Roid Rage

If an Olympic athlete uses steroids they are banned from competition, their medal is taken away, and they are subject to suspension from their sport organization. A very stiff yet fair penalty.

Up until this year if a professional baseball player used steroids they'd get away with it because for some strange reason the baseball bosses didn't feel it was important to test for. Of course they didn't. If they tested all of the players in the MLB how many of baseball's superstars would test positive? I'm guessing a majority seeing as hitting stats have dropped this season. And if a majority of your superstars have tested positive that's not going to bode well for the wallets of the team owners.

Enter Jose Canseco, a self described bad boy of baseball, and his popular book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball got Big. Unless you've been living under a rock the last 6 months you know that in his book Canseco exposes the rampant use of steroids in baseball. Strange as it is this doesn't come to much of a surprise to anyone, except to the players actually using steroids. While Canseco could have gone about this in a more noble manner, there was no reason to give such graphic details about the actual injecting of steroids, and he brazenly diminishes the risk of steroids, at least it woke people up. Congress held a hearing to investigate the use of performance enhancing drugs and the MLB has finally instituted a policy regarding performance enhancing drugs. This new policy seems to be pretty weak but Commissioner Bud Selig claims to be committed to reaching a zero tolerance policy. I guess Selig is easing into this zero tolerance policy in order to give his superstar sluggers an opportunity to ease off the juice. Today Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for 10 measly little days for violating the current policy. The only thing more laughable than his suspension is his claim that he doesn't know how the steroids got into his body.

What kind of message does this send to our young athletes? Steroid use amongst teenagers has been steadily rising in this country, but baseball, a sport that is supposed to be our national pastime, has been turning their heads or issuing slaps on the wrist. The risks of using steroids far outweigh the benefits, and the risks alone should be enough reason to ban it from sports, but let's put it into simpler terms...it's cheating. Cheating is not allowed in sports and using steroids is a form of cheating.