Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball

1903 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Steroids negative effect on athletes

At age 16, Taylor Hooton was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 180 pounds. Hooton was a pitcher for his high school baseball team. His baseball coach told him that if he wanted to be an all-star player, he would have to get bigger. (Ingram) Taylor decided to take steroids orally and by injection at the same time, to get bigger. During the winter of 2003 Taylor gained 30 pounds of muscle. (Ingram) Taylor’s attitude took a dramatic turn. He started punching through walls when angry and yelling at his closest friends. (Ingram) When he decided to stop using steroids he became severely depressed and a month after his 17th birthday, he committed suicide. (Ingram) His coach pressured him take steroids to be a star, but if Major League Baseball really cracked down on steroid use then Taylor might not have started taking steroids in the first place and he could still be alive today. Although many scholars have argued that a suspension and a fine will fix the drug problem in baseball, banning the players for life on the first offense will be a better way to stop it from continuing.
Athletes often abuse this drug to help build muscle and improve athletic performance. This is illegal and dangerous to do to your body. Most athletes use steroids to gain an advantage on their opponent so they will become better than them. This may help them short term become better. However, in the long run, their body may pay for the abuse of steroids. Many people do not understand the dangers they could face while taking steroids. These dangers, along with the drug being illegal, could definitely lead to the wrong path for anyone. Players use steroids to get more muscles so they can hit the ball farther and get more home runs, run faster, or even have th...

... middle of paper ...

...hese drugs to be better players in the Major Leagues and it's likely because of that they are not getting the votes to get into the Hall of Fame and will only be remembered for cheating, not for their accomplishments. Cal Ripken Jr., has shown us that you do not need drugs to be an everyday player in the Majors and be a Hall of Famer. Major League Baseball is cracking down on performance enhancing drug use as the years go on with harsher punishments for offenders of the drug laws. This is the first time the MLB has added a life-time ban for players who continue to use steroids after being caught. Why take the chance to use these performance enhancing drugs if it only ends in failure? Neither heaven nor hell would question my word that cheaters never win, and if you use performance enhancing drugs to be better at anything you will forever be labeled a cheater.

Show More
Related

  • Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    To fully understand this book, people must go behind the book and find the true state of mind of the author. Unfortunately in this case, the author is the one and only Jose Canseco. Jose Canseco is what I like to call, “The black sheep in the family of baseball.” Canseco’s history can be related to such incidents of drug using, heavy drinking, numerous sexual encounters with hundreds of partners, and unreasonable acts of violence. This book goes into grave detail on how steroids have changed his life and how it is currently changing baseball.

    Read More

  • Baseball: Should PED Users Be Allowed in the MLB Hall of Fame?

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the late 80s to mid-2000s, steroids changed the way baseball was played. It became known as “The Steroid Era,” and it is a part of history that baseball wants to forget. The players during this time did some of the greatest things to ever happen to baseball such as Barry Bonds breaking the single season homerun record with 73, and Roger Clemens winning his record seventh Cy Young Award (Ortiz). These are Hall of Fame worthy stats, but they have a very slim chance of ever getting into the Hall of Fame because they are linked to using Performance Enhancement Drugs. These players should be allowed into the Hall of Fame because of their accomplishments, but they need to have a wing dedicated to “The Steroid Era” players because conditions change so dramatically in different eras that it is hard to compare them to players now (Ringolsby). Even though PED users cheated the game, they should be allowed into the Hall of Fame if they have their own wing. They played in a different era than the players now, and it is hard to compare the different eras.

    Read More

  • Babe Ruth: Steroids In Baseball's Hall Of Fame

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    Taking illegal substances gives players a distinct advantage over others and should not be recognized in the Hall of Fame. Steroids have been a part of the game for years and more and more players are using them. It is inevitable that they are an easy way to help improve a players numbers. Based on statistics gathered from Major League Baseball, during a three-year span Melky Cabrera increased his slugging percentage by 100 points (Victor). Slugging percentage is the number of total baseball divided by a players number of at bats (“Slugging Percentage”). Cabrera was an outfielder for the Chicago White Sox. In Melky’s case, he quickly went from an average player to one of the games best. 100 points is a drastic change in only a few seasons. These steroids improve a players strength and recovery time. This is a major advantage because the MLB is season is very long and taxing on the body. Steroids help promote quicker muscle recover so players can be stronger and fresher game after game. In the same way, taking steroids also gives a player an upper hand when it comes to hitting home runs. It is the improvement in this power category that most people think of in regards

    Read More

  • Anabolic Steroid Use in Baseball

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    In American high schools across the country, many people buy, sell, and use drugs. In addition, these people influence everyone around them. On these campuses, some of the people influenced by this illegal activity are sports players. One of the sports most affected is baseball. Doping in baseball is wrong because it ruins baseball's reputation, it negatively influences the athlete's health, and the drugs are bad for young people who hold up athletes as role models.

