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Health problems of baseball players who have used performance-enhancing drugs essay
Health problems of baseball players who have used performance-enhancing drugs essay
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Since at least the 1980’s performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) have been a major challenge in the world of Major League Baseball, and past trends indicate they will continue to pose an ongoing problem. A number of the most prominent and accomplished professional baseball players, such as Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, are also the most famous examples of baseball players who have broken longstanding records, attracted countless numbers of fans, and allegedly have taken performance-enhancing drugs. Athletes who have been caught using steroids in order to increase and better their performance rates have been suspended, fined and traded from the teams on which they once played. Despite the punitive actions taken against them by the League and lawmakers, players continue to use performance-enhancing drugs and likely will continue to do so, because the associated athletic effects will draw more fans and bring more money to the individual player and franchise.
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...
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Press, Associated. “Lawyer: Bonds admits using steroids.” Fox Sports, March 23, 2011. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Barry-Bonds-perjury-trial-begins-032111
Radomski, Kirk. Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2009.
Red, Christian. “Country Singer Mindy McCready, Who Had Affair with Roger Clemens, Says She Feels Sorry for Rocket.” New York Daily News, August 9, 2010, http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/country-singer- mindy-mccready-affair-roger-clemens-feels-rocket-article-1.202475
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Major League Baseball (MLB) has widely been regarded as America’s pastime for the longest time, however it is now becoming known as the sport tainted by one thing, anabolic steroids. An anabolic steroid is related to the natural steroid, testosterone. They are able to stimulate growth in the muscle tissue. They usually increase muscle mass and strength. The MLB has created some of the most historic American icons, such as Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. Players like them showed us what it was like to play baseball the right way. They played with passion, heart, and above all they had fun playing. Players today in the MLB focus way too much on becoming the best player ever to play. They see what the greats did before them and they want to match them, so they turn to anabolic steroids. An example of this is Alex Rodriguez. In 2003 he tested positive for anabolic steroids because he was “naïve” and couldn’t take the pressure of his expectations of being called the best. He felt the pressure from the game and he turned to steroids. Anabolic steroids are ruining the game of baseball. They are tainting the records and the changing the game for the worse.
Baseball?s reputation has been painted with a red asterisk. The non-medical use of steroids has been banned according to the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. Many baseball athletes have been caught or presumed illegal users of HGH or Steroids since the act passed in 1990. All these athletes have one thing in common, they want to have an edge or advantage on the game. Some athletes even admit to administering the drug to other athletes and themselves. Jose Conseco testified to personally injecting the steroids into Mark McGuire (Cote).
The issue of performance enhancing substances in baseball has been mostly present over the past ten years. The reason for players taking steroids is simple, by taking steroids, hitters like Barry Bonds gained more strength to hit better averages and more home runs, while pitchers like Roger Clemens gained better stam...
Performance enhancing drugs have been a longstanding problem in sports. It not only deteriorates the honesty of the game, but also can have broader social affects that one may not even realize. The use of performance enhancing drugs is especially apparent in Major League Baseball. This problem can be traced back to the 1980’s when baseball was facing one of its first “dark periods”. During the 1980’s Major League Baseball was experiencing a home run drought. Home run totals were down as far as they had been since Babe Ruth, and fans were seemingly becoming bored with the sport. The lack of home runs was a growing concern for players whose salary relied on home run totals. Players needed to find a quick way to boost their power and performance in order to keep the sport alive and to keep bringing in their paychecks. This desire for fame and fortune introduced steroids into Major League Baseball in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Home run totals jumped tremendously during these decades and players were willing to risk being caught using illegal substances in order to shine above the rest. New idols and role models started to sprout up from these outstanding home run statistics and young children started to take notice. This all came tumbling down when these new idols and role models who were making the big bucks and hitting the ball out of the park tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Here lie the affects of a growing social problem in sports. These famed athletes become walking advertisements and promotions for the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports. The influence professional athletes have over aspiring young athletes is very powerful and these roles models make it seem acceptable to use performance ...
