...to lose three million dollars out of his eight million salary. As an MLB spokesman shares with CNN that Braun is welcome to return after his suspension, as long as he’s making positive decisions that benefit Major League Baseball, whether it’s on field or off the field. Many professional athletes use PEDs to bulk up, build more muscles, and endurance; however, using PEDs nonstop can result in side effects like strokes, heart attacks, and death when used incorrectly. For the last couple of years, professional athletes from different sports have been caught for the use of PEDs or any other type of steroids, the players, usually a well-known person like Lance Armstrong and Alex Rodriguez. Although, the aid of performance enhancing drugs may provide entertainment to sports they also betray the values of sportsmanship; as well as give an unfair advantage over those who choose not to use PEDs. Many professional athletes know that taking steroids is bad for their health even if only used for a short period of time; however some do it anyway for money. It’s clear that professional athletes who sign bigger contracts make more money and this will likely cause them to turn to the use of PEDs. For example, Alex Rodriguez who is the highest paid baseball player makes 27 million...
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...Enhancing Drugs in Sports In a world where everyone is looking for a way to gain an advantage on their competition, professional sports are no exception. In the past thirty years we have seen the rise and fall of the notorious steroid era surrounded by the pre-steroid era and its ongoing fallout. Each of our four main professional sports leagues, The NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB, have all had their own specific bouts with the same controversial issue; each of the four main sports leagues have all had to come up with their own interpretations, rulings, punishments, and general code of conduct when it comes to handling situations involving Performance Enhancing Drugs or PEDs. To further understand the issue of PEDs in domestic sports here in the US you need to take a step back and look at some of the larger scale events that effected what turned out to be the “steroid era”. Starting off in 1988 Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his Olympic Gold Medal for testing positive for an anabolic steroid. Less than two months after Ben Johnson had his medal taken away, President Ronald Regan signed an act outlawing non-medical steroids sales as a part of his war on drugs; less than two years later congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act which placed steroids in the same legal class as other drugs such as amphetamines, opium, and morphine. Scandal brought legal action, legal action turned into more strict legal action, and finally the first of the four major sports leagues got...
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...PEDS standing for Performance Enhancing drugs, most commonly referred to as steroids. The question is though how do these PED’s effect baseball? Why do people feel the need to take steroids in baseball? I’ll tell you why it helps you in everything you do on the diamond, from running to throwing and to hitting it helps you achieve things you never saw possible as a normal person. It help you out to a point that it is just unfair and not fit for baseball. Steroids have changed baseball as we know it and not in a good way. They have made the Major League of Baseball or also known as the MLB look a question such as, Are PED users able to make it into the Hall of Fame? What is the appropriate consequence for these players getting caught? And is...
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...plans to be stronger and healthier. But, one of the most controversial ways of increasing athletic ability is by taking performance enhancing drugs. Performance enhancing drugs can become a big part of athletes’ lives and have the potential of becoming very addictive, because players may see a major change in their performance. Athletes like Lance Armstrong, Wes Welker, and Alex Rodriguez have all used some form of performance enhancing drug. While it may seem like a good route for some major athletes, they end up losing some respect and their right to play and compete. So a major issue that sports authorities are facing now is whether...
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...Key Terms Anabolic steroids Compounds derived from testosterone that promote tissue growth and repair. Anabolic refers to processes in the body that covert simple substances into more complex compounds (Uretsky, 2006). Anorexia Athletica A disorder of compulsive exercising. People tend to be more obsessed with maintaining abnormally low body fat percentage than with body weight (Davidson & Porter, 2013). Blood doping The use of products that enhance the uptake, transport, or delivery of oxygen to the blood. Blood is taken out a few months before competition and then packed, frozen, and stored. A few days before competition, the blood is returned to the body to increase the red blood count by up to 20% (Blood Doping, 2007). Erythropoietin...
