Baseball

The issue concerning steroid use in baseball has been an ongoing issue for Major League Baseball since the mid 1990's. Steroids, which are performance-enhancing drugs, have been banned from baseball. Although rumors of steroid use by baseball players have persisted for years, the controversy has grown considerably due to the drastic rise in home runs since 1995.

Many Major League Baseball players have come forth and spoken about steroid use in baseball. David Wells, currently a pitcher for the Padres, stated that 25 to 40 percent of all Major Leaguers use steroids. Jose Conseco stated on 60 minutes and in his book Juiced that 85% of players used steroids, and that he credited steroids for his entire baseball career. Steroid use in professional baseball is of major concern to many people for different reasons. For some, it becomes an issue of ethics and integrity. The game should be about individual and team talent and success through hard work and dedication, not drugs. For others it becomes a concern of health. According to many studies, use of such performance-enhancing drugs is extremely detrimental to ones health. Use of these drugs would give the wrong impression to those individuals who idolize Major League Baseball players.

The nutrition center BALCO, was accused of distributing steroids to many star players. Baseball has attempted to toughen its drug policy, beginning a plan of random tests to players. Players were handed suspensions as short as ten days, however a Congressional panel continued to argue that the penalties were not tough enough, and took action.

The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), created in 1953, is the union of professional major league baseball players. The MLBPA was initially opposed to random steroid testing, claiming it to be a violation of the privacy of the players. However after enormous negative publicity surrounding the involvement of several star players in the BALCO steroid scandal, the players dropped their opposition to a steroid testing program and developed an agreement that favored testing.

Grand jury testimony in the BALCO case reported that several MLB stars were using steroids. This created a public perception that steroids were a serious problem in MLB. The union and owners both decided that it would be in baseball's best interest to develop a new policy. The January 2005 steroid agreement was seen by both sides as in their interest. The threat of Congressional action convinced both labor and management to establish the November 2005 steroid policy, as otherwise Congress could and would have taken the matter into their own hands to change the labor agreement.

Many top players were summoned on March 17, 2005 to testify in front of Congress. The committee had stated that baseball had failed to confront the problems of performance-enhancing drugs. The committee was concerned by the accepted use of steroids by athletes because it created a bad persona of players who in many cases were role models to the youth. Many youthful athletes following in the footsteps of the professionals had committed suicide after using performance-enhancing drugs. This brought the issue to an entirely different level. Something had to done to effectively alleviate the problems occurring.

As a result of pressure from Congress, baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association began applying stricter regulations and applied a zero tolerance policy in connection to performance enhancing drugs. Policies were issued at the start of the 2005 season and went as follows:

A first positive test resulted in a suspension of ten games, a second positive test resulted in a suspension of 30 games, the third positive test resulted in a suspension of 60 games, the fourth positive test resulted in a suspension of one full year, and a fifth positive test resulted in a penalty at the commissioner's discretion. Players were tested at least once per year, with the chance that several players could get tested many times per year.

Although these agreed upon negotiations was a step in the right direction it was still being criticized. Many believed that penalties were not strict enough. Year round random testing was also not in place. This gave players who