American sports

Drugs, baseball, and records

The lure of big money pushed players harder and harder to perform at their peaks. There is only so much conditioning that one can do to obtain an edge over their competitors. Major League players turned to performance enhancing drugs, including ephedra and steroids.

Ephedra, a Chinese herb used to cure cold symptoms, and also used in some allergy medications, sped up the heart and was considered by some to be a weight-loss short-cut. Overweight pitcher Steve Bechler, who wanted to stay on the Baltimore Orioles roster, took just such a short-cut. In the middle of an outing pitching, he collapsed, and was soon pronounced dead. The death rocked the baseball world, and started a number of investigations into the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. Ephedra was banned, and soon the furor died down.

The home run race that had generated so much positive publicity, and Barry Bonds run for the all-time home run record began more whispers about drugs. This time it was steroids, which increase a person's testosterone level and subsequently enable that person to bodybuild with much more ease. Some athletes have said that the main advantage to steroids is not so much the additional power or endurance that they can provide, but that they can drastically shorten rehab time from injury.

Steroids were also linked to challenges of the record setting feats of modern athletes. If a home run record was broken by a player using performance enhancers, was it valid to give it to him?

Major League Baseball was considered lax on their anti-drug policies, particularly on steroids. Baseball had done well with the renewed interest in records. It didn't want the drug issue to drag the sport down yet again. Commissioner Selig was unable to convince PA union boss Donald Fehr of any solution to the problem though. The players would not go along with tougher testing that was common in other major league sports as well as in the international sports communities.

Commissioner Bud Selig imposed a very strict anti-drug policy upon its minor league players, who are not part of the Major League Baseball Players Association (the PA). Random drug testing, education and treatment, and strict penalties for those caught were the rule of law. Anyone on the forty man roster, including 15 minor leaguers that are on that list, were exempt from that program. It was called window dressing.

Jose Canseco published a book admitting steroid usage and saything that it was prevalent throughout major league baseball. When the United States Congress decided to investigate the use of steroids in the sport, some of the games most prominent players have come under scrutiny for possibly using steroids. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, and Mark McGwire have been suspected of using steroids. Other players, such as Jose Canseco and Gary Sheffield have admitted to have either knowingly (in Canseco's case) or not (Sheffield's) using steroids. Many lesser players (mostly from the minor leagues) have tested positive for use.

Baseball was taken to task for turning a blind eye to its drug problems. It benefitted from these drugs in the ever-inreasingly competitive fight for airtime and media attention. MLB and its Players Association finally announced tougher measures, but many felt that they did not go far enough.

The BALCO Labs scandal

In 2002, a major scandal arose when it was discovered that a company called BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative), owned by Victor Conte, had been producing so called "designer steroids," (specifically the "clear" and the "cream") which are steroids that cannot be detected by current drug testing policies. In addition, the company had connections to several San Francisco Bay Area sports trainers and athletes, including the trainers of Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds.

This revelation lead to a vast criminal investigation into BALCO's connections with athletes from baseball and many other sports. In the fall of 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that it had secretly received the testimony transcripts of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi from the case. In the transcripts, Giambi allegedly admitted to using many different steroids, including fertility drugs (which could account for his declining health in the past few years), and Bonds admitted to using two steroids that he claims he was told were arthritis drugs.