Steroids in Baseball

Even though they help make you better, steroids in baseball should be illegal because it is cheating and it hurts the athlete. Steroids have become very popular in sports in the recent years and even more popular in Major League Baseball. Anabolic Steroids are artificially produced hormones that are the same as, or similar to, androgens, the male-type sex hormones in the body. Baseball players use these steroids to “bulk up” and become bigger, faster, and stronger. In recent years they have become popular and there has been much discussion over weather or not steroids should be illegal. Now, these days, steroid have become illegal but new drugs are being made so that it is untraceable in testing. Even though not many players have been found for performance enhancing drugs, many of them are on steroids. They usually do not think twice about the side effects and just take them just to get bigger, faster, and stronger. New programs are being developed to educate to players about steroids so they do not make the wrong choice in taking them.

The main reason steroids should be illegal is because it hurts the athlete. Steroids cause physical and mental side effects that hurt the athlete. They both have short term and long term effects. Physically, steroids can mess your body up. Major side effects can include body acne, trembling, hair loss, high blood pressure, shrinking of testicles, and kidney and liver tumors (NIDA). Some mental effects that steroids can cause are aggression, extreme mood swings, and depression (NIDA). These mental side effects can affect your relationships with other players, coaches, and even your family. Both physical and mental side effects can ruin your chances of playing in the major league and even ruin your chances of playing baseball all together. Over one million American seek short cuts to larger muscles and greater endurance with anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

Steroids are drugs that act like chemical in the body. Most steroids are transformed into testosterone when they enter the body. Testosterone is a male growth hormone. While user may gain short-term results, they are seriously shortchanging their health. Some of the ill effects of the drugs are damage to the kidneys and liver. A person can also alter the balance of the natural hormones. This can cause detrimental affects to the body. The effects of you natural hormones being out of balance can last several years after being off the drugs. Some male user form breasts due to the use of steroids. Because of the increase in testosterone, steroids can cause serious acne problems. When used by teens it can cause stunted growth. Other side effects include genital changes, water retention, yellow eyes, coronary artery disease, ligament injuries, high blood pressure, and changes in cholesterol levels, sterility and liver disease. The list goes on and on. Women that use steroids run the risk of male pattern baldness. Some effects of steroids are even worse. Some people fall into comas after injecting the drugs, some may even die from the injections.

Another reason steroids should be illegal is because it is cheating. Success in sports takes talent, skill, and most of all practice and hard work. Using steroids is a form of cheating and interferes with fair competition (AAP). Steroids give the player an unfair advantage by enhancing his performance. It increases your strength, agility, and endurance. These attributes let the player last longer and have less of an injury probability when the long lasting season gets towards the end. Steroids keep the player strong when other players are tired from the long season. Baseball is America’s national past time and steroids are just changing the game make it more of a power game then a strategic game. Now days, you see more homeruns and less sacrifices during a regular game. You see less team work and more single player stats being look at. Baseball first started in the mid-1800’s as game for people to play and have fun in. From then until a few years ago it has continued that way until drugs known as steroids popped into the hands of players. Once a player leaves his college dorm and gets off his college baseball team and heads out to play for the MLB, his views start to change. He joins the baseball team in college to play as a team. He has on view in mind and that is to do his best and to win for his school. He is playing for his school, not himself and has the time of his life. Their view changes in an instant once they enter the major leagues. Baseball suddenly converts from a sport based on fun and teamwork to the