesterday’s recorded sports history. I say take former champions and their records at face value. I say if you tested clean back when, your record stands forever. After all, we should draw a line somewhere.

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