Since the time sports became an industry, doping quickly became an issue. “Doping”, also referred to as the usage of anabolic steroids (known simply as ‘steroids’) or Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED), derives from the Dutch word “doop”, which was an opium-based juice used by the ancient Greek athletes to gain an upper hand in order to survive for yet another fight in the Coliseum. Anabolic steroids can be traced back to the early 1930s when scientists developed a ‘drug’ to give men synthetic hormones (chemically related to testosterone) to promote growth, development, and sexual functions. This form of synthetic testosterone (steroid) was later found to help malnourished World War II soldiers gain weight and strength. Then after the war, athletes began to see the potential benefits for their own performance in sports. And even the everyday person saw how the use of steroids may improve his/her appearance and fitness ability. More than 100 varieties of these steroids have been designed since then; however, only a few are approved for human or animal use with a legal prescription from a certified prescriber. Most of the illegal steroids are smuggled into the U.S. from other countries or even produced here in underground laboratories.

Since these early recorded uses of the drug, ingredients and formulas have changed but the mentality that using PEDs to gain an advantage on competition has not. The most common reason for an athlete to use steroids is to gain strength through an increase in muscle mass. These steroids stimulate the body to convert proteins into muscle tissue. While at first glance, steroids appeal to an athlete as helping to achieve higher goals in their areas of physical interest, whether that be hitting more home runs or throwing a baseball faster, the drugs come with many latent consequences, ones that if not properly diagnosed can have severe consequences. 

Today, steroid use is most noticeable in the sport of baseball due to the fact that baseball player success and worth is measured by statistics. We talk about batting averages, home runs, and strikeouts among other statistics. As we talk about and compare player stats, it becomes clearly obvious when one player’s numbers spike in a short amount of time. Unlike other sports where the use of steroids may make an overall improvement on performance, in baseball it makes distinct, measured improvements to targeted aspects of performance. Due to this less-than-discrete enhanced performance, the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization has had no choice but to take a strong stance to control their industry. MLB is proud of its history and the players of the past; they have no intention of allowing the choice of some players to ‘cheat’ to distort the overall nature of American baseball and its phenome players of the past. 

Until recently, some athletes used steroids and got away with it; therefore, they viewed this practice as low risk with a high reward. In the early 1990s, the MLB commissioner spoke out against the drug to the league as he announced that it would no longer be tolerated. Yet with this announcement, there were no stipulated consequences if a player did not abide. It was not until 2013, that the MLB and the players agreed on random testing, a rule that was overdue in terms of deciding that the drug was a problem in the game.

Some consider this issue in the sports industry overall to be corrected and no longer an issue to deal with; however, year after year players are getting caught using PEDs. Some retired players, coaches, and even radio and television personalities recommend that steroid usage alone is not enough to say that a player has an unfair advantage and that it is not a ‘big deal’. I believe that while, in particular, baseball players may see the upside of taking steroids in their sport, the usage of it should disqualify them from receiving any sort of high praise, Most Valuable Player recognition, All-Star game selection, and especially receiving a Hall of Fame induction. The usage of steroids not only poses many negative health risks, but provides the user with an unfair advantage (in other words, the player is cheating), and it diminishes the level of recognition another player may receive on a milestone even if he or she has stayed clean and played fair (in other words, did not cheat). 

At a very young age, most people learn what is acceptable and not acceptable, and they begin to develop a sense of moral and ethical codes of which to live by. Drugs, especially performance enhancers or steroids, pose serious life threatening health risks. Steroids can change someone’s life in an instant when you consider how dangerous the side effects are. Sadly, there have been accounts in history that back this up, most notably in the case of Larry Pacifico, who almost died because of his long-time usage of steroids (Denham). Pacifico, a renowned powerlifter in the 1970s, attributes his coronary artery disease to his past steroid usage. The powerlifter recounts, “every time I went on a cycle of heavy steroid use, I’d develop high blood pressure and my pulse rate would increase” (Denham). The case of this one powerlifter can be attributed to many alike around the world, as powerlifters constantly are seeking to add weight onto their bench and/or squat routines, thus making them go to extreme measures like PEDs to obtain higher goals. Steroids not only pose high blood pressure and increased heart rate, but also cause serious liver and kidney disorders, hypertension, and even extreme menstrual irregularities and masculinization in women (Denham). These outcomes of using the drugs are often overlooked as the user only sees the drug for what it can provide for them physically, that being increased muscle mass and testosterone increases. They are thinking short term results not long-term effects.  On the other hand, steroids can also in many cases lead to negative psychological effects. Steroid using can result in psychological conditions, ranging from addiction to a feeling of supersized manhood which is gained through repetitive and incremental usage (Denham). 

