24
2012
PEDs – Major League Baseball’s Incurable Disease
An article by 
With two player’s testing positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs in the past two weeks, it is as clear as ever that PEDs are still an issue with Major League Baseball.
Nobody should be surprised about the two latest positive test results. I listened to an interview of a player not too long ago (the player’s name slips my mind right now), but he said at one point he believed that 90% of players were on some sort of PED. That’s nine out of ten players! Shouldn’t it be the other way around? It was so prevalent in the game, to think the problem would just go away with a snap of the fingers, was not realistic.
The bottom line is that when money is at stake, there will always be people looking to gain an advantage. It doesn’t matter what business they’re in, they will do whatever it takes, even if it involves breaking the rules. On Wall Street, there is insider information. In casinos, people try to count cards. In school, students pay other students to take their SAT exams. Let’s face it, cheating is happening all around us. There are rules in place to try and limit the amount of cheating, but where there are rules, you will always have people willing to bend those rules. They will bend them, to the point of breaking them, in order to gain an advantage.
The reason why baseball will never be able to rid itself of this disease of PEDs is because there is just too much money at stake for these players. The people that produce these drugs understand that. Let’s not forget that they are in business for themselves as well. If they want to stay in business, they have to stay ahead of the curve with masking agents to counteract the testing for PEDs.
Let’s look at it from a player’s perspective. Hypothetically speaking, if you had to pay someone $1 million to mask your PED usage, but you were being paid $10 million per year due to your enhanced performance on PEDs, but without PEDs, you might only make $4 million per year due to lower performance, which would you choose? If the player invests $1 million to cover up the PED usage, their salary increases by $5 million. Not a bad investment. Now factor into the equation that other players are already doing this. Your performance when you are not using PEDs looks so inferior when compared to your peers on PEDs, that you may lose your job. Would you consider PEDs now? It’s easy to see why this is so tempting for players (not that I would ever condone it).
Baseball has to accept the fact that PEDs will always be around as long as large amounts of money are at stake. It’s just human nature to try and gain a competitive edge, and this is survival of the fittest to the extreme. The only way to rid baseball of this disease would be to come up with a vaccine, not a band-aid. This isn’t a boo-boo, it’s a disease. The testing and subsequent 50 game ban that comes with a positive test result today, is merely a band-aid for the problem. The fact that people are still being caught is proof of that. The penalty of a positive test result is still not serious enough to deter a player from taking the risk of using PEDs, especially when seeking out a multi-million dollar contract.
The vaccine, and ultimate end of PEDs as we know them, would be a lifetime ban from baseball if caught using PEDs. Give all cheaters the Pete Rose treatment. That is the stance that Major League Baseball and the MLBPA should take if they really want to put an end to PED use. Some cases of PED use would still rear their heads from time to time, even if a lifetime ban hangs in the balance. No matter how harsh the penalty, there will always be people willing to push the envelope. But if a lifetime ban doesn’t put a stop to all PED use, then I don’t think anything will.
About the Author: Mitch Petanick
Mitch is currently an Editor and Minor League Analyst for Mets Merized Online. His baseball experience includes being a former All-Conference collegiate baseball player who had numerous professional tryouts, and he is currently a hitting instructor. He has been involved with the game of baseball for over 30 years now as a player, coach, and consultant. Mitch is also a former Featured Columnist on Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @FirstPitchMitch.
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let all of them use them , they should pump themselves up and give us a good show
I think the punishments are stiff enough. Cabrera is going to lose millions for getting caught.
The real problem isn’t the pros. It is high school and college kids. This is where it starts. You’ve got coaches, “advisers” (agents), teammates, and some instances parents getting these kids pressuring them to perform, turning a blind eye and even acquiring the stuff for them.
All this pearl clutching and fake outrage is just a show. MLB doesn’t want PEDs to go away, they just want the bad publicity to go. Until someone with some power stops the needless drama and takes a look at the issue coldly and objectively, it will never get solved.
Good stuff as usual Mitch….
I wonder how many people if told they could get a shot, or Drink some nasty tasting mishake and get thier Salary doubled with the only caveat being if you get caught you get suspended for two months wihout pay would actually do it?
I bet most of them! Cause the Japanese are right we are basically a lazy shortcut lovin people! LOL
Alex made a very good point here…
Let them all take them!
You see as much as we lament what they do to the records the truth is we don’t own the records that get affected the Players do! We are not the one who gets a lesser product or have our salary reduced as a result of the PED usage!
The party that is hurt the most by thier use are the same ones who fight against testing and bannings! The MLBPA! All we really need to do is stop caring about the record books in any year past the invention of Steroids!
