By Brad Locke
October 15, 2004

(AgapePress) - Eight years ago, Ken Caminiti was arguably the best player in baseball. He'd been voted the 1996 National League MVP for his blistering bat and ravenous glove. His Incredible Hulk physique and penetrating, deep-set eyes only enhanced his fearsome, Superman image.

Caminiti, who spent most of his career with Houston and San Diego, died October 10 -- the same day the celluloid Superman, Christopher Reeve, passed away. They say it was a heart attack that killed the 41-year-old retired slugger, and though autopsy results aren't back, it's hard to believe his steroid, drug and alcohol use didn't factor heavily into his demise. Even if it didn't, the tailspin of Caminiti's personal life in recent years can definitely be attributed to his reliance on and abuse of illegal substances.

As a player, he pursued a higher plane of accomplishment by pumping himself full of steroids and painkillers. As a retiree, he used cocaine and booze to pursue that elusive, ineffable state of invincibility he experienced as a player. In the first case, Caminiti reached his desired ends, but the unsavory means cost him dearly. In the second case, the only state he ever reached was one of despair.

It's sad that it takes a tragedy like Caminiti's for us to see the horrifying effects that sinful ambition can wreak on a human. Not that many people will learn from this example. Former NFL star Lyle Alzado died too early after taking a similar course in the 1980s, yet drug use -- of both the performance-enhancing and hallucinogenic kind -- is still prevalent. This past Olympics confirmed that. Seven athletes lost their medals after testing positive for banned substances, and several more were kicked out or kept out of the Athens Games for doping-related offenses.

A 1995 survey that was cited many times over the summer revealed that 99 percent of Olympic athletes would use a performance-enhancing drug that guaranteed victory and could not be detected, and half of them would still take it even if the substance would kill them within five years.

What makes people go to such short-sighted extremes? Does their desire to win really have that much control over them? Why don't they care about the potentially deadly results of worshipping success? Probably because that has become the greatest idol among humans, Americans in particular. Ambition is the new moral compass -- whatever helps you achieve your dreams is OK. Ambition trumps the conscience God embedded in all our hearts, and it helps us justify every sin. Baseball players take steroids to get an edge (cheating); politicians compromise their principles for personal gain (betrayal); teenagers are taught to follow their hearts even if it means deceiving their parents (lying; see the new Hillary Duff movie for an example); the career businesswoman aborts her unexpected, inconvenient baby (murder).

Ambition is not inherently evil, only the selfish kind. Striving for God's purposes, working your tail off to serve Him, doing a superb job as a testament to Christ's motivational powers -- that's a wonderful thing. Pursuing man's acclaim instead of God's approval -- not so good.

Yet many athletes can't see beyond the finish line. Life to them is empty without a trophy to be won. If they only knew that there is a prize so much greater than those perishable wreaths, a glory so much more worth their time and energies (I Corinthians 9:25). Athletics gives us a wealth of applicable metaphors, and one of them is that true winners rely on their own hard work and abilities and nothing else. A guy can win first place with the aid of a pill or needle, but he's still a loser.

Caminiti certainly lost much more than he gained by taking steroids. For a few years, he was on top. His ambition to be the best got him to his desired level of achievement. Yet he never knew at the time that once he reached that peak, the trip back down was going to kill him.