Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: Baseball in the Steroid Era
A frustrated ex-fan of baseball telling of the lies and cheats of baseball.
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What can baseball teach you? Hard work always pays off? No. Teamwork will help you win in baseball and life? Nope. Lying, cheating, and stealing is the only way to get ahead in today’s world? Exactly.
Baseball used to be my life (I even had a shirt that said “Baseball is life. The rest is just details.” ). I would play pick-up games with my friends and practice everyday of the summer, hoping to make it to the MLB someday. I would watch ESPN to see my heroes making great plays in the field, stealing bases, and hitting homeruns and I saw myself playing there someday. I watched Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire compete for the home run crown and it seemed like it was the best time to be a fan of baseball. Baseball was our national pastime, but then it turned out to be a lie.
Baseball fans have put up with a lot of anguish through the years. From the Black Sox Scandal (The Black Sox played to lose the World Series and were banned from baseball for life.) to the 1994 players strike, but taking steroids to cheat your way to the top was the final straw for me.
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Sammy Sosa was my idol for several years. He came from a poor country to become one of Major League Baseball’s most feared hitters. He was exciting to watch because he would either hit a homerun or strike out. Big Papi, David Ortiz, carried the underdog Red Sox to a World Series victory, beating the Yankees in the postseason. Alex Rodriquez signed a record contract worth 252 million dollars, making over 25 million dollars a year. All of these players have tested positive for steroids.
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Not all Major League Baseball players take steroids (I hope) and I admire the players that are clean. But the dirty players are risking the health of their bodies and become a terrible role model to kids. The players cheat by taking steroids. They sacrificed their morals to become the “best.” They lied to you and me, they cheated honest, hard working players of money and a job for being in the Major Leagues, and they have destroyed baseball.
It’s a good thing Major League Baseball players refused to play baseball in 1994 so they could get paid millions of dollars to play a game most baseball fans would play for free because lying to millions of people and crushing children’s role models would be a tough job. Steroid users put a price on their morals and sold out, putting themselves, money, and fame before everybody else. They no longer play as a team, but a bunch of individuals. Isn’t it ironic that steroids make your head big and something else small?
