Performance - Enhancing drugs in Baseball
...hown that creatine can improve strength up to 15% and increase sprint speed up to 5 % (Batalis, 1999). Now why is it acceptable for average Americans to use these drugs, while athletes are considered cheaters? The fans, and government also play a crucial role in the increase of performance enhancing drugs. The government is partly responsible for not forcing regulations on the pharmaceutical companies, and not spending enough money on educating the doctors and athletes on the possible side effects of using these drugs. In (“Steroids: Play safe”, 2005), it was found that the two most used over-the-counter supplements, androstenedione and creatine, are not tested by the Food and Drug Administration. It was also found that the government doesn’t even consider these two supplements to be drugs. The fans have a lot of responsibility for the increase of performance enhancing drugs because they crave for more homeruns and scoring. When homeruns starting surpassing 50 a year in the late 1990s, fan support and attendance grew to record levels. Fans didn’t care about anything at that point except for the possibility of the homerun record being broken. There was speculation that drugs were being used then. As long as the fans were paying to see the games, owners, team doctors, and managers were going to continue to look the other way. Performance enhancing drugs have been around the sports scene for many years now. Millman (2003) states that anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) were first introduced into the United States in the 1950s. The use of steroids became such an influence that it forced the 1968 Olympic Games to introduce drug testing (Millman, 2003). Up until this point, performance enhanced drugs were not tested for, which allows for the possibility that baseball players back then also used some kind of performance enhancing drugs. It took the United States Congress an additional 22 years before finally creating the Anabolic Steroid Control Act in 1990, which classified AAS as Schedule III Controlled Substances (Millman, 2003). Costello (2005) stated, “Major League Baseball hopes its new testing policy will rid the game of steroids, but experts feel players who want to remain on performance-enhancing drugs will be able to” ( 1). Tracking the use of performance-enhancing drugs is extremely difficult because there are approximately 89 brands of supplements comprising more than 300 over-the-counter products (Millman, 2003). The majority of these designer steroids leave the testing labs at a disadvantage because the labs cannot test for drugs that they have never seen before (Costello, 2005). This allows athletes the option to still use performance-enhancing drugs without ever having to be tested. Performance-enhancing drugs are not as big as a factor as portrayed to be in baseball. In (“Steroids: Play safe”, 2005), it states, “Steroids cannot improve an athlete’s agility or skill. Many factors help determine athletic ability, including genetics, body size, age, sex, diet, and how hard the athlete trains” (Will steroids make me a better athlete, 1). Knowing this, is it fair to put an asterisk in the record books next to a players statistics to red flag people that there might be some controversy over that stat. Whenever an asterisk is put next to a statistic, it usually ruins credibility, and always raises a question in peoples minds as to whether or not that statistic is deserving of being in the record books without knowing any of the facts or truths behind the asterisk. It is often wondered if using steroids is an unfair advantage for current players who set new records over retired or dead players, but nobody questions the fact that current players outdo those of the past because of the advances in everything from nutrition to medici...