Major League Baseball Players example essay topic

1,061 words
"Steroids in Baseball" Today in the United States, millions and millions of kids, teens, and adults watch and play in the sport of baseball. It is probably the number one sport looked upon and what is happening to it is a bit discouraging. Players have started "cheating" by using steroids to help them play stronger and better. They are in league where you have to be the best at what you do to play, and if your using drugs to cheat your way in, then it ruins the ethics of the game of baseball. Baseball first started in the mid-1800's as game for people to play and have fun in. From then until a few years ago it has continued that way until drugs known as steroids popped into the hands of players.

Once a player leaves his college dorm and gets off his college baseball team and heads out to play for the MLB, his views start to change. He joins the baseball team in college to play as a team. He has on view in mind and that is to do his best and to win for his school. He is playing for his school, not himself and has the time of his life. Their view changes in an instant once they enter the major leagues.

Baseball suddenly converts from a sport based on fun and teamwork to the focus on money and yourself. The ethics in baseball just drift away once this switch occurs and everything has changed. How exactly do the ethics just drift away? The conversion into the major league is a conversion from game to business and once the players enter into the pros everything changes.

The MLB is just a giant business. How can you see it otherwise? Steroids in baseball have changed dramatically over the past ten years and a major factor impacting the changes may be players' use of performance enhancing drugs. Do these players not realize that they are cheating?

They are putting a drug into their bodies to make them better then everyone else. In less than four years Babe Ruth's single season record of 60 home runs has been broken by Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. These were three of the players who were faced with a charge of using steroids and notice how they are three of the top hitters. McGwire just retired too, I think steroid use, and people finding out had a's midge to do with it. All these players aren't losers, they are all stars and looked upon from all over and know are being accused of cheating. (Kingsbury) Today's players are bigger and stronger than the baseball heroes of yesterday and many sports writers and baseball analysts suspect the reason involves the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids. U.S. lawmakers are considering a national anti-steroid policy to discourage players from using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

(Miga) Anabolic-androgenic steroids are man made substances related to male sex hormones. These steroids are used by athletes to artificially raise testosterone levels in the body. Raising testosterone levels allows the user to train longer and harder, increase muscle mass and add body weight primarily through retention of dietary protein and body fluids. Mark McGwire used androstenedione, an over-the-counter steroid supplement, the year he broke Ruth's home run record. (Conseco) Do you think he would have broken it if he didn't use the steroids? We will never know, but it truly a wrong thing to do, to break someone's record who did it all on his own with no help from a needle or a pill, while you had the help.

The MLB just started thinking more and have finally brought some plans into steroid testing. "All Major League Baseball players will face random testing for steroids this year. Their names (and results) will be released. Penalties start at treatment for the first offense, with a one-year suspension or $100,000 fine for the fifth". (S.I. B) What about all the kids and teens who look up to these players as their role model. These players give kids reason to succeed and want to become players themselves. They are finding out that their role models are breaking records because they are on illegal drugs.

That is extremely unethical and what if these kids want to be like the players and do the drugs themselves? They may think they need to to become professional. Do these players not realize they are looked up upon from millions and millions of fans who want to be just like them and do whatever they do. "Being a baseball fan should be simple, but it isn't. Juiced-up steroid freaks and a baseball leadership that could use a little more testosterone have ruined that. Baseball is supposed to be this country's pastime and baseball's faithful spans generations from great-great-grandfathers to grandfathers to grandsons.

Players are just trying to do whatever they can to make themselves look good and better then everyone else. As I mentioned before, the MLB is not about a team, but about you. Wherever you make the most money is where you want to be. It's like a see-saw. As players get higher up in there career, there ethical standards just get lower and lower. Notice how Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds are all older players.

They are getting weak and losing what they once had. The steroids are making them stronger and as good as the younger players. Why would the young ones need drugs, they are getting stronger and stronger already, and I'm sure don't want to take the chance of getting in trouble this early in their career. So in the end, these older player just have realize they cheating everyone including themselves. People are looking up to them, and they are models to everyone. They have to start thinking outward and not just of themselves and just realize it's a game for everyone to enjoy and with these controversies going on and on throughout the news, it is just putting a stain on baseball.