Steroid Use in Baseball: A Social Injustice? In the year of 1998 the sport of baseball ruled the landscape of the sports world as people all over the country were watching Mark Mcgwire and Sammy Sosa race towards the single-season home run record. Major League Baseball, the ruling body of professional baseball in the United States, was all too thrilled with their newfound popularity and growing revenues.The game of baseball had long been considered “the” American pastime, but entering the 98’ season the league was still searching for ways to reopen the enthusiasm, and wallets, of baseball fans that had lost interest in the sport, largely due to the strike-shortened campaign in 1994. The home run race between McGwire and Sosa that took place that year would solve the league’s problems, but it would later more notoriously come to mark what is known as the “Steroid Era” in baseball.Steroids and the use of various other performance-enhancing drugs in the sport of baseball would become such a prevalent social issue that the United States Congress would eventually conduct its’ own official investigation into the matter.
The entire country began to tune in on television or buy tickets to the game just to catch a glimpse or, if you’re really lucky, the record-breaking home run ball off of Sosa or McGwire’s bat. The game appeared to have recaptured the interest of America, and Major League Baseball was flourishing.Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both went on to break Roger Maris’ long-standing record of 61 home runs that year, with totals of seventy and sixty-six home runs respectively. A few years later McGwire’s record of seventy was surpassed by one Barry Bonds who smacked 73 home runs in 2001. Players and teams throughout the league were shattering all kinds of records.
Interest from the fans and offensive output by the players, in the historically numbers-driven game of baseball (baseball has a statistic for nearly everything), had never been higher.This would all change when a massive steroid scandal was exposed and placed a black-eye on the sport forever. There is no way of knowing beyond a doubt the identity of the first professional baseball player to employ steroids as a way to advance their performance. However, the most commonly referenced individual in terms of being at the vanguard of the steroid use in baseball is Jose Canseco. Canseco was accused of taking steroids in October of 1988 by a Washington Post baseball writer named Thomas Boswell who cited Jose Canseco as being “the most conspicuous example of a player who has made imself great with steroids. ” Canseco denied the report, but would later admit to the personal use of performance enhancing drugs in his book titled “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big” that was released in 2005.
Canseco also names numerous other players that he claimed took steroids or performance enhancing drugs in his book. On November 18, 1988 the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 created a penal guideline for the distribution or possession of anabolic steroids for nonmedical use (“Timeline” 1-2).Beginning with Canseco in the late 80’s and continuing through to the new millennium, murmurings regarding the use of steroids in baseball grew louder and louder until Major League Baseball could no longer ignore the issue. On August 7, 2002 the players and owners agreed to set a drug testing program into place. They agreed to start anonymous tests in the 2003 season, with positive tests not resulting in any punitive action by the league. The league discovered that between 5-7% of the players tested positive and began random testing in 2004.
In December of 2003, ten major league players including Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire were asked to testify in front of a grand jury regarding their connections to a steroid-distribution ring involving the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO). Nearly one year later it was reported that Jason Giambi admitted using human growth hormone and Barry Bonds testified to “unknowingly” taking performance enhancing drugs. Congress would later subpoena several players to court on charges of perjury for their testimony (“Timeline”).The steroid scandal would ultimately culminate with a Congressional investigation into baseball which produced the most comprehensive document on the subject known as “The Mitchell Report. ” This document is a written report to Commissioner Bud Selig summarizing the widespread use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs that had run rampant through baseball, with players from every team being found to have had some experience with performance enhancing drugs.The 2007 federal report also accuses Major League Baseball of sacrificing the issue of drug testing during collective bargaining junctions with the player’s union in the interest of economics (Mitchell).
Steroid use in baseball must be considered a social injustice for several reasons. As previously stated, until recently baseball was considered “the” American pastime. Major League Baseball maintains an audience of tens of millions Americans, many children, making it a social issue.Additionally, if justice is defined as the principle of social order that defines everything each person is due, then the violation of a fair and equal workplace is clearly evident here.
