Anabolic Steroids In Professional Baseball

The Use of Anabolic Steroids in Professional Baseball

A steroid is classified as a large class of organic compounds with a characteristic molecular structure containing four rings of carbon atoms (Duax, Weeks &Rohrer, 1976). Steroids are used to treat specific types of conditions in which the body 's defense systems are no longer working properly and cause tissue damage. People who suffer from these types of conditions are often treated with a steroid called Corticosteroids: This can be given intravenously or by mouth and are considered the first line of treatment for certain inflammatory conditions. Inflammation can cause irreversible damage to the body’s organs; steroids can be used to save these organs and in many instances

“One of the health risks involved with the use of steroids is the effect they have on the brain. Unlike some abusive drugs, steroids do not cause immediate effects on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is responsible for the “high” one gets while using drugs for recreation. Long-term use of steroids, however, can result in disrupting some brain pathways and chemicals including dopamine and opioid systems. If this occurs then steroid users can develop aggression, which is where the term “roid-rage” comes from, along with other psychiatric problems, which scientists term as a “psychosomatic state” (Fahey, 1998). The heart is an area of major concern for steroid abusers. The abuse of anabolic steroids can lead to the enlargement of the heart, which can cause severe problems. Other health risks include: w problems with the kidneys, liver, blood pressure and cholesterol. Kidney problems could lead to kidney failure and liver failure, which ultimately could lead to death. These risks are specific to an individual and are also dependent on the age and sex of the

These players were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. It was a magical summer in 1998. McGwire and Sosa launched baseballs out of ballparks routinely. To everyone’s delight McGwire and Sosa went back and forth taking the home run lead from each other to chase down the most well-known record in sports. The spectacle made people forget about the fact there was a baseball strike in 1994. Baseball was back and bigger than ever, unfortunately for everyone, scandal unfolded. While everyone got caught up in the fun during that unforgettable summer of 1998 there were still skeptics behind the huge emergence of the long ball. A lot of people blamed the surge on a harder ball. The ball was said to be harder making it easier to hit home runs. It was a legitimate answer for the questions everyone was asking, “Why is one of the hardest sports records to touch all of a sudden being shattered by two players in the same season?” Jeff Passan senior yahoo sports writer stated, not only were those two players hitting home runs, everyone was hitting home runs. In 1999 Mark McGwire would hit another 65 home runs, Sosa would finish with 63, everyone was left to wonder why this was becoming such a common accomplishment? Sixty was the new fifty, and fifty was the forty. Nobody could keep the ball in the park. In 2001 Barry Bonds would hit a record setting 73 home runs. By this point