Steroids in Baseball

Barry Bonds should be in the hall of fame after he retires. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire should also. Three of the top seven home run hitters of all time played in the late 90's, and I enjoyed watching them swing the bat. Now people are kicking and screaming how these three players tarnished baseball and it's hallowed records by using steroids. I think everyone needs to shut the hell up.

Am I stating that no one has been found guilty of steroid use so they belong in the hall because of lack of evidence. NO. I think you would have to be a moron to believe that the three of them did not take any performance enhancing drugs. Barry Bonds became a more powerful hitter at the age of 37, not an age most people are known for hitting their prime. McGwire was 255 pounds during his playing career, and now he plays golf six days a week at a weight of 200.

The thinking that these three players put up incredible, Ruthian numbers because of steroids is partly correct. Without steroids or HGH, Sosa may not have become the ONLY person in the history of baseball with three 60 plus home run seasons. McGwire may not have hit 70 home runs in 1998 without a little chemical enhancement and the same goes for Barry Bonds and his 73 home runs in 2001. But that doesn't mean what each player did was any less then hall of fame caliber.

Was every player in the league putting up numbers like them? Not even close. So were they the only three players using drugs to help them perform. Not at all. Steroids have been linked to power hitters in the last several years, but since baseball implemented steroid testing, 80 percent of the players that have tested positive have been pitchers. The late Ken Caminiti told sports illustrated around 2000 that he believed fifty percent of baseball players were on steroids. He recanted that statement after he was ripped in the papers for it, but knowing what people know now, do you think he was making it up.

News flash. Players used illegal drugs in the late 90's. Want another news flash. Players are using illegal drugs today. Just because baseball is testing for steroids does not mean players are not using them. First of all, HGH is undetectable in any test major league baseball gives. So what is in the way of athletes taking HGH. Nothing. If a drug can not be tested for and it will help a player perform better, thus enabling them to get a richer contract, do you think a player will use it. If you could take something that would make you twice as effective at your job and help you earn twice as much, would you take it.

Secondly, not all steroids are detectable. That was the beauty and the reasoning behind BALCO. It was founded to create steroids that were undetectable, and would probably still be in business if it wasn't for a former client turning on them out of fear for his own athletes. The two major steroids BALCO sold were unknown until a sample was analyzed by UCLA. So if there were two undetectable steroids almost ten years ago, do you think there might be a couple more out there.

For every person out there trying to invent a test for a drug, there are two others trying to find a new undetectable one. Scientists interested in steroids will always stay ahead of the curve. And the same goes for athletes. Take football for example. They have been testing for steroids for twenty years, yet only a handful of players get caught every year. So is the NFL telling me that every person that can run a 4.2 forty, bench press 400 pounds at a weight of 180 and is three percent bodyfat did it without the use of drugs. Steroid use in the NFL is a whole different article.

Bonds, Sosa and McGwire put up stats that boggle the mind. If someone told you in 1990 that someone would break Roger Maris's homerun record by 12, you would have escorted them to the nearest asylum. On the other hand, people in Boston believed Roger Clemens was on the downside of his career when they traded him to Toronto. How did he regain his 1986 form in 1997? How did he have a sub 2.00 ERA at the age of 42. The booya network will never throw a single stone at a living legend, but was he doing it without the aid of any chemicals. I am skeptical.

The bottom line is that steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are part of baseball now and they are not going anywhere. And that question I have for you is this- If a player is using drugs to make them better and their competitors are also taking similar drugs, does that give anyone an unfair advantage?