    Read More

  • Should Baseball Players who Used Steroids be Allowed in The Hall of Fame?

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    If a baseball player uses steroids and they openly admit to it, the children will see that maybe the steroids are the only reason that the athlete became better and it may entice them to use steroids one day to try and make them better. Works Cited Goldman, Steven. A. A. “The Steroids Morality Play.” Commentary 127.7 (2009): 27-30. Literary Reference Center.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Baseball

    2573 Words  | 6 Pages

    The past fifteen years of baseball have contained dirty play by some of the best players to ever play the sport. Kids all over America look at these athletes as role models. The money hungry players proceed to send a terrible message to fans of the game by taking drugs to succeed. After commissioner Bud Selig cracked down on steroid use in 2005, several baseball player’s legacies have been ruined due to steroid allegations. Players are even being charged with perjury by lying to Congress over steroid use to protect their reputation.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Baseball

    1529 Words  | 4 Pages

    People frown upon steroids in baseball because they say they are an unfair advantage even though they can be used as big advantage. Steroids have always been looked down on because people say that they are unfair and unsafe to use. So far players that have used steroids in Major League baseball have been healthy and the only side effects of them have been success. Steroids have become a huge part of baseball since the 1990’s. players feel like they need to use them to stay competitive. Steroids help increase muscle mass and help athletes train harder and faster. This results in better play on the field. Most steroid users in the MLB (Major League Baseball) are pitchers and homerun hitters. Steroids need to be legalized in Major League Baseball to bring more excitement into the game so that more people will watch, it will level the playing field for all the players, it will keep athletes healthy during the long season, and it will be more efficient since the consequences for using the substance does not keep players from using them.

    Read More

  • Steroids Effects on baseball and the Players

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    Steroids have taken over the game of baseball and more players are starting to get involved with them. Steroids are a big part of the Major League today in 2014, yet they entered the game of baseball through trainer Curtis Wenzlaff in 1992. Players and the game’s images are ravaged when they become caught up in steroids. Some of the best players to ever play the game of baseball have been caught up in steroids, including Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire. Players with this level of skill are supposed to be role models for younger kids, yet younger kids see that they used steroids and are tempted to use them. When their young, impressionable minds witness steroids use, naturally kids attempt to imitate their idols. More importantly, steroid users damage their own well-being and the image of the sport. Baseball players who decide to use Anabolic steroids are affecting themselves just as much as the game of baseball itself.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Baseball

    1986 Words  | 4 Pages

    The world around us involves cheating to get or look good. Athletes and teens are doing the same thing, injecting and swallowing a drug that is part of their everyday lifestyle. Lost in a world of drugs that won't put them in the Hall of Fame but in the Hall of Shame. Influence by pressure and appearance to do well is a way described as putting your reality upside down.

    Read More

  • Performance Enhancing Drugs: Steroids

    1672 Words  | 4 Pages

    The problems with performance enhancing drugs are that they give the user unfair advantages over other athletes and come with many health risks such as baldness. Steroid use can result in very substantial legal consequences and can ruin the user’s reputation. There are many alternatives to steroids but not all of them are safe. Different organizations have different rules on steroids, but in most cases, the user can get suspended, fined, or even both. Various types of steroids can have various short-term or long-term side effects. There are several types of steroids, the most popular ones being anabolic steroids. Historically, steroids have been around for many years, but the debate surrounding them started recently, more specifically a few decades ago. An important term to know is anabolic steroids which are made to work with the user’s muscle mass. Another term to know is clarified by Ida Walker, author of the book, Steroids: Pumped Up and Dangerous, published by Mason Crest Publishers in 2008, defines, peliosis hepatis is a rare condition in which cysts filled with blood form in the liver, if the cysts were to pop then internal bleeding would occur. A positive argument about steroids is stated by Adrianne Blue, author of the essay, “Performance Enhancing Drugs Should Be Legal,” published in the book Athletes and Drug Use, published in 2009, disputes, “Blue concludes that legalizing performance- enhancing drugs can protect athletes from dangerously abusing them.” The utilization of performance enhancing drugs has left a giant scar on sports and has compromised the achievements of many athletes; therefore, they are transforming the sports world into a drug filled world.