The biggest stipulation with the usage of PEDs in sports, according to most people who see an issue with it, is that it gives the athlete an unfair advantage or the upper hand, and that they would consider this as cheating.  Much like other questions when considering ‘if you would participate in the usage of steroids while playing a sport’, it comes down to if you consider this an act of cheating and whether you feel this is at all a question of integrity, values, or putting your health at risk. The MLB would agree with one point, that players should maintain a certain level of morality when playing and carry their sense of integrity into every game. Even the voting eligibility rules for the MLB Hall of Fame include the words “character, integrity, and sportsmanship”, which are characteristics a player needs to possess just be on the ballot, let alone to be inducted or voted into the Hall of Fame (Hille). The fact that the rules for the Hall of Fame include those three words and players are still being nominated and inducted to the Hall of Fame that have used PEDs, would clearly mean that even though the league knows certain players still cheat and don’t meet these required adjectives but yet still get placed on the ballots, the league does not take the issue seriously. With that being said, it is safe to say that either the league isn’t looking deep enough into player health or that they know of the usage problems and they still allow it to take place. Set aside the player’s personal lack of morals and integrity and the fact he does not think morals or integrity matter and therefore cannot make the right choice (legal choice) to abstain, the league should put the line in the sand and publicly denounce cheating. The league must declare this as cheating, which is widely frowned upon in every-day life, no matter who you ask and what the subject matter. 

Again, steroids help a baseball player cheat by improving most measured statistical areas by an astounding percentage, including the most notable one, home runs. When discussing the case of ex-Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez, fans saw an increase in his home run average to 52 per season, an unprecedented amount, compared to his 36 during his first few seasons in the league with the Texas Rangers. It does not take a baseball expert to attribute a jump in home run number of that amplitude to cheating (Hadhazy). Mostly in a player using a drug that improves his or her strength, and in turn his or her power statistics, a drop in other areas not attributed to strength can be seen. Rodriguez’ batting average, a statistic based on how many times you reach base safely per amount of times up to bat, dropped to .305 after using steroids for only a few years, showing a noticeable decrease from his incredible .315 number from earlier in his career (Hadhazy). Another statistic worthy of looking into to see Rodriguez’s steroid use is his strikeout number, which increased by nearly 30 from 1997 to 1998. A statistic such as strikeouts, which counts how many times a batter gets out by reaching three strikes, is usually high in a power hitter. It is apparent that Rodriguez started using steroids in 1998 due to his increase in strikeouts, but also in home runs and batting average. Cheating, no matter how much evidence is provided, will always be defined by the person who is interpreting it, and in the MLB’s case when it comes to deciding who makes the ballot for the Hall of Fame, it does not play much of an impact in the decision making. In other words, by inducting these players into the Hall of Fame, the MLB is ‘declaring’ that doping does not constitute cheating in their rule book.

Doping in sports is going to happen regardless of the sanctions that are there for getting caught, and players conduct themselves under the radar and break records while doing so. It is a rare sight for a man to hit over 700 home runs, and that has only happened three times in the history of the MLB. Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Barry Bonds are all men to reach the coveted feat, although, one man is unlike the other two, these numbers can be found simply by Googling “all-time home run list” and a list of the game of baseball’s notorious power hitter will appear. Barry Bonds, former San Francisco Giant, notably used Anabolic Steroids throughout his career, and continued to smash homeruns out of the Giants ballpark year in and year out. For a man to do so well the way that Bonds did was a true shame. Seeing a man cheat his way past a legendary player like Hank Aaron, who for nearly twenty years held the home run record, should not be rewarded, it should disqualify the player from any form of award. 

While it is apparent that steroids can give players an unusual amount of muscle mass, therefore, turning a soft hit into a scorching homerun over 400 feet, some people believe that it is not the steroids that make said baseball player great. Some will say that steroids do not give a baseball player an incredible, unfair advantage and that it just gives them muscle, and they would be wrong (Hull). Simply put, if that player were to go up against another batter who was trained the same way and had the same skill level, but did not have the extra muscle that the steroid user gained, they would not hit as many homeruns as the other player.

