The Steroid Era of Major League Baseball

Now that the Mitchell Report has been made public, it becomes obvious that baseball fans and the public have been lied to. Over and over. While we see the occasional player receiving suspensions from the game for illegal substances, the players are often marginal names and never the marquee names that have been listed in the Mitchell report.

Yet today, many big name players, future Hall of Fame players, have been named. Legacies have been tarnished as the character of these players has been called into question. The word "cheater" now describes players like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, Barry Bonds, etc. Not to mention the fact that they repeatedly broke the law, as anabolic steroids are illegal unless prescribed by doctors to help aid the repair and recovery from an injury.

The stars of today haven't been using steroids and HGH or human growth hormones for these purposes however. They are being used illegally to help the player recover from the basic wear and tear and fatigue to the body. Certainly one could understand why a player would want to recover from games quicker, so they may play at a peak level. Clearly, the millions of dollars the players are paid for playing the game can easily be one of the reasons. A big season for a player can mean a substantial payday when a new contract is discussed. Long contracts at HUGE dollar numbers are given away every year to players that suddenly had a big season or two.

However, my impression of the report is that it could easily be flawed. It is based on the words of a couple of people who supplied steroids to players and one of the two is under investigation and is facing probable jail time. The allegations against Clemens and Pettitte seem to be fairly clear-cut, as dates have been supplied by the man who claims to have personally injected the players. It must be remembered that these are the allegations supplied by only 2 men and by no means should you think that this is 100% proof.

Since Jason Giambi was the only player willing to speak with Mitchell, under orders of the baseball commissioner, he has been one of the few who have come clean about his use. I think while the report may be flawed and perhaps some of the names mentioned may be innocent, I also believe, where there's smoke, there's fire. And this report only scratches the surface of the steroid era. I wouldn't be surprised to find that 60% or more of the players in this era used, illegally, performance enhancing drugs at some point.