Anabolic Steroids In Professional Sports

Steroids are a hot topic of debate and controversy in the world of athletes and sports. Steroids fall under the umbrella of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and are a dark cloud that have been hovering over the sports world for a long time. In the world today, steroids are the most relevant in major league baseball. Many baseball players, such as Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Mark McGwire, just to name a few, have ruined their reputations because of steroids. There are repercussions for PED use in major league baseball, which have cut down on the substance abuse by players but have nowhere near eliminated the problem.

The competitive drive to win at all cost is fierce among athletes. Winning at all cost often includes using one of many performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. Many athletes use performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, to achieve higher goals and set higher records than other drug-free successful athletes. Although athletes are performing at higher levels when using such drugs, what is the cost? Finally anabolic steroids should remain banned from sports because their use results in many harmful side effects; because their use violates sports regulations, and because their use can cause death.

The game of baseball has seen a lot of controversy over the past decade or so, which people call the Steroid Era. The search for abusers of performance-enhancing drugs has been reminiscent of a witch-hunt and players have fell under more and more scrutiny. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball has a long history but is something that must come to an end. The use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs causes gives players an unfair advantage over their peers that cannot be ignored.

Sports medicine is always going to be apart of the drug industry the reason for that is because a

President George W. Bush says “Steroids are dangerous in sports and steroids send the wrong message: There are shortcuts to accomplishments and performance is more important than character.”

Steroid abuse has become a huge problem in professional sports today. Athletes are now using steroids to gain a competitive edge over their opponents. Also, the athletes are using the steroids to recover quickly from major injuries or surgeries. Many former superstar athletes have been caught taking steroids during the season and offseason.

Baseball is known as America’s pastime and is one of the most popular, respected sports on earth. Since the beginning of the sport, it seemingly advances with technology every year making faster and stronger players. The use of steroids became rampant and spread among players and has carried them away from the true history of the game they play. Controversy still today runs around the sport today about fines, punishments and record breaking. The past two decades of Major League Baseball have been tainted because of the use of performance enhancing drugs, also known as steroids, causing the loss of many fans and the true meaning of America’s favorite sport.

A number of prominent athletes have recently experienced a 'fall from grace,' because of the revelation that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Lance Armstrong. In an advertisement for Nike that his former sponsor now no doubt regrets, Armstrong is shown asking the viewer "what am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." Professional cycling is often cited as one of the sports in which doping is most endemic to its subculture, however a number of professional sports have been embroiled in drug scandals. Because of the many revelations about the number of baseball players who used steroids to get their record-breaking statistics, the 1990s are often called the 'steroid' era of baseball. The Olympic track and field star Marian Jones was stripped of her medals, after finally admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (Lardon 2008). "Despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test" (Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton 2004).

From the beginning of history, professional and amateur athletes have tempted to use legal or illegal drugs to enhance their performance (1). Athletes have used pharmacological agents, called Performance-enhancing drugs(PEDs), to enhance performance or to become leaner or more muscular (2). In sports, administration of drugs that are forbidden by international world anti-doping agency (WADA) is referred as doping (3). Anabolic androgenic agents (AASs) are the most popular agents that are abused by the athletes, especially bodybuilding athletes. Besides these agents, other classes of drugs such as stimulants and peptide hormones (growth hormone and insulin) are new PEDs that are abused by a lot of athletes in the different sports (1). Other than these compounds, athletes often use dietary supplements like creatine, protein, and vitamins to enhance strength and increase body mass (4-6).

Major League Baseball’s (MLB) commissioners are debating about the anabolic steroids situation that is occurring in professional baseball today. To many professionals are getting accused of using the harmful drug. Professional baseball players are getting tested twice a year for anabolic substances throughout the course of the regular season. In order to stop steroids in MLB, commissioners should pass random drug testing. Tony Larussa stated, “By having random drug tests, it would make the game of baseball true once again.” Steroids are ruining the game of baseball, and the commissioners need to decide on something soon. By having random drug tests in Major League Baseball throughout the season, it would fix the problems that baseball is

Baseball is America’s national pastime, but it has still faced controversy. Major League Baseball and its players have faced one huge problem, steroids. Performance enhancing drugs such as testosterone, human growth hormone, and androstenedione are all factors of the horrible period in baseball known as the “Steroid Era”. Almost all of the home run leaders, prime pitchers, and many all-stars at the time had one thing in common; they all used steroids. This still is a problem and Major League Baseball and its officials need to be stricter and tighten drug tests, and ban steroids for good.

The issue that our group is tackling is the use of illegal performance enhancing steroids in Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is big business in the U.S., with 30 franchises valued at over 8.8 billion dollars. Player salaries range from the league minimum salary of three hundred twenty five thousand per year to ten million or more per year, and are based on the market value of each player when his current contract expires. It is in this hyper-competitive environment that a growing specter of foul play has erupted – the use of steroids. Anabolic steroids and other similar performance enhancing substances allow muscles to recover at a much faster rate than normal. This

Athletes playing college sports often consume steroids in order to have strong muscles and not feel tired when playing a sport. Using steroids is very common for college athletes because they often tend to believe that using steroids will help them stay focused and have more energy playing their sport. In their spare time the majority of college student consume alcohol especially college football players. Around 8 percent of students consume alcohol regularly. According to The Sport Journal “college athletes consume an average of 5 and drinks per weekend” ( From 1989 to 2005 the number of collegiate student- athletes who reported drinking 10 or more drinks in one sitting during the past 12 months significantly increased”. 29% of male college

cocaine, heroin or LSD, the player can be disqualified from the league. According to the New York Post. “If a player tests positive for Marijuana three times, the player will be suspended for five games.”

No parent should have to bury their teenage son or daughter before them, especially because of a drug overdose. Sadly, this has happened to many families including the parents of Taylor Hooton, 17-year old high school athlete who lived in Plato, Texas. Hooton was a very popular student-athlete who was in his senior year of high school. In the spring Taylor would leave his mark during the baseball season. Sadly, his life ended shortly, Taylor hung himself a month after his birthday because he was dealing with depression from his excessive steroid use. Brian reports not long after Taylor’s death NIDA noticed a sharp increase in the use of steroids among male teens in the late 1990s (Monitoring the Future Survey 2008). This story is an example of how extreme situations like this can be. A story such as this one is more shocking to hear than one of a professional getting caught up in a publicized drug scandal. Even though these drugs may be helpful for the time being, enhancing the entertainment, it also weakens the values of sportsmanship and the love for the game.