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...The Ethics, Effects, and Fairness of PEDs Despite being banned in many leagues and competitions, steroids are still used to gain an edge over other competitors. Athletes use steroids without any regard to the ethics that accompany the intake of drugs. There are many reasons why competitors should, in fact, follow the rules set in place and stop using steroids completely. Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should completely stop being used in competitions or leagues. First of all, anabolic steroids are known to be bad for your health. PEDs have unpleasant, undesirable side effects. The United States Anti-Doping Agency lists the symptoms of using PEDs, which include ”liver damage, stunted growth, increased aggressiveness, leukemia, anemia,...
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...It has been a constant debate recently whether steroids and performance enhances should be allowed in sports today. This topic usually occurs in baseball but in recent discoveries, many football players are condemned for doping. Vast names in sports such as: Ray Lewis, Alex Rodriguez, and Christian Laettner were all suspended by their respected leagues for doping. Steroids should be banned in professional sports today because they give athletes unfair advantages, they’re horrible to the athletes’ body, and there can be severe side effects. There are copious types of steroids that athletes use. “The most common type of steroids that athletes use are anabolic steroids, or synthetic versions of the male hormone, testosterone” (Quinn). This particular...
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...“A cloud hangs over baseball. It's a cloud called drugs and it's permeated our game” (Ueberroth). This idea of a cloud hanging over baseball and how drugs are permeated the game is how PEDs have spread through the MLB and ruined the league. The prospects see these great major leaguers using these drugs and look up to them, therefore start to take drugs. Teenagers these days are looking up to their favorite major league players, yet most of them are using performance enhancing drugs. If we find out that one of our favorite players are using these, we should really focus on the negative outcome of their actions. Lord of the Flies is a great example of what MLB players will do to conceal their drug usage. For example, Jack tried so hard to stay...
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...How are performance enhancing drugs (PEDS) affecting the future of sports? Although many PEDS are banned by the USADA, there is a reason why some should be allowed. The war between sports and drugs has been going on for a long time and is affecting all sports. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), is the national anti-doping organization (NADO) for Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American, and Parapan American sports in the United States. They try to preserve the integrity of competition , inspire true sport, and protect the rights of athletes. Drugs not allowed by the USADA include erythropoietin, anabolic steroids, stimulants, human growth hormone, and diuretics. The USADA collects urine and blood samples to test for drugs. They inform athletes of the results of their drug tests and also manage any potential anti-doping rule violations....
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...enhancing drugs such as steroids are essential to achieve success. “I’m on steroids, what do you think? Who do you think I am? I'm a baseball player, baseball players take steroids. How do you think Bonds hits all his home runs? How do you think all these guys do all this stuff? You think they do it from just working out normal?” This a letter a high school baseball player wrote to his father before committing suicide. Once again teens sustain in steroids to achieve excellence and it will ruin these kids lives. However since steroids has not been...
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...encourage or support them. Even the clean riders like myself and Moncout knew how easy it was to cheat the tests" (Millar). In Jeremy Rozansky's article "How to Think About Our Steroid Supermen" he discusses the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in sports and how the use of these drugs is unethical because it goes against the sportsmanship spirit of the game. Rozansky also talks about the many ways doping is dangerous and can compromise the health of the athletes involved. He states his opinion that doping in sports sends a bad message to children-that drugs make champions. While these are valid points, However, if PEDs in sports were allowed and regulated, not only would it help the athletes improve performance, it would also make doping safer for the athletes as limits could be set on how much an athlete can use/have in their system. By regulating doping in professional sports, not only would this help keep athletes from injuring themselves, it also has the potential of improving the entertainment of spectating the sports by leveling the playing field even more and allowing for even greater spectacular feats to occur. Lance Armstrong was a role model. Not only did he survive cancer, despite having brain and lung metastases, he came back to win the most grueling race in sports, the Tour de France, a record 7 times. He was an icon, but that time has passed. In Rozansky's article he argues that Lance, and other athletes like him, by choosing to use performance-enhancing...
