Steroid Use in Major League Baseball

The use of steroids in Major League Baseball (MLB) peaked about ten years ago. That was the end of the era of the home run kings, including Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and the current holder of both the all-time and the single-season home run record, Barry Bonds. However, McGwire has openly admitted steroid use, while Bonds has been embroiled in civil and criminal proceedings involving his alleged steroid use. Many other players have admitted taking steroids, both when the practice was legal under MLB rules and after it was banned. The indiscriminate use of steroids has tarnished the image of the game and has had many negative economic and social effects as well.

There has been in recent years a groundswell of opinion regarding the use of “performance-enhancing” drugs or other substances such as growth hormones. Up until recently, however, there wasn’t any strict codification of what legal and illegal performance-enhancing substances were. After all, for instance, caffeine is by any definition a performance-enhancing drug, but no one was suggesting that athletes be tested for coffee use. Amphetamines, however, were clearly not in the same category, though the difference between the two is only a matter of degree. The decision regarding what is and what is not an acceptable substance is therefore somewhat subjective. Are painkillers performance-enhancing drugs? What about Advil? What about morphine? The question was never addressed in a scientific, measured manner by MLB.

There was another problem in enforcement. Baseball fans love to see a home run; it is one of the most if not the most exciting plays in baseball. This was the problem in the late 1990s and early 2000s. To severely restrict steroid use would have been to reduce the effectiveness of the Sosas, McGwires, and Bonds of the time, which would have depressed attendance, which would have affected teams’ profitability, which would have made it harder to pay those players’ salaries. So while steroid use was an open secret—not only home run sluggers but also many successful pitchers used steroids—it was also profitable. Home run duels kept the stands full and for the players, kept salaries high—one might even say astronomical. So there was no real incentive for MLB to restrict steroid use as long as its players were accomplishing herculean feats on the field, and the players had a strong incentive to start or continue using steroids.

Furthermore, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) was instrumental in delaying the adoption of uniform substance abuse rules. As Mitchell (2007) noted in his comprehensive report to MLB on the steroid issue,

“For many years before 2002, the Players Association opposed any drug program that included mandatory random testing, despite several proposals for such a program from different Commissioners. The early disagreements on this issue centered around testing for cocaine and other “recreational” drugs, not steroids, but the effect of the Players Association’s opposition was to delay the adoption of mandatory random drug testing in Major League Baseball for nearly 20 years.” (Mitchell 11)

In this, the home run slugger era, MLB players of all skill levels were loath to come to any agreement that might jeopardize their future earning potential. The possibility of multimillion-dollar contracts for the most productive players loomed large.

There was also the question, not yet fully answered, of whether steroid use actually enhanced the ability of home run sluggers. It is widely accepted that home run power is a function of bat speed, not strength per se. However, steroids increase muscle mass and therefore strength, not reaction time. If you swing too late, no matter how hard you swing, you won’t hit a home run or even make contact with the ball. So apologists for steroid use used the argument that steroids were not responsible for the home run power surge of the 1990s. Chng and Moore (1990) had validated that most athletes viewed steroids as a strength-enhancing rather than a performance-enhancing substance per se: “Power-lifters and body-builders were more likely to use than non-lifters and non-body-builders” (Chng & Moore 12). However, that home run-hitting ability had little to do with strength was a partial truth at best. While it is true that without bat speed, strength is useless, it is also true that with bat speed, strength enhances results. So steroids could really only enhance the performance of those sluggers who were already highly talented. This effect was exemplified in the career of Barry Bonds, who was one of baseball’s best hitters throughout his career but about halfway through that career, became hugely muscled and turned from a “hitter for average” (more hits rather than more home runs) into a “power hitter” (more home runs rather than more hits). This metamorphosis is generally agreed to have coincided with his adoption of steroids.

Steroid use created a baseball “arms race.” Those players who eschewed the use of steroids found that they were at a competitive disadvantage. Many former MLB players acknowledge that in order to stay competitive, they felt compelled to use steroids. Similarly, a team with more steroid users had an advantage over one with less. However, rampant steroid use has significant health risks and disadvantages. While the short-term results of steroid-using players were enhanced, their well-being was in increased jeopardy as a result. In a study of steroid-using adolescent athletes, Bahrke, Yesalis, and Kopstein et al. (2000) found that steroid use was correlated with other substance abuse: “Results indicate that adolescent AAS users are significantly more likely to be males and to use other illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco” (Bahrke et al. 397). While this was a study of an adolescent athlete population, the authors’ conclusion suggests that steroid users in general have a proclivity toward other kinds of substance abuse as well. For professional athletes, this could not be worse. In addition to the effect on the body’s metabolism, etc. from steroids, there is also a danger of other body-degrading activities. A professional athlete’s body is the tool by which he makes his living. A steroid-enhanced body is like an overinflated tire, ready to fail catastrophically at any time.