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.
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.
history of sports, the Black Sox scandal is the most infamous in all of sports history. The Pete Rose
We face the issue that players are not motivated to try hard, have an alternative option that puts a reoccurring substance in their body. Young adolescents should focus more on getting bodies into shape and ready for the sport they are pursuing. While upcoming stars should be making a name for them showing that without drugs can play my best and be the best too. But performance enhancing drugs have played a major role in sports, especially baseball. The usage of the drug has players performing over the top of others who work equally and mentally as hard. Enacting the new system will catch the players who are cheating in game of baseball with a blood test that checks if a player is enhancing their performance in the...
Children who have grown up in America have been brought up with baseball and have looked up to a sports figure as one of their heroes. Steroids and other PEDS have tarnished the American past time favorite game. These drugs have cause doubts and suspicion about the validity o...
In recent years America’s favorite pastime has lost integrity and is under a black cloud of suspicion. Baseball players appear to be super-human with better batting averages, faster pitching, breaking world records, and even their body size appears to be bigger. All of these pieces have brought into question the use of steroids or other performance enhancing drugs and the enforcement or regulating usage of these products. One of the most recent cases being Milwaukee Brewer’s own Ryan Braun among many others.
The era in sports from the late 90s and into the 2000s has often been nicknamed “The Steroid Age” due to the raging use of anabolic steroids and other PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) by professional athletes. The usage of drugs in sports has never been more prevalent during this time, and many people are making it their goal to put an end to the abuse. Influential athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens, who were once held as the highest role models to the American people, now watch as their legacies are tarnished by accusations of drug use. The American population, and lovers of sports everywhere, have followed in astonishment through recent years as many beloved athletes reveal their dark secrets. As organizations such as the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) and BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) attempt to halt the use of PEDs, both the drug users and their high-end suppliers work diligently to avoid detection. The use of performance enhancing drugs in recent years has proven to be cancerous to the honesty and competition of modern sports. Although some strides have been made over the past few decades, the use of steroids is in full swing in Major League Baseball, The dangerous side effects of the drugs are often overlooked and many do not realize the message this sends to the youth. The support for halting the usage of PEDs is in need of attention or professional sports will face the loss of all progress made through the past two decades in its war on steroids.
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.
As I reflect on my experience of writing my research paper on legalizing anabolic steroid use in Major League Baseball, I find I am surprisingly glad to have gone through this exercise. Initially, when given this assignment, I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea of conducting research and having to coherently structure my words in such a way that they would result in a convincing, persuasive paper. However, through the information provided in our Elearning material, along with peer and instructor feedback I was able to comprehend the lesson and understand the overall expectations of our assignment. The research and investigation I conducted was important in advancing my knowledge of my topic, as it gave me the opportunity to identify with my topic, establish a position that I could argue, identify counterarguments and create compelling rebuttals to support my argument.
The prevalence of illegal substance use in baseball is high even though one cannot ascertain with precision the number of players engaging in steroid use. The reason for such high numbers is contributed by players who do not admit use or informing on the behavior of their fellow players. Moreover, the Major League Baseball, MLB despite doing tests does not release definitive numbers although some individuals have detailed players using steroids and other PEDs (Solberg & Ringer, 2011). The MLB presents flawed test results while the porous testing programs show differing results.
In the year 2009, a famous baseball player known as Alex Rodriguez finally confessed to using performance enhancing drugs between the years of 2001 and 2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers. He said he felt pressured into doing so because he needed to be able to really perform. Rodriguez was a first overall pick in 1993 by the Seattle Mariners, a 14-time All-Star, and three time American League MVP. Rodriguez wound up being suspended 162 games and missing the entire 2014 season after admitting to using performance enhancing drugs. The above incident just shows that even the top athletes in professional sports have used doping and that is why performance enhancing drugs should be