The nature of human beings implies the thirst for various entertainments. It could be taken as one of the basic peoples desires that impacts their lives and results in significant shifts in the structure of society. For centuries, humanity has been creating new and more complicated ways to entertain itself and satisfy this need. The significance of this sphere is also evidenced by the fact that a great number of other aspects of society were subjected to entertainment and reorganized to provide all members of society with the show they needed. The sport had also become one of these aspects.
Having appeared as the activity aimed at the improvement of a persons physical shape and state of health, it then evolved into one of the greatest shows attracting millions of people. Furthermore, the creation of the team sport contributed to the significant improvement of its visual appeal and attracted the new audience. However, the evolution and popularization of sport also gave rise to a number of concerns. These are related to such issues as benefits and the promotion of various issues. The appearance of these concepts initiated the reconsideration of the approach towards sport and predetermined the usage of modern medicines and technologies to acquire a competitive advantage.
The popularity of a team sport became the main factor determining the usage of various technologies to attain success. At its current stage of evolution, sport heavily depends on financing as it was turned into one of the most beneficial businesses.
An average modern team has several sponsors that try to promote their products and obtain benefits. Moreover, the teams popularity and sports successes impact its profit-making capacity and attract new sponsors that guarantee stable incomes. For these reasons, there is a significant shift in the traditional factors that condition the thirst for victory. The sports achievements are becoming replaced with the need for revenue and benefits. In this regard, the players workout session became more professional.
At the moment, it bundles the usage of the latest technologies and medicines to achieve the greatest results. Yet, the scope of the problem lies in the fact that there are numerous regulatory authorities that limit the functioning of the sphere and prohibit the usage of various medicines because of their pernicious impact on the athlete’s health and the unfair competition they might promote. The drugs related to the group of steroids were also included in the exclusion list.
It includes the catalog of drugs that might have an overwhelming impact on the health of a sportsman, promoting the crucial increase of his/her physical capacity. Usually, the precise investigation of the long-term effects of a drug serves as the main reason for its inclusion in the list. It is evident that various sports demand the development of certain skills and physical abilities. That is why there are also numerous drugs and steroids created to meet the existing requirements.
Nowadays, there are numerous games that attract special attention because of their overwhelming popularity. The list of these games includes the majority of the modern team and competitive sports like football, hockey, figure skating, etc. Furthermore, baseball could also be considered as the environment beneficial for drug abuse aimed at the creation of competitive advantage. The game is extremely popular in the USA, where it is the 2nd most attended sport (Collier para. 2).
The nature of the competition implies the perfect physical shape, power, endurance, speed, and reaction. Additionally, the high attendance level and great TV audience provide numerous possibilities for multiplying the benefits. The combination of these aspects gives rise to a number of critical concerns related to the usage of steroids.
In general, various forbidden substances has been an ongoing issue for baseball. According to the statistics, from 20 to 40% of the professional baseball players use drugs to increase their abilities and achieve better results (Collier para. 7). However, the problem is not new as the first cases of the usage of substances were fixed at the beginning of the sports development. Pud Galvin, a baseball player at the end of the 19th century, was known to use the first primitive steroid derived from the testicles of animals (Lavine para. 8).
The case proves the significant scale of the problem and its long-term character. It is evident that the evolution of technologies resulted in the creation of more complicated drugs, which had a more significant effect on the state of athletes. For instance, the discovery and the widespread use of amphetamine in the 1940s helped to improve the endurance and mental focus of players, guaranteeing better results (Lavine para. 11).
This invention promoted the further evolution of medicine and the separation of sports pharmacology aimed at the creation of drugs improving the athletes results. The challenge became so significant that a certain regulation authority was created to introduce some limits and guarantee fair competition. However, the efficiency of the given agency is doubtful as there are numerous steroids that appear every year and which leave no traces of their usage.
The majority of modern steroids used in baseball belong to the new generation of drugs characterized by the more significant effect. The anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are the synthetic derivates of the naturally produced hormone testosterone (Peterson para. 2). The growth of muscles and the improvement of some other characteristics are the main effects promoted by these drugs on the body. They could be legal and prescribed to a person suffering from the lack of natural testosterone. Yet, when it is used by baseball players, it promotes the significant increase of the tempos of the natural muscle-building processes. The athletes who need faster recovery could also benefit from the usage of AAS.
The fact is that the exercises they experience while playing result in the increase of the level of tiredness and release of cortisol that destroys muscles and prevent them from restoring (Peterson para. 4). The main advantage of AAS is that it blocks the release of cortisol and helps muscles to restore faster (Peterson para. 5). Therefore, there are numerous side effects that could pose a great threat to the general state of the health of a sportsman.
The above-mentioned mechanism of the functioning of steroids contributes to the acquisition of the notable competitive advantage combined with the general health deterioration. This fact provides a certain rationale for the attempts of various regulatory authorities to limit the usage of various substances and monitor the state of health of athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency is one of the organizations that perform constant monitoring of the issue and renews the list of the prohibited drugs annually. Additionally, it introduces the World Anti-Doping code, which is the document that aims to introduce and monitor the anti-doping regulations in all sports and countries (Bruno 11).
