Introduction
Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Baseball are American icons of summer. Baseball is also known as America’s favorite pastime. Many kids start playing baseball in the streets, school-yard, or on formed T-Ball and Little Leagues as young as 3 or 4 years old and will play well into adulthood. Satchel Paige was the oldest Major League Baseball (MLB) player. He retired at the age of 59 (Satchel, n.d.).
In recent years America’s favorite pastime has lost integrity and is under a black cloud of suspicion. Baseball players appear to be super-human with better batting averages, faster pitching, breaking world records, and even their body size appears to be bigger. All of these pieces ...view middle of the document...
The new disciplinary actions for players are; with the first positive test player will receive a 10-day suspension and their name is released to the public. If there is a second positive test player receives 30 days suspension, for the third the player receives 60 days suspension, and if there is a fourth positive test the player is suspended for one year. All suspensions are without pay (Drug Policy, 2014).
Steroid Usage and the Physical Effects on the Body
The choice the player has made to use performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids, has detrimental effects on their bodies and negative impact on their reputations and careers.
Anabolic steroids developed in the 1950’s are synthetic drugs and have been used by athletes to enhance their performance and build muscles (Leshner, n.d.). Anabolic steroids are drugs that imitate the effects of male hormone testosterone and are taken illegally to increase muscle mass and improve athletic performance. Testosterone is the most widely used anabolic steroid and is utilized as the foundation for many synthetic steroids. Testosterone enhanced anabolic steroids can provide very substantial results in minimal time. They provide greater strength and endurance, bigger muscles, and allow players to train more frequently because the steroids allow a quicker recovery time (Solberg, 2011).
Steroid usage is not only illegal, but it has serious side effects to the body and body systems. A person who utilizes steroids can experience increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, liver problems, hepatic cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, blood clotting, hypertension, and bacterial endocarditis. Men and women can develop acne, loss of hair, enlarged breasts in men, and masculinized bodies for women. High doses of steroids have been known to be responsible for fighting, physical abuse, sexual abuse, armed robbery, and vandalism. Also reported to reduce sperm count, create impotence, and pain with urination for men (Leshner, n.d.).
With the symptoms, side effects, and penalties for usage players continue to use the steroids. So it would be safe to say baseball players suffer from ethical egoism and utilitarian theories. They tend to act in their own self-interest, don’t want interference by others, and minimize the harm of the steroids by maximizing the results of their playing statistics (Jennings, 2012, pp. 12-13). For example, in 2001 MLB gave brochures stating the negative effects of steroid usage. The literature stated that “your [xxx] [testicles] might shrink and your breast may grow” (Thompson et al., 2009, p. 36).
In the book American Icon, the authors use Roger Clemens as an example of a MLB player suffering from side effects of steroid usage. The book points out that due to the usage of steroids Roger Clemens developed “man boobs” or gynecomastia as the technical term (Thompson et al., 2009, p. 36). Allegedly, Roger Clemens did not change clothes or shower when the other players were...
