Exploring Athletic Infamy: The Thin Line Between Greatness and Cheating

Every athlete in the world, no matter what level they play at, wants to be great. Every athlete wants to leave some sort of legacy that will make them be remembered by their peers. But sometimes, the legacy an athlete leaves isn’t so great. Many athletes, no matter if it is high school, college, or professional, leave an infamous legacy. Many of their peers see them as cheaters or dirty players, some may even say the infamous athletes are undeserving of their accolades and accomplishments. But what makes an athlete a cheater? Is bending the rules a bit considered cheating? Or do people believe that every athlete known to man has bent the rules of the games they play every once in a while? The answer is no, no one believes bending the rules

Like it was previously stated, Jose Canseco, a former MVP of the major league, said that eighty five percent of the MLB was using steroids at the time (Coakley). If what Canseco said is one hundred percent true, how could you discredit the accolades of a player for taking steroids if everyone else was as well? Eighty five percent of the league doesn’t just include the average players in the league that includes the stars of the league as well. Many of baseball’s biggest stars in the mid 80’s to early 90’s that are in the Hall of Fame now could have been using steroids at the time. But, since steroids were not banned until 1991, the baseball world will never know who was taking steroids or not unless the former players admit they were using them. So since there is a great chance that individuals that were inducted into the Hall of Fame were taking steroids throughout their career that the fans of baseball didn’t know about, why should the players that were caught using steroids or admitted to using steroids not be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Jose Conseco was one of those guys who admitted to using steroids and he credited his stellar career because of steroids. Canseco’s career batting average was .266 and he had over 1,407 hits in his career, along with a rookie

Many players that played in the MLB and are now in the Hall of Fame could have been using steroids for their whole careers, but since before 1991 steroids was not a banned substance in the MLB, the players got away with it. Not only that, but the great players that did get caught or admitted to using steroids are not in the Hall of Fame, which in unjust because we don’t know who was and who wasn’t also using steroids at the same time as these great players. Also, steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are not as effective and efficient at making a player better at baseball than many people actually believe. Just because someone uses steroids doesn’t mean they can hit a baseball, they still need to work on hand-eye coordination and reaction time to be able to hit the ball, as steroids only help a player get stronger. Finally, many players with great accomplishments are not being inducted into the Hall of Fame but people such as Tom Yawkey are already in the Hall of Fame. Racism is frowned upon now in the world and isn’t widely accepted thing at all, so if a racist person such as Tom Yawkey can get into the Hall of Fame because of his accomplishments, a person who has used steroids should be able to get into the Hall of Fame as well based on their accomplishments. Sports writers that vote for the players to be inducted