Other perspectives through which one can examine this issue are the ethics of steroid use in competition, or possibly the seemingly conscienceless lies told by the players and others, in court and out. Furthermore aspects of this issue that one might consider could be Congress’ involvement in a game; or perhaps one could even debate the moral culpability of Major League Baseball itself through all of this.The analysis of these queries led me to form the opinion that steroids themselves should not be considered illegal, but the use of such in the sport of baseball, or any sport for that matter, is unfair, unnecessary, and undeniably wrong. I feel this opinion is most theologically aligned with that of Pope John XXIII in his Mater et Magistra when he defends the individual’s right to private property, which I feel includes one’s body, but then not long after he cites social responsibility as a function of private property.
Steroids or the use of such by an individual do not violate anyone’s rights but their own.It is for this reason that I feel they should not be considered a crime, because the simple use of steroids does not in fact cause anyone an injustice except the user. With that being said, a whole different set of rules apply to athletes and competitors because of their unique positions in society. The first adulteration of justice in this case has to be the betrayal to children across the country that idolize and emulate these athletes. As is addressed in Octogesima Adveniens by Pope Leo XIII, “The task of Christians is to create conditions for the complete good of humanity.
While baseball players who take steroids most likely aren’t thinking about harming little kids in anyway, the problem is that they aren’t thinking about the youth at all. If they did have their younger fans in mind, then their conscience would hopefully guide them to make a different decision about what they were doing and how it affects others. Additionally, what these athletes are probably thinking about is improving their athletic performance to either win or, more likely, make money. As mentioned earlier, baseball is a sport that is highly involved ith tracking statistics, especially the home run. If a player can improve their performance and boost their stats then they increase their value and receive a bigger contract. This leads to the next relevant case of injustice in this issue which would be the denial of a fair and equal workplace for the players that choose to play the game legitimately.
Every time that a player using performance enhancers gets a hit or drives in a run, let alone break a record, they are doing a grave disservice to the thousands upon thousands of guys who played the game naturally and fairly.A new problem recently has arisen in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame voting. Voters, mostly baseball writers and members of Cooperstown, are now questioning the integrity of any player that happened to play during the “Steroid Era,” whether they themselves used performance enhancing drugs or not. When your words and actions cause people to potentially think less of others and unjustifiably punish others, it must be treated as a moral injustice. I personally do not believe that steroids or other performance enhancing drugs should be considered illegal.However, in a field of competition, using steroids provides an unlevel playing field which does not allow other players an equal opportunity to succeed in the workplace and they need to be stricken from sports, baseball in particular.
The primary school of theology that best relates to this issue would have to be moral theology, as the morality of nearly every character involved in this plot is drawn into question. Right and wrong seemed to become a very blurry concept for many of the players that decided to take performance enhancing drugs.In my opinion, Major League Baseball needs to remove any doubt concerning what is right and what is wrong, at least on the baseball diamond, by stepping up their testing measures and augmenting the punishments for violators. Currently a first positive test for steroids warrants a 50 game suspension. A second positive draws a 100 game suspension, and a third failed test would be the last straw, resulting in expulsion from the league (Mitchell).
As of today, the World Anti-Doping Agency has blood and urine testing for all Olympic competitors, and also demands a two year ban from competition for a failed test.Steroids in baseball furthermore conflicts with Pope John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens that states that the nature of work, and playing baseball professionally means it’s your job, should serve an individual’s humanity and increase the common good of human family. The game of baseball sounds perfect for satisfying these characteristics, contrastingly, I would venture to say that a professional baseball player using steroids accomplishes neither, and in fact acts counterproductively to these goals. While all of the encyclical letter references were intended for different circumstances than this issue, the values that they express are universal.For all of these reasons one would have to consider the use of steroids in the game of baseball to be a social and moral injustice. Works Cited Massaro, Thomas, S.
J. , Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching in Action. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Mitchell, George J. , REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL OF AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ILLEGAL USE OF STEROIDS AND OTHER PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES BY PLAYERS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. December 13, 2007.
“Timeline of Baseball’s Steroid Scandal” Associated Press, 2010. NBC Sports, <http://nbcsports. msnbc. com/id/22247395. >
