Is Baseball Dead?
(Originally written in Fall 2020)
Baseball as a sport has had many controversies over the years, especially in somewhat recent years. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, using PEDs to enhance performance has been prevalent. For some fans, the players who took PEDs ruined their perception of the game. In a paper in the Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies by Brandon J Erickson et al., they mention, “Anabolic steroids, which fall under the general category of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), have been a banned substance for Major League Baseball (MLB) players since 1991. However, despite being illegal, MLB did not implement a league-wide testing policy for PEDs until 2003” (Erickson et al.). The testing policy that the MLB implemented in 2003 was utterly random; a player did not have to be doing well to be selected to take a drug test. After 2003, baseball has not seen as many significant issues of players using PEDs to enhance their hitting or pitching. Baseball is not dead when it comes to illegal drug usage because the MLB was smart enough to implement ways to test players randomly and efficiently.
Performance-enhancing drugs have not always been a huge part of baseball and are not available anymore due to the random drug tests I mentioned earlier. However, when the steroid era started in baseball in the 1990s, it changed baseball forever. In a Bleacher Report article by Nicholas Martinez titled “The Steroid Eras Destruction Of Major League Baseball,” Martinez mentions, “The steroid era has forever changed Major League Baseball. What was once known as America’s pastime is now known as America’s doormat” (Martinez). Martinez’s article shows that baseball fans did not know what to do during the steroid era, almost like they could step on it. Players like Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire’s use of steroids made fans lose their interest in the sport, and baseball lost its reputation at the time because there was no way around these players using performance enhancers. The idea of juicing was a reason for baseball to be considered dead at the time. Cheating ruined the sport of baseball, and nobody wanted to support players who enhanced their game (hitting) in a non-moral way. Steroid users in baseball were also often seen as villains, which is another reason the steroid era is now over; it shows baseball was dead at the time. In a Deadspin.com article by Christopher Hayes titled “The Steroids Era Was Just Like The Housing Bubble: How MLB Incentivized Widespread Fraud,” Hayes mentions, “The story of steroids in baseball is more often than not told as a morality tale with a rogues' gallery of villains—Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds—who are called out by a swarming press to be berated and humiliated, and to apologize for their sins tearfully and seek redemption” (Hayes). The idea that players like Clemens and Rodriguez were portrayed as villains at the time for being steroid users shows that baseball was dead. Baseball players are supposed to be role models for kids to look up to and admire to be like one day. Once it came out that these players were using performance-enhancing, kids had nobody to look up to, mainly because the steroid users were the game’s biggest stars, and those are usually the people kids look up to and aspire to be like. Baseball needed to become alive and well, which would not happen until 2003 when participation in random drug tests became mandatory.
In a 2013 Bleacher Report article by Zachary D. Rhymer titled “Proof That the Steroid-Era Power Surge in Major League Baseball Has Been Stopped,” Rhymer mentions, “The Steroid Era isn't that far in the rear-view mirror. Major League Baseball has not even been testing for PEDs for a decade yet, and it was only a dozen years ago that Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record,” “However, the point stands that the Steroid Era is in the rear-view mirror. You can tell just by looking around, as you just don't see that many Incredible Hulk lookalikes wearing baseball uniforms anymore” (Rhymer). These two pieces of evidence that Rhymer provides hold to be accurate because very few baseball players in and around 2013 tested positive for PEDs. That holds even in 2020, where it rarely comes out that a player who is hitting well uses PEDs. However, Alex Rodriguez was caught using steroids and handed a long-term suspension, which ruined his chances of getting into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. However, as the years go on, steroid users keep getting more and more votes and getting closer to 75% of the vote to get into the Hall of Fame, so we will see what happens with players like Alex Rodriguez.
During the steroid era, baseball was dead. Fans of the sport lost trust in baseball, to be honest. Baseball was dying at the time, but that all changed when baseball implemented mandatory random drug tests in 2003. Since then, steroids have not been an issue in the sport. Baseball has been a much more honest sport, and fans who lost their interest in the game during the steroid era have since gotten in back. Baseball would still be dead without mandatory drug screenings, and nobody would care about the sport; that is not the case. Due to the drug testing, baseball is alive and well, and that would not be the case without the drug testing implemented. I am sure baseball fans are forever grateful for that.
Works Cited
Erickson, Brandon J. “The Effect of the Steroid Era on Major League Baseball Hitters: Did It Enhance Hitting?” Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies, vol. 05, no. 03, 2015. Crossref, doi:10.4172/2161-0673.1000161. Accessed 29 September 2020.
‘Hayes, Christopher. “The Steroids Era Was Just Like The Housing Bubble: How MLB Incentivized Widespread Fraud.” Deadspin, 17 June 2013, deadspin.com/the-steroids-era-was-just-like-the-housing-bubble-how-5927199. Accessed 30 September 2020.
Martinez, Nicholas. “The Steroid Eras Destruction Of Major League Baseball.” Bleacher Report, 3 Oct. 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/480826-the-steroid-eras-destruction-of-major-league-baseball. Accessed 2 October 2020.
Rymer, Zachary. “Proof That the Steroid-Era Power Surge in Major League Baseball Has Been Stopped.” Bleacher Report, 3 Oct. 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/1648362-proof-that-the-steroid-era-power-surge-in-baseball-has-been-stopped. Accessed 1 October 2020.
