STEROIDS IN BASEBALL 2
Steroids in Baseball Steroids have been used a lot longer than some may realize. Steroids have even been dated back to Ancient Greece, where Greeks used testicular and plant extracts to get an edge on their opponents (Walker,2008). Major League Baseball has been around since 1869, which is why baseball is considered America’s pastime. Recently, those players have looked for an edge on other players, and will do anything to get that edge. This is why performance-enhancing drugs became a problem in Major League Baseball. Because of this, Major League Baseball took a stand. Major League Baseball created a strict drug policy that
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The hitters had never been so powerful and records that had been standing for years began to be broken. This brought up the suspicion of some of these players using performance-enhancing drugs. This was really brought up around 1998 season. During this season Mark McGwire, prolific slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals, broke the thirty-seven year old record held by Roger Maris (Egendorf,1999). This record was the most home runs in a season, he did not just beat the record, he smashed it. McGwire recorded seventy home runs during the 1998 season, which beat the old record by nine. In the same season, Sammy Sosa cracked sixty-six home runs himself. This brought up a lot of question about these two …show more content…
After the new policy came about in 2005 that began to punish players for use of performance-enhancing drugs, the numbers dropped greatly. From 2007-2012, only 21 players had 40 home run seasons. If this stat alone does not persuade people the Steroid era is over, the average number of home runs the league leader hit in these seasons prove the same. From 1996-2001, the average number of home runs for the league leader was 61.3 home runs. From 2007-2012, the average was 48.3 home runs. These statistics are unmistakingly obvious that steroids were prevalent between the 1996-2001 seasons. After saying this, it is not that there are no steroid users anymore, because there are and a few get caught every once in a while, but the number of users has greatly decreased. This is positive in so many ways. Because of the reduced number of players using performance-enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball has gotten a lot of its integrity
One of several effects of the 1994 MLB strike was the stopping of Matt Williams home run record race. Roger Maris’s single season home run record which he set at 61 in 1961 (ESPN). Matt Williams, who was on pace for the majestic 61 had 43. The record would later be squashed in 1998 during the so called “Steroid Era” by two players, Sammy Sosa who ended the season with 66, and Mark McGuire who stopped at 70
In Major league Baseball or the MLB, a rookie shortstop named Trevor Story broke the record for the greatest amount of home-runs in a season in Baseball history. “Trevor Story of the Colorado Rockies in the National League hit seven home runs in the first six games” Says The St. Augustine Record newspaper. Trevor Story topped the record of veteran stars named Willie Mays (1964), Mike Schmidt (1978) and last but not least, Larry Walker (1997). Trevor was also the fifth player to hit home-runs in the first four games. Since Trevor as a rookie was playing amazing only at 22 years old, some other MLB baseball players started to wonder how long Trevor could keep hitting homers.
Even during his first 10 years of baseball career he never has elected into the National Baseball Hall of the Fame. Mark McGwire has been out of baseball since retiring in the 2001, later he was little public appearances behind his own infamous performance before Congress in 2005, when he recapitulated questions about steroid usage. Then he starts next month as the hitter coach for
Besides breaking the single season and career home run records, he shattered several other records “including most years leading a league in home runs (12); most total bases in a season (457); and highest slugging percentage for a season (.847)” (biography.com). Similarly, the American economy was at its peak during the Roaring Twenties. The stock market was higher than ever before and American people as a whole struggled with poverty less than ever before. The economy’s success mirrored the success of Babe Ruth.
Turns out they were doing witchcraft and got taken to court over the problem. The people included Abigale, Betty, Tituba, Marry Warren, Sussana, Sarah Good, all got caught for witchcraft. When it comes to baseball and getting caught for steroids, they all wanted to get buff at once and everyone found out. The word got around considering everybody was doing them. Alex Rodriguez used steroids as an early as highschool, and continued to used HGH even when he joined the Yankees.
