To start off, steroids have impacted baseball dramatically. Steroids enhance the performance of the athletes that play the game today. It not only adds an unfair advantage to the player abusing the illegal drug. It also adds a superstar to the already star casted teams of the MLB. As seen in many cases of steroid usage, a player and a team has a bad year the season before.
The Pros and Cons of Steroids for Athletes Minhaj Ghayur Writing 102 Dr. Turner May 11, 2010 Abstract Steroids have become a hot topic in the media and sports these days. A lot of athletes are being caught using steroids and jeopardizing their careers. The media and other health related organizations are trying to provide people with a better knowledge of steroids and the risks of taking steroids. Almost everybody knows the benefits of taking steroids, but does not know the overall process that goes with taking steroids and living the life afterwards. This research studies the pros and cons of using steroids.
For example, a baseball player takes steroids. This will increase his physical strength hitting the ball further. But it still takes skill to hit the ball. The steroid doesn’t literally per say help the player make more solid contact. But, the baseball player will feel more confident at the plate and feel as if no pitcher can get them
An Athletes Journey to the Top There are many paths a professional athlete can take on their journey to the top. Most choose to follow the rules but history shows the best athletes find a way to enhance their bodies, even if it is against the rules of the game. The issue of performance enhancing drugs or PEDs is anything but clear-cut. There isn’t a red-blooded baseball fan that doesn’t feel some sort of anger and discuss upon seeing Barry Bonds tainted career; a homerun total of 762. It is unclear if that anger is constructive or even justified.
Steroids are abused, often by athletes, to enhance athletic performance and to improve physical appearance” (“Steroids fast facts” 1). In sports, using any type of strength enhancer is illegal. But the controversy mainly encircles the steroid using athlete’s, and where they might stand in the Hall of Fame. If it is stated that using steroids in sports is unfair, then the reality of sports has not been seen. Generally stating, sports is unfair and it always has been.
Drug Testing is should be used in higher levels of sports to ensure the safety and health of these athletes is good at all times. The use and the abuse of steroids can do some serious damage on the bodies of those using them. These people who are using them are just hurting themselves in the long run. When people think of drug abuse in sports, they think it is only steroids being used by athletes. However, drug abuse in professional sports can be anything.
Steroids can be available to the players illegally in a number of ways. The most common way is the smuggling of them into the United States from countries such as Mexico and many European countries where no prescription is required. When a baseball player is famous enough, a doctor in the United States may participate in the illegal prescription to the player. When taken illegally, steroids can increase muscle size, strength, endurance, reduce body fat, and aggressiveness. Steroids are also believed to reduce recovery time in between workouts, allowing a player to train harder more often.
The faster the pitch, the larger margin for error in the location the ball is thrown. Allowing pine tar in baseball could lower the margin of error as well as reduce the number of times a batter is hit by a pitch. This would also allow umpires to correctly call a beanball, or when the pitcher intentionally throws the ball at ones head. With concussions a major issue in other professional sports such as football and soccer, Major League Baseball needs to be ahead of the issue. Getting hit in the head by a 92 mile per hour pitch can lead to concussions.
Steroids: The Problem Plaguing Our Pastime The pastime of our nation spinning out of control: the cheating, lying, and deceiving are disgracing the face of baseball. With tainted and inflated records, constant media coverage and debate and players who should be legends of the game in fear of not making the Hall of Fame, what is to blame for this: Steroids. To find an answer for solving the steroid problem one must look at where steroids came from and what they have done to the game, by looking at all aspects of where steroids came from and what they have done only then can one render a solution to eradicate them from the game completely. To understand how steroids have become the biggest problem to ever hit a professional sport one must take a look at where they came from and why they became such a big part of the nation’s greatest pastime. Major League Baseball has always had some type of problem with substance abuse.
On the contrary, a study performed by professors from California Berkley suggests that PEDs increase offensive production and make the game more exciting (Grossman, pg. 5). These to arguments lead people to debate what role PEDs should have on MLB. Should more be done to eliminate them completely? Or, should we embrace the changes and allow players to use PEDs in small and safe quantities?