Connor Merritt
10/17/12
Professor Cary
News Narrative Essay
Baseball
has been around since the 1700’s and is one of America’s pastime
sports. Many people would say that baseball is one of the hardest
sports to learn and play. I would also agree with that. Being able to
play baseball in the Major League is a big success. Anyone who makes
it that far deserves the money. Some who make it that far or already
in the league don’t deserve to be there because of cheating.
Taking banned substances such as steroids is a huge problem in
Major League Baseball. Many players have gotten caught and some are
still lucky they haven’t. Taking steroids is a worry in baseball
because it’s harmful to health, can removes accomplishments, and
ruins the reputation of a baseball player.
According
to WebMD, steroids
cause impotence, infertility, and testicle shrinkage, all long term
side effects that greatly outweigh rapid muscle growth. Even worse,
it increases the chance of developing liver cancer and heart attacks.
In a segment on a local news program, Dr. Tom Hopkins mentioned that
the sudden muscle augmentation does not only affect the areas of the
body that add power to the swing of a bat; in fact, the heart is
enlarged as well. Diminishing manhood is almost trivial compared to
these more lethal side effects. It is easy to say that the risk is
hardly worth the reward.
When
taking performance enhancing drugs, it can ruin a baseball player's
reputation in the game. Alex Rodriguez, as of right now, is probably
one of the highest paid players in baseball. I saw that this past
year Alex Rodriguez was going to be paid $30 million dollars for one
season. I'd say thats a pretty reasonable amount for one person. But
all before he had came to the New York Yankees, he was caught using
steroids. News outlets, such as Sports
center and
First Take, were
just destroying A-rods reputation as a baseball player. While talking
about the situation, Skip Bayless, a popular news anchor on First
Take, found it laughable that Alex Rodriguez told the public that he
just stopped using steroids as he was going to be apart of the New
York Yankees baseball club. In this video, it was said that Alex
Rodriguez was using steroids as early as high school, and continued
to use them in Major League Baseball. This was a guy who had been an
MVP (Most Valuable Player) in previous years and was getting slammed
by the media. It was said that 104 people had taken the test and out
of that, only Alex Rodriguez's name was selected. Alex Rodriguez is
one of MLBs best players and his name being the only one to stick out
can tell you that he's a big part of the game. Although
the media no longer covers the story, the stigma of using steroids
will be with be with Rodriguez forever.
Lastly,
using steroids can remove accomplishments that a baseball player had
earmed. For instance, Barry Bonds, Major League baseball's notorious
home-run hitter was caught for using steroids. Before Barry Bonds was
ever caught, he had just broke the record for hitting the most
home-runs which was held by Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds was stunned when
he was caught using steroids. It had affected his baseball career so
bad, the
MLB considered striking his home-run record.".
When caught, Barry Bonds was taken to court and almost had to face
ten years for using performance enhancing drugs. Luckily
for him, the courts could not prove that Bonds knowingly
used performance enhancing drugs. The
reason for that was because at the time he was using steroids which
tremendously affected his number of home-runs. When people discover
that he hit the most home-runs, people will know that he didn't do it
naturally and that he cheated by using performance enhancing drugs.
Using
performance enhancing drugs is about for a human being. It
can be harmful to one's health by becoming infertile and more
susceptible to heart trouble.
Steroids can also ruin one's accomplishments they had achieved with
their sport. In conclusion, the worst part about using steroids is it
can ruin a players reputation for the game and people will always
know that person didn't do the accomplishments he did without taking
any drugs.
