Steroids in the World of Sports
Performance-enhancing drugs have been and continue to be abused in the world of sports. Athletes ranging from Lance Armstrong to Barry Bonds were considered the best at what they did. Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles due to performance enhancing drug use. Barry Bonds remains the leader on Major League Baseball's all-time home runs list with 762. Due to his career being filled with allegations of PED use, some say Bonds will never make it to the Hall of Fame. When professional athletes use steroids to enhance their performance, they should immediately be banned from any further participation in that sport. Record books nowadays are tainted and they do not reflect an athlete's true performance. A "clean" sports world will never be an attainable goal because there are ways to cheat the system of drug-testing. Some professional sports test their athletes randomly without any structure, and cheating the test can occur. Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees was given advice from Anthony Bosch on how to cheat an MLB urine test in 2014. Bosch told Rodriguez to only use mid-stream urine, not the beginning or end of the stream because most of the metabolites can be found in the beginning or end of the stream. Cheating these random tests occurs all the time which prohibits the sport from being completely "clean." No matter how many suspensions and fines are given out, players will either find a way to avoid being punished or continue to use steroids after serving their suspension. Eliminating performance-enhancing drug use was and will always be impossible.
Athletes use steroids for their own individual needs and reasons, whether they are recovering from an injury or just trying to increase their stats which will eventually earn them more money. Some players are fighting to earn a living by playing a professional sport and are willing to take "the risk." That risk is to take steroids and reap the benefits of them in the game itself, but there is a chance you can get caught and ruin your career. Players who have been caught for using steroids, whatever the reason was, are thought of as cheaters who do not deserve another opportunity to make millions of dollars. Players sign mega contracts for a reason- they are expected to produce for their team. If a player has to use performance-enhancing drugs to earn the money on their contract, they should not be paid any of that money and suspended immediately. In the NFL's new drug testing policy, a player's first violation will result in a maximum suspension of 6 games. Using PED's only warrants a 4 game suspension, and that player will earn the remaining portion of his salary for that season. The lack of punishment handed down to athletes needs to be realized as a major issue that is preventing the steroid problem from being resolved.
Players will accept or even try to appeal the 4 game suspension that the NFL hands them, and then continue to earn their millions of dollars and possibly continue to use steroids for their own benefits. Leagues like the NFL, the MLB, the NBA, etc. seem to believe that punishing a player once with a small suspension or fine will be enough to stop that player from using PED's in the future. Sports legends like Armstrong, Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGuire, and Alex Rodriguez unable to escape the dirty image that the general public has painted of them because of their past. All of the records they hold and the status they have built for themselves are now diminished. Some will never make it to their respective Hall of Fame's, the symbol of professional immortality. The record books remain tainted forever, which takes away from players who could have accomplished goals without cheating. PED's have no positive impact on the world of sports and only create a dark cloud over each individual game.
New rule changes are being made to drug test athletes more frequently, but little progress has been made. The MLB automatically hits a player with a 60 game suspension if he tests positive for HGH or any other performance enhancing drug. Steroids ruin the record books and create unnecessary controversy about whether or not a player should be considered an icon if he or she "cheated." In the case where an athlete fails a drug test, his/her case should be looked at individually instead of just handing down suspension based on the violation alone. If a player like Alex Rodriguez has a history of PED use, then his suspension should be more severe than a player who abused the same substance for the first time. Steroids have done nothing but destroy professional sports. If an athlete accomplishes something great in a sport, he or she is questioned about using PED's to aid their performance. The questions will continue to be asked in the world of professional sports about steroids, and those questions will seemingly never be answered.
