Steroids in Major League Baseball
Cheating Tarnishes Records and Is Ruining America's National Pastime
Aug 22, 2009
As the number of superstars known to have used performance-enhancing drugs continues to climb, it's growing increasingly difficult for Major League Baseball to extricate itself from this dark chapter of its recent history.
The hope of many baseball fans was that New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez would emerge as an example of someone who played the game the right way, who didn't cheat to become elite. Rodriguez, if he had kept clean, seemed poised to someday become Major League Baseball's all-time home-run leader and restore legitimacy to one of the national pastime's crowning achievements.
Home-Run Records Tainted
Barry Bonds holds the career home-run record - a mark that will be forever tainted by the steroid accusations that dogged Bonds for the past several years of his career. Court documents have shown that Bonds tested positive for three types of steroids from 2000-2003. That time frame coincides with a period when Bonds began to show unprecedented power at an age when most hitters' skills begin to rapidly decline. Instead of seeing his power deteriorate as befitting a player approaching age 40, Bonds posted career bests in several offensive categories this decade and hit a single season-record 73 home runs in 2001.
Controversy continues to swirl around the sport as revelations of steroid use by Rodriguez and an alleged affiliation with a banned personal trainer have cast a shadow over yet another superstar. His accomplishments now are viewed with the same skepticism that follows those of Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa and other false heroes of the steroid era.
The sport took another king-sized hit in July when the New York Times reported that Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, the driving force of one of the decade's most dominant teams, also had tested positive for using banned substances. That paper also had previously reported that Manny Ramirez, one of the game's most popular and enigmatic stars, was among 104 players said to have tested positive in a steroids survey in 2003.
Stigma of Steroids
At a time when the focus should be on the excitement of the pennant races, the sport continues to be stained dishonorably. And until Major League Baseball releases the names of all the players who failed that steroids survey test in 2003, every player will be under a cloud of suspicion, regardless of whether he ever used performance-enhancing drugs.
All the while, fewer fans are able to enjoy the game fully. With each long home run hit, with each dominating pitching performance, the questions linger: Is he on the juice? Is he cheating? Which players are? Which players aren't? Even the innocent are not exempt from suspicion.
In June, Philadelphia outfielder Raul Ibanez learned a hard lesson about the modern-day steroids era in baseball. Ibanez started 2009 on a tear, topping the National League in four offensive categories through the first two months of the season, and at one point was the leading vote-getter among NL outfielders for the All-Star Game. But he was forced to vigorously defend himself against an anonymous blogger's accusations that he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
Baseball Has Work to Do
There is no evidence that Ibanez has ever violated baseball's substance abuse policy. Unfortunately, Ibanez and some of the game's bigger names will remain under a cloud of suspicion as long as the 2003 survey results are sealed.
Baseball has much work to do to repair its image – particularly among the sport's younger fans – and negate the stigma of steroids that has tainted more than a decade's worth of records and awards. Unfortunately, that's proving easier said than done.
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