Will Steroids Ruin Baseball?
The recent revelations of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz on baseball banned substance list raises some questions.
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Some people want to believe that baseball is immuned to problems that the rest of the world faces. Well think again. Baseball is part of the same society that has drug issues, homelessness, domestic violence and on and on. The steroid revelation is just the latest baseball controversy. The list of 100 Major League baseball players who took a banned substance has not been totally revealed. A few names have been leaked out. The two latest names were Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.
Ramirez and Ortiz were teammates with the Red Sox when they won two World Series in 2004 and 2007. They tested positive for a banned substance in 2003. That was before the league banned steroids and some other performance enhancing substances. Ramirez was suspended 50 games this season for a substance that was banned by major league baseball. The question is: Will steroids ruin baseball? The short answer is no. If there were 100 names in the Mitchell report that tested positive, how many others actually used steroids and didn’t test positive.
No one knows at this point or is willing to admit it. It probably didn’t surprise many people when guys who hadn’t hit many home runs most of their career suddenly started hitting 40 to 50 home runs. You just knew something was going on. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds all hit over 60 home runs. None had ever hit that many home runs earlier in their careers. Bonds looked like the “Incredible Hulk” later in his career. He was a slim built player when he was with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Weight training and hard work can only build so much muscle mass. Bonds claims that’s how he bulked up.
The baseball public has a short memory. When there were strikes in baseball, many said they wouldn’t go to another game. They did. When several players were suspended for drug abuse, again many were turned off by major league baseball. Did they stay away. Some did, but the majority stayed. Controversies seem to fuel more interest in major league baseball. This is a sport that survived the Black Sox scandal, Pete Rose betting on baseball, cocaine abuse, the juiced up baseball among others. I have no doubt that it will survive steroids.
