The Steroid Era in Baseball

What has happened with sports and the steroid era explosion is that players and salaries have climbed aboard a treacherous see-saw. The steroids, while considered dangerous, illegal and unfair, have always been performance enhancing. They build and repair broken, tired and torn muscles faster than any rest or rehab. The faster an athlete can rebuild or condition their body, the faster they can achieve a higher rate of success in their prospective sport. Once they excel in the sporting world, the player contracts and the advertisers come calling with big money in hand.

Unfair? Sure! If a million dollar athlete can excel by use of illegal substances, they can be rewarded 10 fold. Unfortunately, other athletes not playing by breaking or bending the rules lose out on such rewards, accolades and records. Steroids have not only diluted the integrity of the game, but all the records that have been broken by their use.

Ben Johnson loses Olympic Gold and the title of World's Fastest Human. Drug test later, he is an embarrassment to Track & Field and the whole country of Canada. Media darling and track star Marion Jones chokes on her words as she confesses the truth, her records were tarnished by drugs!
Floyd Landis loses Tour de France glory by dope testing. Which fuels more speculation on Lance Armstrong's record previous run and doping accusations.
Roger Clemens says he didn't, though others say he did. this includes pitcher/friend Andy Pettite who announced he was a user, too. And the focal point of this falls on Barry Bonds who broke two of sports history's most coveted records (most home runs in a season and all time) while being trained by convicted the Steroid Supplier to the Stars!
NFL Football players, MLB Baseball players, even WWE wrestlers have been caught using the needle.

What do we care? Isn't everybody doing it? No! Everyone is not doing it. And by using drugs and getting rewarded, most player careers and broken records can just be considered tarnished and worthless. It is not just the sub-human steroid-less sports records, it's the rewards and honors for doing so.

Alex Rodriguez, baseball's squeaky clean poster boy and new age image is the next in a long line of record breaking, secret steroid using assailants. Why care about Alex Rodriguez? He was paid the largest sports contract ever for his prowess which only proves the point. For big money, pro stars will do what they have to do. Records or not.

Barry Bonds has enjoyed his status as the greatest home run hitter of all time, but the accolades and self-promoting were all short lived as he must face charges of lying in front of a Congressional committee. Now the greatest slugger in a generation or two can't find a team to play for and we can ask the question, "Was it worth it, Barry?"

At some point the sports record books will include a huge asterisk section. It is then all these athletes who were paid multi-millions of dollars to entertain us with dunks, home runs, touchdowns and world record times will have their egos appeased. Sports purists will only look at that section and reminisce about the days when you players really played the game and not played us, the fans!

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