    Read More

  • Steroids Impact on Major League Baseball

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    The MLB arguably has conveyed a series of mixed messages with regard to its players and their use of steroids. On the one hand, the League apparently cooperates with lawmakers on the issue of regulating drug use among its players; on the other, some of the best athletes in the MLB are suspected of drug use and yet continue to be marketed and revered. Examples of drugs used by MLB stars have included: Anavar, Andriol, Clomid, Depo-Testosterone, Insulin, Stanozolol, and Testosterone1. These drugs are steroids, typically prescribed by medical professionals to patients fighting specific disorders (such as low testosterone or infertility) or provide relief for immense pain or other severe symptoms; they are used “off-label” by athletes for increa...

    Read More

  • Harm Caused by Steroids in the MLB

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    Opening day isn’t even here yet, and already we have enough controversy to last us the whole season. At a time when we’d much rather be thinking about the smell of fresh cut grass, hot dogs and pennant dreams, we’re forced to deal with a far darker issue. Now more than ever, there is alarming suspicion concerning apparent steroid drug use in Major League Baseball. As an avid baseball watcher and player of the game for twelve years this scandal is of great concern to me. In the time to come I will be informing you of how steroid use has tarnished baseball’s image, allowed for more records to be broken unfairly and the harmful effects it has on your body.

    Read More

  • Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

    4514 Words  | 10 Pages

    Abstract:  Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of an edge over their competitors.  They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster.  Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition.  Athletes found that with anabolic steroids one could become a better athlete twice as fast.  Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced.  Shortly thereafter, the rest of the sports world did not allow anabolic steroids as well.  With the use of steroids no longer permitted athletes began to look for other alternatives.  On the rise is two substances called creatine and androstenedione, both of which are sold over the counter. These two performance enhancers have only had minimal testing done on them, excluding the long-term effects, simply because they haven't been around long enough.  Creatine and androstenedione have been said to produce results like steroids without the side effects.  The truth is they do produce side effects and irregular muscle growth. By banning the use of performance enhancing drugs, just like steroids, sports competition will have a much healthier and fairer environment to participate in.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Professional Baseball

    1179 Words  | 3 Pages

    Perhaps one of the most controversial topics in Major League Baseball is the discussion of the use of steroids and human growth hormones. Both are completely illegal in the sport, and come with drastic consequences. One would think a fifty game suspension as a first offense would scare players away, but for some reason steroids in baseball is occurring more and more often to the disappointment of Major League Baseball. The reason players take steroids in the first place is to enhance their performance on the field. Steroids make players stronger and they perform at a higher rate. Another use for steroids is to help the players on certain rehab assignments for injuries. Either way, it is still illegal and banned in the sport.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Speech: Steroid Use Among Athletes

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    My issue over the concern of athletes have been struggling with the usage of steroids has widely spread among athletes and others; not only do steroids give an athlete a hard times but it’s also an unfair advantage to the other athletes and what they’ve accomplish. “Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the amount of muscle damage during the session” (“Steroids in Sports”,2005). Now a days steroids are everywhere as an athlete. Many males and female young athletes preferably take it because they want to look and feel good when it comes to impressing someone and trying to become someone they look forward too. Young teens and adults try to cheat themselves in the career of their dreams. When it comes to a sport, teen athletes are not aware of what type of consequences may happen to them at the time. It may come to the time where it’s too late to take care of. In other cases, some athletes may like feeling the aggressive they get when they take drugs such as steroids. Athletes shouldn’t take steroids as the harmful health effects of the anabolic steroid in population wise. Many people have had their lives ruined by the use of illegal steroids and yet the desired effects are overwhelming that people tend to forget about the results and consequences that may effect. Athletes on steroids believe taking steroids will enhance their performance, strength, and size without having to put necessary work. These benefits, however, are associated with much short-term and long term risk.

    Read More

More about Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball

Open Document