A step in this direction is the new drug testing program that was negotiated and approved by the owners and players for the 2005 season. It is far more comprehensive, intrusive, and punitive than the 2002 program that it replaced. Time will tell whether the new program will rid the sport of the blight which allows juiced-up players to achieve phony records that overshadow authentic accomplishments (Staudohar. 2005).” All players work hard everyday, but the ones who are taking steroids to get ahead faster are just cheating themselves. Although, there could be a brighter side to steroid use.
“Why It’s Time to Legalize Steroids In Professional Sports” written by Chris Smith portrays a strong argument promoting the legalization of steroids. Before reading Smith’s article I was completely against the entire idea of legalizing steroids. However, after reading this article I find the idea to be less absurd. Smith did not convince me that the legalization of steroids is what our society should in fact do, but he did make a few decent points. Smith discussed approximately four different reasons why the legalization of steroids would enhance our society’s athletics.
Therefore, the records set by steroid users shouldn’t even be considered in the record books due to their ability to outperform other average players’. A significant minority of players are concerned about the effects steroid use has on the sports record book stated in a survey done by USA TODAY and The Sports Xchange (Jenkins). One could even argue that the player’s averages per game or season shouldn’t be kept as their steroid use could have helped with those statistics as
Pete Rose is infamously known for gambling on baseball games during the season. When players gamble on athletic events, a player may intentionally play terrible or intentionally influence the outcome of the game to the way they placed their bet, (Kennedy 49). While Rose was a manager it was often believed that he “overused Rob Murphy”, due to him placing many bets on his team to win. The desire to win the bet pushed Rose’s decisions to do what was best for the money instead of focusing on the long season. The Pete Rose case is important to steroids because Pete Rose was banned from baseball on Aug. 24, 1989, (Verducci 67).
Ruth is the only player since the turn of the twentieth century to lead his league in triple crown categories as both a hitter and also a pitcher and he did this accomplishment in only a span of three years. Babe had a three year contract that costed a total of ten thousand dollars. The Red Socks three years earlier respond by selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees on January third, nineteen twenty for one hundred thousand and also a three hundred thousand loan secured by mortgage7 on Fenway park. Babe Ruth hit five hundred and seventy five home runs after breaking conner's record. Only nine players have hit that many in there entire career8 since, the ones that did were steroid users.
Babe Ruth's single season records for extra base-hits, runs, and total bases still stand today and no one has came close to breaking it. Another baseball record that still stands today is Ty Cobb's record for career batting average which was .367. Many sports had records but most of them were broken. The reason why these records were up for so long was because of how the game was played. If the game was played how it is played today these players would not have been able to compete with today's athletes.
Introduction: One of the largest industries in the United States is the professional sports industry; it brought in $63 billion in 2015 1. Professional athletes are seen as strong and talented, but how much of their strength and talent is achieved naturally? Performance-enhancing drugs have been increasingly used in professional sports and are prohibited from being used, but should they be prohibited?
Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have been used in sports for many years. The common term for it is doping. It is one of the most important issues among professional athletes today. Doping should not be allowed in professional sports. The use of performance-enhancing drugs creates a disadvantage for the athletes that don't use PEDs since they will not perform as well as the athletes that used the drugs during the game or competition.
“Before steroids, records were made to be broken. Now they’re stolen,” is a quote that many know. The number of athletes who use steroids is staggering. First of all, the health effects could create huge problems for the athletes. Next, the consequences for using steroids are huge.
The quote also draws bag to reason number two. Additionally, PEDS (Performing Enhancing Drugs) is cheating according to many of the different pro sports drug abuse policies (Beck). The use of Performing Enhancing Drugs in baseball specifically has been outlawed since the year on 1991 due to it being considered cheating by rule makers. Furthermore, Performing Enhancing Drugs make achieving success in sports all to easy. The athletes that put in the work in the weight room, practice, and eating healthy achieve greatness that way and not cheating by using PEDs (Beck).