Drugs, Cheating, and the Purity of Americas Pastime...

Most children who have grown up in an American household have at one point in their lives looked up to sports figures as heroes. Whether it was your grandfather telling his stories of watching Babe Ruth become a legend, your father’s stories of Mickey Mantle and the legendary Yankee teams of the 1950’s and 1960’s, or your own memory of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chasing the home run record, the feeling of wholesomeness that baseball provides has always found its way into many people’s hearts. Steroids have tarnished these sacred memories, cast doubts in the minds of many on the legitimacy of records and statistics and finally affected the way younger players play the game. Baseball, America’s pastime, is embedded in the fabric of†¦show more content†¦This latest discovery of steroid use has the chance to step on the hearts of many young fans of the game, and turn away the most loyal of fans. This whole situation has the opportunity to become a crushing blow to a country at war in need of its national pastime; a country that needs its heroes. The most rampant issue regarding steroids in baseball lately has to do with the investigation of BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative), its dispensing of steroids, and the players that willingly accepted them. Aside from the fact that these are illegal drugs, and several BALCO employees face federal punishment for distributing them, just as someone selling heroin or cocaine on the street would be, the investigation must be able to tell us which players accepted and used the steroids which they were given. So far the only discovery that has been made was that three superstar players Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi, allegedly received the drugs from BALCO, but there has been no proof as to when, or even if they were definitely used by them. (Wada Williams) The fact that three of the most prominent, popular, and notable players in the game had been given steroids radically changes the public’s perception of them. Whether or not they used the steroids given to them is another story in itself, but the mere fact that theyShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Ethics of Performance Enhancing Drug Use in Baseball2368 Words   |  10 Pagesthe 1990’s, Major League Baseball has been tainted by the â€Å"steroid era,† with over 127 players admitting to or being charged for performance-enhancing drug usage. As records have been shattered, books have been published, and players have confessed to their exploits, these drugs have made society question the legitimacy of America’s favorite pastime. One of the game’s greatest, Hank Aaron, set the all time homerun record in 1974. Thirty-three years later, Barry Bonds tied this record, and shortly