Steroids in Mlb

Steroids in MLB

Baseball has long been considered the American pastime. The nostalgia, tradition and respect for the game are just some of the many reasons why there's such an upset over the use of "performance-enhancing" drugs in baseball. Most of us consider the use of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs to be cheating, and nothing is as "un-American" as cheating. This becomes especially true when you consider the fact that many of the players exposed have/had put up dominant and/or significant numbers in the past few decades. This includes notable players such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, and most recently Alex Rodriguez. This is an issue that is not only affecting the players, but the image of one of the best games in the world.

I believe this 2006 quote by former ESPN anchor Dan Patrick says it best: “More than any other sport, baseball is number’s driven. Fans relish numbers, and if they’re tainted, there’s a sense of consumer fraud.” This proves to be true when you consider the careers of the previous mentioned players, many of whom were previously dubbed future Hall of Famers. For example, after surpassing legendary baseball icons such as Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds is now the all-time home runs leader with 762 bombs. Yet, he it was discovered that he hit the majority of those home runs while using steroids, which gave him an unfair advantage over his competitors. It is for this reason that, while he may own the record, he will have an asterisk by his name to show that he did not do so in a clean manner. Same goes for Roger Clemens, who was considered one of the most feared and dominant pitchers in the game and is currently one of the all-time career leaders in wins and strikeouts. But he, like many others, now has his whole career tainted because of the decisions he made. Moreover, those two players, as dominant as they were, were forced to cut their careers short due to the lack of interest by teams that...