Babe Ruth: Steroids In American Sports

In 1889, Bud Galvin became the first man to use steroids in american sports when he tried to inject hormones from animals into himself. “Charles Brown-Sequard's "Elixir of Life," which became the earliest known performance enhancing drug in American professional sports when Pud Galvin of the Pittsburgh Alleghenys used it in 1889” (VICE). Since then steroids have been a staple in american sports, especially the game of baseball. When people think of the best player in baseball many people will say without even thinking about, Babe Ruth, the great yankee slugger who hit close to 720 homeruns in what people will call the dead ball era. Babe Ruth, however may have been using some sort of performance enhancing drug when he was still playing with

Steroids use at its prime during the late 80’s spanned from pitchers to big meathead clean up hitters. During the late 80’s early 90’s MLB saw a curiously high increase in Home Runs, especially in 1997, Roger Maris home run record was broken 2 time. “From 1998–2001, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa, hit sixty home runs a combined seven times”(NYC Local). This season long home run derby was actually beneficial to the game as popularity shot up and more fans started to show up to more games. This happened because people wanted to come and watch 450 foot moonshots, which is why MLB turned its back on the rumors, and yes they more the likely knew what was going on but when you're bringing in money and more fans than ever then why try to regulate

The win at all cost attitude certainly plays a part in the evolution of steroids. It can give players an advantage in whatever sport they participate in, a decided unfair advantage. Major League Baseball is widely known for having the strictest drug policy in all of professional sports. The first positive test is an automatic 80 game suspension. A second positive test results in a 162 game suspension. A third positive is a lifetime ban from baseball. Even with the testing there will be players willing to risk it all to become a superstar. In the end, someone’s natural ability should be their way to the top. Major League Baseball is known as “America's Pastime and the integrity of the game is much more important than artificially inflated