Disc 312 Drug Policy

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10/25/12

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Keeping the Integrity of Baseball

Without a doubt the biggest story of the past decade and a half in sports has been the use of banned substances in Major League Baseball. America’s favorite pastime is becoming tainted because of several players using performance enhancers. However the issue was not immediately dealt with by league officials, as it should have been. During the 1996 season, home run totals began to rise dramatically. For example, four different teams broke the single season team home run record, and 17 different players hit over 40 home runs, with the previous record being 8 players in 1961. The signs became more evident during the 1998 season when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa each shattered the single season home run record set by Roger Maris in the 1961 season. While Maris had set the record by hitting 61 home runs, Sosa hit 66 and McGwire finished with 70. Records were being broken not only frequently, but also by drastic amounts. There seemed to be an obvious problem arising. Major League Baseball soon started to realize what was going on and began taking steps toward preventing this developing drug problem. Although the punishments have since been increased to a 50 game suspension for a first offense, a 100 game suspension for a second offense, and a lifetime ban for a third, some players are still using these banned substances. This clearly shows that these punishments are not strict enough. The League needs to take a stronger stand against the players who are breaking the rules and establish stricter penalties to make certain that players stop cheating.

It was not until 1991 that Major League Baseball officially banned most of the substances and drugs that are banned today. However testing was not started until 2001 when the problem became unavoidable. Not only was this policy instituted too late, but also it was not constructed nearly strictly enough. The initial penalty for the first offense was a mere 15...