Steriods in Baseball
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Steroids in Baseball
For the longest time, in Major League Baseball, there has been question whether players are taking steroids to improve their game. We know now that steroids have been a big influence on the game. Some players have come out and admitted to taking “roids” to keep themselves built and in their prime. But the conflict is not over. There has been an ever increasing fight to find out which players are using steroids to gain an unfair advantage over their opponent. The league has made it quite clear that using steroids in baseball is unacceptable. No other professional sports league allows their players to use steroids and why should the MLB.
Steroids first began in sports during the 1952 Olympics, when Soviet and European weightlifters took steroids, or “juiced up” and broke most of the world weightlifting records. Soon the idea of giving athletes testosterone supplements, to increase strength, spread to America (Doherty). In 1963, Alvin Roy, the head coach of the San Diego Charger, served steroids to his players at breakfast. It was the new “Breakfast of Champions.” Soon after, tons of athletes were using the new performance enhancing drug because there was no way a regular athlete could complete with one who was taking steroids. During the 1970s, steroids were being used throughout every professional league in the United States. It was so bad that finally in 1981 an amendment was passed to only allow steroids to be bought through prescription. But steroids prescribed by doctor eventually became just as easy to get then before. Steroids were even spreading to high school athletes, so in the 1980s the Federal government took action to putting the steroid market under. But professional sports were still allowing their athletes to use steroids. Baseball, however, really wasnt using any types of performance enhancing drugs at the time. In wasnt until the mid 1990s that steroids entered Major League Baseball.
Steroid use for any ball player is an easy way to obtain strength, speed, and stamina. Despite, the side affects, steroids are a great way for an old ball player, who had lost some of his greatness due to old age, to add a couple of years to his career (Patrick). Suddenly it became every popular among players to “juice up”. Some would say it began with superstar ball player Jose Canseco. He claims in his book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smashed Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, that over the course of his career he influenced and often supplied steroids to players throughout the league. Both power hitters Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were named. During the 1998 season, these all-star players went on a chase for the 61 home run record held by Rodger Maris. It came out during that season that McGuire was using performance enhancing drugs, but that were legal under MLB rules. This drew a controversy over if any drug that enhanced your performance was fair to the record books