By Brandon Sans

In life there is always someone who tries to get ahead. There are many different fields of work. When there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people who all share a common goal getting ahead seems almost inevitable. Professional basketball player Kevin Durant once said, “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” This is very true. However, today in sports no matter how hard a person can work they eventually have to rely on talent. Sometimes that isn’t even enough. Today in baseball athletes are trying to get ahead because they can produce better numbers which in turn will allow them to secure a big increase in their financial earnings.

Players will take steroids in order to produce better statistics because that is what helps them accomplish the bigger goals. That will do a number of things. When people suddenly do good things, people will take notice. It attracts a lot of media attention. The popularity for that player will steadily increase. That can only be good for that player. They get endorsement deals from companies that are worth millions of dollars. They also get more playing time in key situations. That is obvious. If they’re doing good the team will want to play them more often which even gives them more opportunities to play and increase their numbers. When you get more playing time you tend to starting getting recognition. These recognitions include: All Star Games, Silver Sluggers, Bonuses, and when they are really good they get MVP Awards and the Hall of Fame inductions. They take steroids in order to achieve personal gain and leave their mark in baseball lore.

The fact of the matter is very simple. All they care about is personal gain. That is life in the fullest. America is an individualistic country. What that means is that we care more about ourselves than others. The goal is to get ahead. Everyone wants to make millions of dollars. It is not that it just baseball players. You will find that in professions across the nation people are trying to maneuver and claw at their way to the top because it secures a better financial payday.

These players are putting serious risks on their bodies. They don’t realize what these drugs can do it them. At the expense of a few more bucks, they put their bodies at serious risks. Different drugs can cause different things to happen to the body. Some results of taking these banned substances are as followed: Cardiac Arrest, Drug overdose, Organ Failure, Death, and Drastic Physical Changes.

Drastic physical changes are the most common examples. For example, I give you Barry Bonds. Look at a photo from Bonds’ earlier playing days with the Pittsburgh Pirates to his tenure with the San Francisco Giants. You will notice a rapid increase in body mass over just a couple months. Also, take a look at Sammy Sosa. He is a black outfielder for the Chicago Cubs. It is widely accepted that Sosa took steroids during his playing days. Today he is now white. That is because of the effects that he knew that would happen by taking illegal steroids. Players have put their bodies at risk in order to get bigger paychecks and again, for person gain yet the consequences far outweigh the rewards.

Now we will explore some of the more known cases of players and their various links to steroids. People’s careers and legacies have been tarnished due to steroid usage or suspected usage. Some of the more famous ones are Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds. Bonds is the all –time home run leader. He has won a lot of MVP awards and numerous other awards. He was found guilty in front of the Supreme Court to have lied about taking steroids. He continued to deny that he was taken steroids. Clemens has won awards and is a very accomplished pitcher, having posted 354 wins and has won the Cy Young Award seven times. The facts are that we don’t know if that was him or if that was the steroids. Andy Petite, a Yankees pitcher, has stated that he has seen Clemens being injected with some sort of steroids in a private manor.  That has kept him out of the Hall of Fame so far. Finally, I give you Alex Rodriguez, the most hated man (excluding Miami owner Jeffrey Loria) in baseball today. He has always lied about taking steroids, then was caught, apologized, and then was caught again. He has cheated his way to many awards and accolades.

Steroids are can be a dangerous thing. Anything can depend how and why it is used. Baseball has been around for over a hundred years. Most of the players have probably never done steroids. What really hurts is the lack of motivation and selfishness. Every player that has been in this paper does have talent. They all could have been amazing baseball players. They all were. People would love to have the natural ability to do what they do making the money that they make. Again as humans we want to collect for ourselves. What we don’t realize is sometimes to get to the top; we hurt more than we think. A professional baseball player is a hero, a role model if you will. Instead of abusing the power that they possess they should own up and stop using bad things or they can risk the termination of America’s Pastime. The game we love. The game I love. Baseball.