Steriods and Baseball

Baseball is a sport that has more history than any other in America. Whether it was Ruth, Mays, or Griffey baseball players from the 1920’s until the present time have been idolized and have become entrenched in American culture. Baseball players like other world class athletes are fierce competitors, and for most of them their first priority is winning. To different players that means different things. For some players it means having their team win the most games, to others it means acquiring personal fame, or a vague goal to be the best at what they do. Whatever the definition, this strong desire which is necessary to be a world class athlete has caused baseball players specifically to resort to steroid and other artificial performance enhancing drug use. There are two main reasons and these reasons are the desire to make money and have a stable career, and the desire to win and to acquire personal fame.

Money is certainly a large incentive for professional baseball players to use steroids. Any baseball player who is a borderline professional trying to make a Major League baseball team has plenty of incentives to use steroids. For this player millions of dollars are on the line. Playing in the major leagues may be the difference between working 70 hours a week between two jobs at a warehouse, or retiring at 42 years old in Orange County California. As much as baseball fans seem to be disgusted with steroid use in baseball, I would predict that a lot of them if given the chance to take steroids and be a major league baseball player would elect to do so. As much as the so called sanctity of the game are important in mot fans mind, most fans would put there financial well being ahead of this concern and take steroids.

While the desire to earn more money and have a satisfying career explains why borderline major league players take steroids it does not explain why marquee established players, such as Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire have chosen too. These players would be millionaires, live life as a celebrity retire at age 40 without the use steroids. In the case of Barry Bonds he would have been a Hall of Famer and without question would have been considered an all time great. So why would these players choose to use steroids. The answer is their desire to win, and to be the best. These players, and more generally the more elite players who have used steroids are so competitive that they couldn’t stand having other players beating them. They didn’t care what risks were involved; they didn’t care that they would be shunned and ignored by baseball fans. All they cared about was “winning” about winning awards and about winning batting championships. This same competitive desire that allowed them to be the world class athletes that they are also led them to the disgrace and ridicule that they know must endure because they chose to use steroids.