Will Steroids Destroy Major League Baseball?
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What ails the game is not injected . . .
Major League Baseball (MLB) has had lots of trouble keeping performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) out of its ballplayers. These days, if a player tests positive for PEDs, he’s suspended for 50 games, the penalties getting much worse with each subsequent infraction. Hanging may be discussed at some date. Listening to Britney Spears CDs for a week straight would be horrific punishment as well!
During the 2009 season, Manny Ramirez, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, flunked such a drug test. Shame on him! And damn his soul forever! If he needed to use a performance-enhancing drug, he should have tried Viagra! Hey, all he wanted to do was add another year or two to his waning career. You say Babe Ruth didn’t use drugs? But he sure ate and drank like, uh, Babe Ruth!
(Even if the Babe had wanted to use anabolic steroids, they weren’t synthesized until the early 1930s, and athletes didn’t begin using them until after he had retired in 1935.)
Alex Rodriguez or A-Rod, perhaps the greatest player in the game (with due respect to Albert Pujols), and former players such as Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire have been implicated in the use of anabolic steroids. During the 2009 season, A-Rod came clean about using steroids as well as lying about using them. In January 2010, McGwire admitted taking steroids during his run to break the single-season homerun record back in 1998; he also admitted taking PEDs throughout the 1990s. Some think McGwire will never be elected into MLB’s Hall of Fame because of his use of steroids. Shame on all of them!
The reason these players have taken PEDs is simple: money. Major League Baseball is a veritable money pit. Some players make over $20 million per year, nearly all of it guaranteed, and some of those are pitchers, who don’t even play every day. Why the owners ever agreed to pay players guaranteed money is beyond comprehension. You mean you’re gonna pay some guy millions of dollars for years even if injuries keep him from playing? This happens a lot. Ask Dodger Fans. Ask Yankee fans.
In order to pay for these exorbitant salaries, fans such and you and I must pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a ticket to one game. (Some seats at Yankee Stadium cost as much as $2,625.) At various ballparks, parking is $10 to $20 per vehicle, and you don’t even want to think about buying a beer at $6 to $8 a pint. For tens of millions of Americans, going to a MLB game even once a year is about as possible as dating Brad Pitt or Miley Cyrus.
According to a telephone poll taken by the Associated Press and AOL Sports in April 2005, players' high salaries were named as baseball's "biggest problem" by 33 percent of those surveyed, followed by steroids at 27 percent and the cost of going to a game at 22 percent.
The public has spoken!
So please don’t revile players such as Manny Ramirez or Barry Bonds; instead, speak out against ridiculously high salaries and the sky-high prices we all must pay to see MLB games. Of course, we don’t have to keep going to these ballgames, do we? (Or paying for them on cable TV or the Internet.) Why don’t we just stop right now? That would end this “drug scandal,” if you will, fairly quickly. Ultimately, fans control the money.
Many fans left the game back in 1994 when the players refused to play the last portion of the season because they didn’t want to “turn back the clock” on free agency, the advent of which in the middle 1970s has dramatically increased salaries in baseball. All baseball fans will never forget what happened THAT YEAR. No World Series!!!
Simply put, if anything could end MLB it would be money, not drugs of any sort. Hey, if all players were on drugs, how would we know the difference? And would we really care?
If MLB must castigate all cheaters, maybe the cheaters should start a new league. There are beer leagues, why not a “juice” league?
Kidding aside, we know baseball players are not perfect people. They make mistakes; they cheat; they violate the rules. But we shouldn’t damn them to hell or shake our fists at them, because they are not the problem. As long as money remains the lifeblood of the game, we’re all going to suffer – at the ticket counter at least.
Of course, we could simply give up Major League Baseball. Give it up like a drug habit. Any takers?
Go ahead, it won’t cost a dime.
CommentsLoading...
Keeping such transgressors from entering the Hall of Fame is not a bad idea; however, I don't advocate putting asterisks next to such players' records. You're right, if you want to sit in the bleachers, you can watch a game for $7 or so, but I would rather watch the game on TV under such circumstances. Also, unlike you, I don't live down the street from a MLB park. Later!
Kosmo, I don't agree there are admitted cheaters in the Hall of Fame. I can't recall his name but one pitcher admitted to repeatedly spitting on the ball before he threw it to gain an unfair advantage.
Very odd how when Canseco's book came out everyone said he was fill of it, yet nothing he's said about who has used steroids has been wrong.
Maybe you're thinking about Gaylord Perry, who used to throw a spitball, though I'm not sure he admitted it. Nevertheless, he was elected to the Hall of Fame. Of course, a long time ago that pitch was legal. Anyway, regarding Canseco, the creep that he is, seems to be telling the truth about steroid use in baseball. I guess I'll have to read his book. Later!
They should have a special league for juice players!
I agree. They probably should have a special league for juiced-up players such as Canseco. Later!
I think steroids won t destroy baseball simply because of the tests in place, getting better and better and harder and harder to fool...
The MLB has really cracked down on steroids the past two seasons and it look like it may become a thing of the past. Expect to see less home runs over the years and pitchers, speed and defense start to steal some of the spotlight.
I think the game is much better with steroids taken out of the game. baseball is a game of science. Just adding 10 feet to your fly balls is the different between hitting 30 and 45 home runs easily. It got way out of hand and Barry Bonds should have an asterisk by his record. Hank Aaron is the true home run king.
There does seem to be more integrity in the game now that steroids have been more or less eliminated. As for Bonds, it's hard to say how "juiced" he was. I guess we'll never know for sure. Play ball. Later!
I believe the problem is the owners agreeing to guaranteed money, so when a contract year comes around, players take PEDs and then sign a huge contract, get caught, suspended for 50 games without pay, then the contract continues even when obviously the players production suffers without the PEDs, but he continues to collect a ridiculous amount of money every year just for cheating in one. Its official, crime pays in baseball
You make a good point, Ken Michael. Any ballplayer who gets suspended for using PEDs should have his contract automatically cancelled or the owner should be given the legal option to do so. They should have awards, such as the MVP, taken away from them as well. Later!
jacobt2 2 years ago
There are many places where you can get cheap tickets to see an MLB game. I live like 20 minutes from the Rangers ballpark in Arlington and I see multiple games a year for only $7. I guess if you don't live near a park it is much harder, but the game will always revolve around money. That is why the players get payed millions of dollars. I wrote a hub on this whole topic at http://hubpages.com/hub/Steroids-In-Baseball1 . Many fans would love to have steroids stop, but steroids are how the players keep up with the competition. It is a unfortunate cycle. My solution would to keep the current rules, random testings, and suspensions and other punishments in place, but also add one thing: if a player is caught using steroids, he automatically cannot enter the Hall of Fame and his records will be marked (like with an asterisk).
I am so disappionted in Sammy Sosa! Say it ain't so, Sammy! http://hubpages.com/hub/Sammy-Sosa
Nice hub!