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...PED use in Athletics Performance enhancing drugs have been used by athletes for decades. In ancient Greece, some of the earliest Olympians used substances in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. The drugs that they would use would either be plant seeds or extracts of mushrooms. Later in Rome, gladiators were known to have turned to drugs. The gladiators would dope for many different reasons, from dulling pain to creating a bloodier spectacle for viewers. In professional baseball, players like Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were called in front of Congress to discuss steroid use in baseball for two weeks. Congress insisted that steroids were ruining the sport and needed to be banned when, in reality, reported revenues were vastly increased during the steroid era. Congress also preached about a level playing field, but the New York Yankees have a payroll three times that of average teams so how fair can the league really be without a salary cap. This research paper is not on the fairness of baseball though; it is about why a person would choose to do PEDs and how it affects society. Looking at some of the influences presented; it is shown that winning is a major force, a motive and drive; going deeper into winning we conclude that money is one of the major rewards for winning. These are seen as endorsements, contracts, and advertisement opportunities that are very profitable and also sponsor individual players and teams in sports. These revenues influence and encourage individuals...
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...Portrayed in the Media – Steroids in Athletics: Good or Bad? Eng 204x Sullivan University Feb 5th 2012 Portrayed in the Media – Steroids in Athletics: Good or Bad? Every major sport in the world today has at least one thing in common: the athletes that play them will do almost anything to win. From cycling and snowboarding to the NFL and MLB, athletes have done whatever they had to over the years to win at any cost. It’s a pressure placed on them from the owners that pay them to the fans the pay to see them. Some feel that an athlete should be free to make the choices they want to make, as long as it’s safe and doesn’t hurt anyone else. In a society that strives for perfection, the use of anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs (from here on out known as P.E.D’s) has become common place. The uses of the enhancers and those that use them have been vilified over the years by the media and the watchdog groups that say that these things are “bad” and shouldn’t be allowed. On one side we have the athletes themselves that make these decisions knowing that they have to live with the results (good and bad) for the rest of their lives. On the other, we have the media, the pundits, and the critics who basically think the games are being ruined and the athletes are doing more harm than good by taking them. The controversy itself is not new. PED’s have been used since as early as the 1800’s. In the beginning they were used as a way for athletes to gain an edge over their...
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...(also known as PED) are legal and illegal substances used by professional athletes to enhance their performance. Performance enhancing drug use by professional athletes is a topic of medical, ethical, and social debate. PED usage by professional athletes has advocates arguing that the negative health consequences reported are grossly exaggerated and they contend that it’s an athlete’s personal decision to accept any potential harmful health hazards. They believe that performance enhancing drug usage is just part of a sport’s natural progression and nothing more than the incorporation of enhanced training approaches and new sport technologies. Additionally, they believe that the use of PED by professional athletes helps them to achieve the highest levels of athletic performance and puts a better product before the public. Opponents of performance enhancing drug use by professional athletes argue that their usage is extremely harmful, and possibly lethal to an athlete’s well-being. Such use makes a professional athlete a fraud, gaining an unfair competitive advantage, violating the competitive spirit of athleticism, and sending an immoral message to youngsters. Opponents further argue that the use of performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes is unethical behavior. PED use is one of the most controversial and talked-about issues in professional sports. The professional sports most impacted are baseball, basketball, and football, which give the PED topic a tremendous...
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...OUTLINE RESEARCH PAPER Can Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED) actually be positive and beneficial for Major League Baseball? “As the likes of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez saw their usage exposed, the sport fought back with tougher drug testing and after the 2005 season produced a program punitive enough to minimize the game's doping culture.” (Braun's test result gives MLB major jolt; With MVP under cloud, steroid era is revisited Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY), "Probably the biggest sentence to which he was subjected is the impact on whether he'll be a lock for the Hall of Fame and the stigma that is now attached to his name and his records."(Barry Bonds is sentenced in enduring BALCO saga; No end in sight to BALCO's reach by: Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY). Quotes like these could have been seen all over newspapers and magazines all throughout the past decade. Yes, these athletes did use Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED), but a debate has raged on about just how right are we to scrutinize them for those actions and just how inappropriate their actions were? With baseball professionals on both sides arguing how much of an impact they really had on the game. More so, I'd like to ask the question of whether what they had done was actually in a way good for baseball, and whether Performance Enhancing Drugs should even be banned from baseball? Which, I believe they shouldn’t be for numerous reasons. In order to understand just how...
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