Steroids In 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.

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.

Since the use of steroids has become a trend among athletes, the number of deaths among them has risen. A lot of these deaths are due to suicides and violent behavior as a result of the effect of these anabolic androgenic steroids on mood. A number of recent, well-publicized deaths of American football players have drawn attention to the potential dangers of sports supplements and the raised important public health concerns about the unrestricted availability of these products that are exempt from U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation (Haller, 2002). Performance enhancing drugs are not only dangerous and damaging; they are potentially deadly. Between 1985 and 1995, at least 121 US athletes collapsed and died during or directly after a training session or game; most often because they had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or heart malformations (Maron, 1996). Most of the athletes that have collapsed and died during or directly after training session or game tested positive for some type of performance enhancing drug. From case reports, the incidence of life-threatening effects appears to be low, but serious adverse effects may be under-recognized or under-reported. Data from animal studies seem to support this possibility. One study found that exposing male

In 1990 Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act, but didn’t say how the offenders would be caught. “The next year MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent made it clear in a memo that this was very much relevant to baseball.”(Rymer) The memo read as follows: “The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. Major League players or personnel involved in the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game… This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession of the drug does not have a prescription.”(ESPN) Every player who

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.

Barry Bonds holds many different records including most career home runs and overtook McGwire to hold the record for most career home runs in a single season. All of these accomplishments are called into question, however, when you take into account the players steroid use. Bonds and McGwire both had their skills boosted through the use of anabolic steroids throughout their careers and that is an advantage that wasn’t standard across the league. It isn’t fair for players relying only on their natural talents and skills to compete against records held by steroid abusers. It’s a difficult situation for the MLB to handle as no one can be sure of how much of the players accomplishments are due to the advantage given by their drug

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.

Even players like McGuire and Sosa, who played a decade before Rodriguez and Ortiz, suffered from the MLB’s lacking to inform them about illegal steroids. In 1991, Commissioner of baseball Fay Vincent went team to team, informing them that steroids were illegal. Curiously, there was no official rule change (4). Players like McGwire and Sosa continued to use steroids, and an official ruling was not made until 2005. There is also no rule explicitly stating that steroid users cannot be inducted into the Hall of Fame and “…until a rule is established to explicitly ban proven steroid users, voters should respect the main purpose of the Hall of Fame: to create a comprehensive, all-encompassing look at the history of baseball” (McCarthy 2). When all the top players from the last two decade found themselves being called cheaters, they looked for answers and questioned the MLB about their steroid policies. Shockingly, the MLB lacked policies regarding steroid or PED abuse. Yet players to this day continue to be bashed for “cheating”, when it was never illegal in the first place, and these players continue to be left off voting ballots that induct players into the Hall of

In the days when steroids were only being used by body builders and professional wrestlers, stories about performance enhancing drugs could only be found on the back pages of the newspapers. When former Oakland Raiders All-Pro Lyle Alzado admitted to steroid use in a 1991 Sports Illustrated article the whispers about what professional athletes were using steroids began to get louder. (Puma, 2005) Finally, in 2002, when Caminiti, a former MVP, came clean, two things were clear; athletes in all sports were using these drugs, and that they worked. The fact that steroid use had permeated our national pastime combined with the media explosion of the internet and 24 hour a day sports talk created a perfect storm which created the biggest sports story of the new millennium so far. However, two other facts remained clear, performance enhancing drugs were old news, and athletes in all sports from all over the world had been using them for years.

As the popularity of sports continues to increase in society, so has the use of performance enhancing drugs, primarily anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids increase the amount of testosterone in the body which allows for increased muscular development. These drugs have been known to be used in all kinds of different sports. Athletes will use these drugs to try to please fans, receive a large contract, and to try to keep up with the players who are already using these drugs. This is creating a negative impact on the sports and on the lives of the athletes. The use of steroids in sports is bad because it is not healthy for the athletes, it hurts the spirit of sports, and it will have an effect on the future generations of athletes.

The sport that has gotten the most attention on the subject of steroids is Major League Baseball. Due to the suspected prevalence of them from the late 80’s up until the present day, the so-called baseball purists now question all the records and achievements

I am against them having drugs in sports.This has been a big problem for awhile, and it causes the body to gain more strength where it is injected. It’s not fair when people use drugs in sports because think about it if someone that isn’t using the drug vs. someone that is, that isn’t fair because the guy using the drug would most likely win.

For years, anabolic steroids have been used by competitive athletes have used to improve performance through muscular size or strength, and by noncompetitive weight trainers for purely cosmetic physique enhancement. In the vast majority of cases, users of that have taken steroids for prolonged periods have reported considerable gains in physical size and strength. However, a large number of side effects and health risks have been linked to extended use of anabolic steroids. Research has indicated that the negative effects of steroid use far outweigh the positive effects. As a result, anabolic steroids are now illegal to use for performance enhancement in professional and competitive sports.

The use of anabolic androgens in sports has steadily increased over the past couple of decades, and has become one of the most widely researched areas, not just in the United States, but in countries all over the world. As defined by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH), an anabolic androgen is the familiar name for synthetic substances related to male sex hormones, namely testosterone. Known effects of such drugs are weight gain, strength, power, speed, and aggressiveness, to name a few. Although these substances can be obtained and used by any person who wishes to do so, the rising concern is primarily focused on athletes in professional, collegiate, and even high school sports. In the present paper, the role of synthetic anabolic steroids being used by athletes to improve their athletic ability is investigated. It is