I am against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball because they have left a permanent black mark on the MLB and have led to the league becoming increasingly more undesirable.
Simply from a competitive standpoint, using PEDs is cheating. They create an unfair, illegal advantage against an opponent, which leads to mismatches that should never have been developed.
This violates not only the code of baseball, but also the ethics of sports. Cheating, in general, goes against everything that sports are supposed to represent.
Steroids in baseball diminish the feats of athletes who are not affiliated with performance-enhancing drugs .
Players like New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter’s 256 homeruns and 1260 RBI highlighting a likely Hall of Fame career become overlooked in comparison to Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and other high-profile stars who have been suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs.
Along with the constant allegations that surround famous home run hitters every year, the art of hitting a home run is not appreciated as much as it was before the 1990s.
According to a June 2006 USA Today poll among baseball fans nationwide, 47 percent of fans believed that PEDs were the reason for an increase in the number of home runs hit league-wide since 2001.
If this is the case, in the eyes of the fans, the 70 home runs hit by Mark McGwire in 1998, followed by the 73 home runs hit by Barry Bonds, should be marked with an asterisk because of both alleged and admitted PED use during their careers.
In 2005, the MLB significantly enhanced its suspension policy regarding PEDS, proving that steroids are truly a problem the baseball industry does not accept.
According to MLB.com, the suspension for PED use in 2005 was light — 10 days for the first steroids offense, 30 days for the second, 60 days for the third and a full year for the fourth.
However, since 2005, suspensions are more severe — 50 games for the first offense, 100 games for the second and a lifetime ban from baseball for the third.
In addition to strict suspensions, the MLB also expanded its random drug testing system to allow for more spontaneous tests each season.
The Biogenesis scandal that led to suspensions for stars Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez shows how the mindset has changed since the 1990s and that fans value the truth over inflated statistics.
According to a Gallup poll taken in May 2006, when fans were asked if career home run leader Barry Bonds should have his batting records taken away if the MLB concluded that Bonds used PEDs, 52 percent agreed that his records should be stripped away.
Another Gallup poll, taken in March 2002, asked fans if they believed that MLB players should be tested for PEDs, and an overwhelming 86 percent stated that players should be tested.
It’s apparent that fans would rather have good, clean baseball then record-breaking statistics influenced by PEDs.
A decline in viewership has resulted, as the NFL and NBA are far ahead of the MLB in both the national and global sports market. According to Nielsen Media Research, the 2012 World Series was the least-watched MLB championship series of all time, as only approximately 12.7 million viewers tuned in.
However, since 1991, only 21.6 million viewers tune into the World Series each year on average. Recent history has been worse, as only 15.8 million viewers per season have watched the World Series since 2005.
Many of the MLB’s issues stem from steroids and lead to baseball lacking it’s main purpose: entertainment.
“The best” players are never really the best because of the manner in which they gained elite stature.
Fans of all ages end up glorifying a group of cheaters who shed a negative stigma on the league and the sport of baseball collectively.
As a result, major league baseball is less popular, more corrupt and now infested with PEDs.
Is this what we call “America’s Pastime?” Let’s hope not.
