Despite being banned from Major League Baseball in 1991, official league wide testing did not occur until 2003. MLB experienced a dramatic hike in home runs and offense in general throughout the 1990’s until it began to decline slowly over the past few years as more and more players got caught. It turned off fans, lost millions of young viewers, and basically destroyed two decades of history of America’s pastime. Everyone has their different opinion on what sports represents, by in our opinion sports represents “discipline, integrity, and hard work”. However, with four new allegations coming out this year after one in 2011 and two in 2010, are we seeing the flagrant disregard for the rules of the game once more?
We've have a hard time believing that an overweight, out of shape pitcher who was consistently losing velocity on his pitches all the sudden gets it back. Apparently the Oakland A’s thought so, enough for the small-market team to take a chance on him in hoping the risk/reward would pay off. Or Melky Cabrera “rededicating” himself and all of the sudden now is making his first All-Star appearance in 2012 despite having never made one previously in his seven year career. All breakouts are not flukes, but given the way these and others in the past have, it is hard to believe who is juicing and who is not. There has been a lot of talk about how football is at a crossroads given the amount of concussions and other gruesome long term injuries suffered while playing in the game, but what about this crisis in baseball? Baseball is arguably in its worse it has ever been, and it cannot survive another crisis.
In our opinion, no sport is immune to fans coming and going, whether they like or not. Baseball may not be around 50 years from now, and if it isn’t, we have all of these so called “role models” of the game to thank. Imagine seeing the expressions of those who elevated the game to help get the game to the top of the mountain with their accomplishments such as Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris, and Jackie Robinson. There is no way all of them wouldn’t have their head shaking back and forth in shame.
Zachary Bigger & Heather Kraus