Steroids can also be used by pitchers to increase the velocity on their pitches, making them harder to hit. Incidentally, a pitcher using pine tar (an illegal sticky substance that may alter the usually predictable flight path of a unmodified baseball) to add a level of unpredictability to his pitches, also used numerous times in the MLB, is comparable to steroids in that the pitcher an unfair advantage against the batter. As for steroids and pitchers, most notably, Roget Clemens used steroids, which lead to him becoming one of the greatest major league pitchers that the league has ever seen statistically. In some cases, much like Clemens, the athlete’s trainer can be just as much at fault, as they are at times the ones injecting the players. In a later investigation on Clemens, it was said by his trainer that, “from the time that McNamee injected Clemens with Winstrol through the end of the 1998 season, Clemens’ performance showed remarkable improvement” (Araton). Anybody can see that the steroids had in fact improved Clemens, as in 1998, his first reported year of using steroids, he won the Cy Young Award for the American League (best pitcher by statistics). It was not only shown on the field, as Clemens himself noticed that he had been feeling the drugs, saying, “the steroids ‘had a pretty good effect’ on him” (Araton). Although it is no surprise that somebody would feel the effects of steroids, 

Other people would state that a baseball player using steroids in his respected sport is no different than say, a person in the porn industry using Viagra (Cowherd). This comparison is not one that should be made because the two drugs do not have the same side effects. Although both drugs are used for performance purposes, steroids are used specifically to out-perform others, and to gain an upper hand against the competition. The same person would then be saying that it is okay for a player to use steroids because others are also using. Saying that the MLB should allow players to inject themselves with a drug because the usage has gotten to most players using anyways, says more on the league and their abilities to stop the spread of the drug in the first place. Therefore, the problem falls more in the lap of the league and their inefficient ways to combat the steroid epidemic.

Lastly, if the game of baseball, at the highest level, grants the highest award possible to a player that did so in such an uncivil way, then what sort of message does that send to today’s youth? If the game of baseball begins to allow players that have used any form of PED, the honor of being on the ballot to be in baseball’s most prestigious group of athletes, then that sends a message to today’s young players. If there happens to be an increase of steroid using players in the Hall of Fame, then what is to say that today’s youth and aspiring professional baseball players will not follow the footsteps of those players, and use steroids to get fame and recognition? It is important for today’s youth to have role models that promote healthy activities, and not ones that would be detrimental to their life, such as steroids and cheating.

To conclude, I would not have written this report had I not known about steroids and their problems in baseball. If it weren’t for a certain investigative case known as the Mitchell Report, then nobody would. In 2007, former senator George Mitchell turned over an astonishing 400-page report on his findings on what he labeled “Baseball’s Steroid Era” (Wilson). It was in this investigation that Senator Mitchell found 89 athletes guilty of using anabolic steroids, with records and interviews most notably of Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens. Without this investigation, the MLB would have little legal proof of the usage of steroids and would have no reason to act against players that used said substances. It would have been difficult for the MLB, who solely drug tests, to indict players for using any form of performance enhancing drug. Along with the MLB, other sports leagues such as the National Football League and National Basketball association have also had troubles in proving that their athletes are using these doping agents. To make this clear, Per the World Anti-Doping Agency, the people who test for the drug will only catch one or two users for every 100 tests they complete per year (Berkowitz). With this being said, it’s no wonder so many athletes don’t get caught, thus opening eyes to why so many use today. To simply say that the agencies and companies must ban all performance enhancing substances would be a stretch, but that can be worked towards (Black). Steps such as increased testing, rather than the ordinary “random” testing should be put in place to catch athletes that are heavier users. For multiple decades, athletes have turned to anabolic steroids to gain an edge in their respected sport, and that needs to change (Schmotzer). For the MLB to no longer worry about steroids becoming any more of an issue when it comes to deciding eligibility for the Hall of Fame, necessary steps need to be taken by the league to begin to handle the epidemic from the ground up. An option for the league would be to increase the punishment for first time offenses from only half the season to the full year. With a penalty for using steroids this severe, players would be even more inclined to stay away from using. When a player misses a year of playing, they suffer a loss of money that they would have made for playing that year, and most Major League baseball players would without a doubt not want that. Another route that the league could go to combat the usage of steroids would be to include a large fine on top of suspension from play, this way it’s not only the player that is effected by the repercussions, but now it would harm anybody that is dependent off them.