For this reason, baseball also depends on this agency as it tends to guarantee the fair rivalry and exclude any potential threat to the health of players. Furthermore, if a sportsman is accused of using doping, his/her case will be investigated by the court. In such a way, the government tries to indicate its concern about the state of the given sphere. The governmental monitoring is crucial for the further development of sport and attempts to exclude steroids from the usage to guarantee the fair competition. However, a number of scientists state that the current level of the governments involvement is not enough to introduce significant changes to the sphere (Powell para. 3).
Various governmental regulations could be the easiest way to stop usage of the performance enhancing drugs (Powell para. 5). Yet, there are still numerous challenges which the state might face while trying to solve the nagging problem. First, it could promote the vigorous resistance of the club owners who have the stable incomes and promote the usage of steroids to improve the results. They obviously impact the evolution and existence of baseball and are able to use the peoples dissatisfaction to attain their right to manage the league and teams.
Second, as mentioned above, baseball is extremely popular and complicated game that implies the cooperation of a number of spheres and organizations to guarantee the better results. The shifts of the traditional pattern might trigger the growth of the dissatisfaction of one of the actors and condition the significant changes.
Sports pharmacology is one of the above-mentioned spheres appeared due to the evolution of baseball and the need for drugs to improve the state of sportsmen guaranteeing faster recovery. The current level of the popularity of sport provides a giant revenue for various pharmacology companies working in the sphere. For this reason, they are interested in the further elaboration of drugs and creation of new steroids.
Furthermore, the strong partnership between sport and these companies contributes to the creation of new drugs which will not be detected by various tests and could be used by sportsmen to improve their physical conditions. At the moment, pharmacological companies are powerful agents that have their interests in the sphere of sport and could hardly be influenced by various limits and regulations as, despite all attempts, statistics show that a new drug appears every year (Bruno 14).
Additionally, new steroids have much more complicated nature that conditions their powerful influence on the organism of a sportsman and proves its efficiency. The given pattern gives rise to a number of concerns. related to the necessity of the improvement of doping tests and introduction of severe penalties.
Nevertheless, under the existing doping control protocols, all modern professional sportsmen are obliged to provide a urine sample to confirm that he/she uses only legal drugs. The sample will be later divided into two portions. and preserved in special sealed containers marked as A and B samples (Bruno 19). This separation is needed to prove the results of the first test. If a first sportsmans sample reveals the presence of the prohibited drugs, the second one could also be investigated to confirm the results of the previous tests and guarantee the complete objectivity of the investigation.
Additionally, the provided samples might be retested to guarantee the credibility of results and to use the newest technologies to determine the presence of some prohibited drugs not noticed before. Baseball players also have to provide their samples to confirm the absence of forbidden substances in their organism. Yet, there are numerous cases of cheating used to conceal the real results. A dirty sportsmans urine might be replaced with the clean one to replace the results of the test (Collier para. 7).
Moreover, diuretics could also cleanse the system before the test and help an athlete to conceal the real results (Collier para. 8). For these reasons, there are numerous debates related to the efficiency of the method and the necessity of its replacement with the new one. The question is also complicated by the fact that the majority of the modern steroids could hardly be discovered by other tests. That is why the necessity of change becomes obvious.
It follows from these cogitations that baseball is impacted by the usage of steroids greatly. Despite all measures aimed at monitoring of the state of the question and creation of the efficient tools to prevent the application of drugs, there are still well-known cases that prove the systemic character of the problem. For instance, several modern and former stars including Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Jose Canesco highlighted the crucial character of the issue and accepted the spreading use of steroids in baseball (Lavine para. 10). Canseco also confessed that he had been using drugs for his entire career, and his results could be influenced by it (Lavine para. 11).
Furthermore, the Barry Bonds case could also evidence the strangle of steroids in baseball. An athlete holds numerous records and has never been caught using steroids. However, the increase of his muscle bulk and results gained the attention of critiques and served as the basis for the precise investigation of Bonds results. Moreover, he was one of the participants of BALCO case and provided the false information (Mintz para. 5). Despite all these facts, Bond was only convinced of obstruction of justice. Besides his name is associated with one of the most notable steroid scandals. There are many other cases that prove the existence of the nagging problem and introduce the necessity of the reconsideration of the approach towards the usage of drugs in baseball.
To summarize, baseball is one of the most popular sports in the USA. Its high popularity determines a great deal of attention given to the sport and conditions the evolution of spheres that go along with baseball. For this reason, the sports pharmacology and steroids remain the important part of the game as they promote better results and contribute to the significant improvement of the physical conditions of players.
The scale of the problem is significant and is proved by former athletes saying that the bigger part of baseball players use drugs to guarantee fast recovery. In this regard, the strict control of the usage of the prohibited substances becomes one of the major WADAs concerns. Unfortunately, the modern tendencies and the continuous growth of the number of sportsmen using steroids condition the further evolution of the problem.
Works Cited
Bruno, Charles. Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball: A Legal and Moral Analysis. 2014. Web.
Collier, Robert. “How Steroids Fundamentally Changed Baseball”. Sport Techie. 2015. Web.
Lavine, Joshua. Juicin’ In The Majors: A History Of Steroids In Baseball. 2013. Web.
Mintz, Howard. “Barry Bonds case: Conviction reversal seems likely“. The Mercury News. 2014. Web.
Peterson, Dan. How Do Steroids Work?. 2019. Web.
Powell, Benjamin. Government Legislation: A Bad Idea for Baseball. 2004. Web.