Steroids' Effect on Baseball
Reasons Against Accepting Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Baseball
Sosa is the latest supposed user to get caught. He joins the list with Alex Rodriguez, Andy Petite, Manny Ramirez and countless others cited in the Mitchell Report. Many people wish to argue that it doesn't matter if athletes take performance-enhancing drugs. They rationalize it by saying if everyone is taking steroids then baseball is still played on a level-playing field.
This would be true if everyone is taking steroids. The exact percent of players who are doping is uncertain, but it is not one-hundred percent. There is one argument in favor of steroids; who cares what the players do as long as they entertain? But there are multiple reasons why steroids are not okay.
Steroids Eliminating the Integrity of Baseball
Is there any integrity left in the MLB? It seems hard to believe anything anyone says anymore. If a player puts up fifty homeruns in a season he is on steroids. Albert Pujols has put up consistent numbers through his major league career and has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Each year people argue whether or not he is juicing without any proof other than suspicion and paranoia because everyone else seems to be cheating.
Unfortunately this is the stigma that this generation's sluggers will have to endure. A combination of lack of proof and steroid era slugging numbers will certainly force every sports writer and blogger to point fingers at the yet to be found guilty, but with this era's attitude everyone is fair game. Because remember, there are no clean players, just players who haven't tested positive yet.
But how can anyone blame the sports writer, blogger, or fan for their thought process. The players weren't the only ones lying to the public. Team owners, managers, and even Bud Selig reportedly turned a blind eye because ratings were up and the correlation was the long ball. With home runs brought the resurgence of the sport. And with the allowance of cheating to gain ratings, it has in a whirlwind effect caused the demise of a generation's heroes. Fans no longer wonder who's dirty, but the more logical question seems to be who's clean?
Steroids Impact on Baseball's History Books
People sometimes argue that as long as the majority of players are juicing then everyone is on a level playing field and to leave the situation alone. This scenario ignores the fact that steroids are illegal, and so for the MLB to turn a blind eye and technically allow their players to do what they like may be against the law.
What will be examined is not this era's players competing against one another, but this era and their records versus the previous record holders and their steroid-clean eras. First, begin with Sammy Sosa. Although he never held the record for most home runs in a year he did break the previous record along with Mark McGuire who wound up beating Sosa down the stretch.
Whether people should vote him into the hall is unimportant here. Two performance-enhancing drug users broke the single season home run record in one year. Maybe these players of today are all on the same level, but Roger Maris wasn't juicing when he first broke Babe Ruth's record of sixty home runs setting it at sixty-one. When records are held by tainted players, it destroys the history of the game.
The most storied record in the game is now held by a highly suspected steroid user. Barry Bonds holds the record for most career home runs at 762 (he also holds the single season home run record at 73 previously held by McGuire at 70) passing Hank Aaron who previously held the record with 755 home runs. People are still pushing for an asterisk near his name and even Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, thought of reinstating Hank Aaron as baseball's all-time home run king. Bonds is set to stand trial for possibly lying to a grand jury about steroid use, but as of today he still is the home run king.
The player who was given the task to recapture the crown as home run king and bring back purity to the record and game was Alex Rodriguez. The only problem is he tested positive for steroids. Bud Selig must've been tearing his hair out when Rodriguez's test results were leaked. He was supposed to be the savior, but if he does pass Bonds somewhere down the road, the record book will be replacing one cheating, lying home run king with another.
As more and more records fall by steroid users, the previous record holders will fall farther and farther down the list in history. The top of lists will be tainted along with the holders of the records. Hank Aaron was first and the Babe was second. Now they are second and third respectively to Bonds. If Rodriguez continues on his pace they will be third and fourth on the list of all-time home runs. With steroids the true records will be lost and in their place we will have constant reminders that the legends of the game were usurped by cheaters who are now falsely hailed as kings, iron-men, and gods.
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