Let the MLBPA be responsible for paying the high health care costs to take care of these soon to be crippled with a myriad of other health issues users and bankrupt thier health plan or be denied health insurance because of thier activities and high risk.
The players are the only ones who TRULY get hurt as a result of these practices and we should not spend all this time trying to save them from themseleves!
This whole testing regimen is dishonest if you ask me…No one in baseball really wants to stop PEDs. The owners want the production. The players want to be able to take something in walk years to boost thier salary for the next few years.
Cabrera stood to gain not just a raise but a raise for the next 3 or 4 years! Add it up and I bet many here would think about taking that risk too. Especially if Millions are involved.
It’s what is going to happen whenever you base yor pay structure on a merit system.
Tell teachers that they will get paid based on the scores of thier students they will simply make the tests easier for everyone to get the grades and pay raised to meet the merit!
Or worse help facilitate the cheating on tests so everyone passes!
At some point I even see teams looking for ways to beat the system in order to keep the players they think they need and who wins games for them.
In the end the only ones who can stop the PED usage is the player’s union. They stand to lose the most by the usage, Their constituents are he ones who suffer from the use or by the lack of use while others are using.
They have to suffer the care of these players long after thier ability to earn for the union is long gone.
Congress really isn’t interested in stopping it either. If they were they would close down any manufacturer who made a supplement that had any affect on steroids and put them out of business permanently. But we all know that isn’t happening.
And as much as we scorn the use of PEDs the truth is there ARE legitimate uses of them that are currently denied that probably should be allowed under certain circumstances.
I’m sure if they came to the decision that using them during injury rehab under a doctors supervision provided they passed a test without any elevated levels before they were allowed to play a game would be fine to most people.
In cases where the steroids were prescribed by a doctor for other ailments would require a case by case review but I’m sure there are instances where it could be allowed.
What thier usage tells me though is this….
Teams are still rewarding those traditional stats that PEDs increase more than they value the new darlings sabermetrics are needed to find.
When you base you pay on Merit someone will always try to increase the merit under any means available to them.
And until the VICTIMS of PEDs realizes this and makes a concerted effort to stop them they will remain a part of baseball and a problem.
Donal has a point about the young players being hurt most by PEDs. Growing up as children, I remember being told that lifting weights was bad for your baseball career. When I was in college, the home run race between McGwire and Sosa comes along, and changed our views about lifting weights. Everyone was hitting the weight rooms trying to get as jacked as they could. Scouts were looking for guys that looked like bodybuilders, and we were all trying to impress the scouts. I remember taking Creatine like it was going out of style. I even knew some guys that were using steroids. My weight ballooned. I got bulkier muscles. But because of that bulk, I wasn’t able to play the game the way I did before I put on the weight. I ended up doing more bad than good. I didn’t realize that you couldn’t put on that much muscle weight, in such a short period of time, and keep your athleticism. Now I have a better understanding of how those guys were able to do that.
No denying that Mitch…
But thats why we need to stop putting these freaks of athletic nature up as role models to our kids and start encouraging them to emulate much better aspects of humanity than hitting a ball far or running fast.
Kids tend to try and do what you encourage them to do! (that is until they are 15 and do the opposite you encourage them to do! LOL) We need to stop putting these athletes up as some sort of Hero and then they won’t put so much effort into being like them.
Probably never going to happen due to human nature but it’s my experience that denying someone something they percieve as needed never works!
And at some point you have to wonder when the Thinning the Herd option isn’t the best way to go.
Like I said if the country as a whole was really interested in stopping the use of steroids they would ban the manufacture of them at the source so there is no way for people to get anything to use.
There is no committment there to do that!
Maybe because there are some legitimate uses for them but we seem to throw the baby out with the bath water in that regard.
The kids are most definitly a concern but thats only because they want to be like thier heroes.
If we considered a Science teacher a Hero instead they would all be scientists.
Its a problem with our society. We have made such a big thing about Roids that even if a kid had no intention or thought of using them we have so publicized thier use that they know and get curious!
Curiosity is what kills that cat!
Same for any drug you can think of!
Don’t smoke Pot and what is the first thing they do when they get near it? Try it to see what the hubbub is all about!
We are a society that is in constant search of the magic pill that cures all things for us!
And if there was one to increase your salary even at the risk of losing two months of pay everyone would take it!
Just to be clear I don’t support using PEDs just saying that we are not going to stop it via simple penalties unless that penalty is a lifetime ban and we get serious about thier manufacture!
And barring that happening the only way to stop it is to let it get so bad with such dire consequences that are apparent to everyone, that people come to thier own conclusion that is simply isn’t worth it.
I’m trying to figure out what you’re trying to say. Are you advocating just let them use steroids and PEDs? Kind of like the lets legalize marijuana movement?