The effects of steroid use on MLB athletes’ bodies are mirrored by the effects of steroid use on the sport of Major League baseball itself. Just about every record set during the steroid era has come into question, as have the career accomplishments of those who took steroids (whether they admitted it or not). When whether your team scores a run is even in a small part the function of its players’ steroid use, the whole concept of athletic skill comes into question. In other words, it’s not the skill, hard work, and dedication of the athletes; it’s what’s in the hypodermic syringe that counts. Gillerman (2009) noted that after the 1994-95 MLB strike, the subsequent, and it would soon become apparent, steroid-fueled home run surge served as a needed spark to fan interest: “In the seasons that followed MLB’s notorious 1994-1995 players’ strike, professional baseball received a much needed injection of fan enthusiasm via a surge of homerun hitting that revived the sport and would forever define the period” (Gillerman 541). Fans were thrilled, but the subsequent revelations of just how this surge had been accomplished served as a bitter disillusionment. Fans felt that they had been cheated. The image of the game was forever tarnished. Perhaps the worst part of this betrayal was that for the most part, the steroid-fueled home runs sluggers were excellent players, even stars, in their own right and would have accomplished great things even without using steroids. But their use of steroids called everything they had done into question. America’s heroes were now suspected cheaters.

Baseball has been called the most quintessentially American sport. Its rules embody fairness and equality: every player in the field comes to bat (ignoring, for the sake of argument, the MLB designated hitter rule). The game isn’t over until the last out. The umpires enforce the rules fairly and without bias. And so forth. That some MLB athletes—even most, by many accounts—chose to use more than their bodies, brains and hearts to win was a major blow to the integrity of the sport. Perhaps that is an indictment of the influence of money on the sport. MLB is a multi-billion-dollar business, and the best players are paid fortunes. TV and other media fight like wolves for the privilege of broadcasting MLB games. In fact, the field of “sports economics” was founded on the study of MLB; as Fizel (2006) notes, “Studies of Major League Baseball (MLB) represent the cornerstone of research in sports economics” (Fizel 99). If professional baseball is first and foremost a business, then a major concern of it should be business ethics. For players to use steroids and for MLB clubs to turn a blind eye to steroid use—or even, as per many accounts, to implicitly or even actively encourage it—was to break a promise to the fans, that the sport would be played with fairness and integrity.

This analysis has not so far touched on the effect of steroid use on athletes’ bodies, in part because MLB and other professional athletes do stretch their bodies to their absolute limits and as a result, sometimes do themselves lasting damage. For example, most former NFL players have back problems, moderate to severe constant pain, and aftereffects from concussions. To endure such punishment is a conscious decision on the part of athletes and therefore, it is not completely germane to cite the negative effects of steroid use in an overall criticism of that practice. That said, steroid use is definitely harmful to athletes’ bodies and minds. In a study of weightlifters ranging from secondary school to Olympic athletes, Perry, Anderson, and Yates (1990) reported that “Subjects reported significant increases in body weight and strength. In addition, mental status changes were reported that included symptoms of depression, hostility, aggression, and paranoia” (Perry et al. 422). Apparently, the athletes’ increase in strength had come at a high cost. Again, MLB athletes are adults and can use or abuse their own bodies in any way they see fit, but they aren’t necessarily making the right decisions by doing so. Permanent damage to one’s mind isn’t worth any amount of money; turning oneself into a delusional paranoid isn’t a good career and life decision no matter what the benefits may be. Yet, the steroid-driven “arms race” mentioned above encouraged many MLB athletes to do just that.

All of that said, the argument for the right of MLB athletes to do what they want with their bodies is dealt its most fatal blow by the consideration that professional athletes are role models. The success of steroid-enhanced athletes (during both the legal and non-legal periods) was noted by America’s youth. In the highly competitive world of high school and college sports, only the very best athletes can dream of a professional career. Frequently, the difference between recognition and advancement and obscurity rides on a single game or even a single play in that game. It is very, very tempting for a young, aspiring athlete to try any means, both ethical and unethical, at his disposal to try to win that big game and thus, shine in front of the MLB or other professional team scouts. If there is even a hint that an admired professional athlete has used steroids, that becomes a validation of the young athlete’s decision to use them as well. The harmful effects of steroid use are well documented. Adolescents and young people don’t always make the best life decisions, and the lure of athletic glory may cause a young athlete to override his better judgment and succumb to the lure of temporary performance enhancement.

Moreover, even when the steroid scandals have hit the papers, young people may not have had the proper reaction. Rather than focusing on the disgrace heaped on an athlete who was found to be cheating, a young reader of the sports pages may instead focus on the dishonest athlete’s accomplishments and on how long he was able to get away with his steroid use. The potential profits are enormous and the risks relatively small. After all, the good-but-not-great young athlete may reason, why not give steroid use a try? I’m not going to get into the top echelon unless I do. This mirrors the no doubt cold-blooded calculations made by many MLB players in the steroid era: if I don’t use steroids, I’ll get left in the dust and my career will essentially be over. And so the decision to cheat may be in part forced upon an up until now honest professional athlete.

There is a particular danger attendant to steroid use in MLB that hasn’t been seriously addressed. Baseball is far from a non-contact sport. Players collide on the base paths; catchers block home plate as the runner comes rushing in at full speed; batted and thrown balls zip toward players’ arms, legs and heads at over 100 miles per hour. Suppose a steroid-fueled pitcher hits a batter with a pitch thrown not at 88 mph, but rather, a steroid-enhanced 103 mph? Perhaps the batter receives a cracked skull rather than a bruised head. A steroid-powered player smashes into the second baseman in an attempt to break up a double play. That player already outweighs the second baseman by sixty pounds. In addition, he’s running that much faster because of the steroids he took. Which player is more likely to be carted off the field as a result of the collision? A steroid-enhanced slugger swings furiously at a pitch and misses. His bat goes flying, whirling into the stands and braining a young baseball fan. And of course, we shouldn’t forget the mood swings and hostility caused by steroid use when we see players charging the pitcher’s mound, screaming at the umpire, or going berserk in the dugout and destroying water coolers.

Fortunately, MLB as well as the law have heavily sanctioned steroid use. MLB now carries some of professional sports’ heaviest penalties for illegal substance use, including lengthy suspensions for even a first use. This is in part a reaction to public outrage at steroid scandals but is also the effect of a long-overdue attitude shift on the part of the Player’s Association. The MLBPA has finally acknowledged that artificial performance enhancement is not in the players’ best interests. And of course, though we may not see any more 70-plus home run seasons, it is in the fans’ best interests that MLB be an honest and real rather than artificially performance-enhanced game.

Also from the fans’ point of view, attending a baseball game can be expensive, what with the cost of tickets, parking, snacks at the game, etc. The person who spends $100 or more to see a baseball game wants to see a quality product. It isn’t about going as fast as possible or hitting the ball a mile; it’s about achieving the best possible performance within human limitations. We watch athletes run the 1000-meter races in the Olympics even though a human in a car or even on a bicycle could easily outrace them. It’s hard to imagine that a true baseball fan is interested in seeing who gets the most bulked up and can smash the most balls over the fence. Baseball was never about brute force anyway; it’s a game of timing, finesse, and mental agility. The steroid era turned away the proper focus on finely honed skills and instead put in the spotlight the musclebound slugger who handled the bat like it was a toothpick and swatted balls over walls with little apparent effort. It threatened to turn the game into something other than what it should be.

There should be continuing strict monitoring of and swift punishment for illegal substance use. As the pharmacopeia of performance enhancers will no doubt be expanding in the near future, MLB must ban not only specific substances but also artificial performance enhancement in general. The integrity of MLB took a heavy blow with the steroid scandals and fans’ minds are still fresh. MLB must therefore bend over backwards to ensure the integrity of the game, now and in the future. It is also incumbent on MLB to educate young people about the harmful effects of steroid use and to present as role models only those players who, as used to be the case, achieved excellence simply by hard work and dedication.

Works Cited

Bahrke, Michael S., et al. "Risk factors associated with anabolic-androgenic steroid use among adolescents." Sports medicine 29.6 (2000): 397-405.

Chng, Chwee Lye, and Alan Moore. "A study of steroid use among athletes: Knowledge, attitude and use." Health education 21.6 (1990): 12-17.

Fizel, John, and Lawrence Hadley. "Major League Baseball." Handbook of sports economics research (2006): 99.

Gillerman, Jonathan D. "Calling their shots: Miffed minor leaguers, the steroid scandal, and examining the use of Section 1 of the Sherman Act to hold MLB accountable." Alb. L. Rev. 73 (2009): 541.

Mitchell, George John. 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. New York: Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 2007.

Perry, Paul J., Kathleen H. Andersen, and William R. Yates. "Illicit anabolic steroid use in athletes A case series analysis." The American Journal of Sports Medicine 18.4 (1990): 422-428.