The recent disclosures about steroid use in baseball made me wonder-has this been going on for a long time? take 1919-the “black” sox scandel (Chicago players paid to throw games). plus, performance-enhancing drugs have been around for a long time.
So, are the recent disclosures anything new? 
I’m not sure I understand the question. Are you referring specifically to the use of performance-enchancing drugs?
If so, then yes, it has been going on for quite some time. Amphetamines have been commonly used by major league baseball players at least as far back as the late 1950s and early 1960s. Steroids probably did not become popular until the early-1980s, since prior to that baseball players generally didn’t do strength training.
The revelations of the Mitchell Report were not a surprise; it was already public knowledge that over five percent of players tested positive for steroids in 2003, a number of players had been suspended for it, and the cat was clearly out of the bag for many star players.
nooooo
Is baseball corrupt? Well, they recently stacked the Veterans’ Committee to get Bowie Kuhn into the Hall of Fame. Kuhn, aside from his disastrously failed efforts at union-busting, was a mediocrity as Commissioner of Baseball.
Yeah, baseball’s corrupt.
Now comes the obvious question: what is “Baseball”?
The Hall of Fame doesn’t belong to Major League Baseball. It’s a charitable trust.
So when you say “baseball,” does that mean Major League Baseball? The Hall of Fame? The owners? The player’s association? Surely you don’t mean the sport itself, in which amateur, recreational play vastly outnumbers professional play in terms of the number of participants?
And what’s “corrupt,” exactly?
There were so many steroid users, and even more that were not listed due to lack of evidence that can’t we just start new… starting now? Make it a new beginning… we can’t possibly punish so many players when we all know the MBL turned a blind eye for so long at this problem.
Baseball itself cannot be corrupt. Only those involved who try to “fix” games, or use performance enhancing drugs make it look corrupt.
And if you’re going to ask if Baseball is corrupt due to drugs and fixing, you’ll need to include all sports in the question. I’m sure football is big on the drug-enhancements. A piss test doesn’t mean anything and are easy as shit to circumvent.
Like the sport has any integrity left. Twenty years from now it’ll be the WWE.
The New York Smackdown’s very own AAAAAAAAAAAA ROD! Will be facing off against The Boston Raw Sox’s Big Bad Battlin’ Ortiz in the Homerun Iron Cage Match!
Well, professional baseball is a monopoly. The team owners don’y have to open their books-they are not public corporations. The whole setip is weird-the government appoints a baseball commisioner-to overseee a monopoly which puts the team owner’s profits/interests firts. Meanwhile, the taxpayers get fleeced-we pay for tax breaks, new stadiums, infrastruture-and then we pay to watch the games!
I would prefer baseball to be run like any other public business-open the books!
Say what? MLB appoints the commissioner.
Blame local and state governments for that. If they didn’t want the teams to stay they wouldn’t pay. They aslo do it for football, basketball, and hockey, none of which have the same monopoly issues, so the complaint would appear unrelated.
I have watched the Detroit Pistons for years. I got disgusted by what I saw as unfair refereeing. I quit watching when they changed the playoff rules to allow the chosen ones to attack the basket without defense. When it came out that a ref was guilty and over half the others were guilty of some transgressions (which are still covered up), I was justified.
My son follows basketball much closer than I do. When he saw who was refereeing our game ,he would say we can’t win this game. He knew from observation who was going to screw us over. That is corruption.
Baseball is at least level. Nearly everybody was doing something. HGH is untracaeble without a blood test. They will not giveup blood. It remains a problem.
Football is full of HGH and steroids, Everybody knows that. Yet baseball is a problem.
I guess “corruption” is in the eye of the beholder.
A 2004 poll, for example, showed 61% of fans wanting lifetime bans for players who test positive. A similar 2005 poll had 2/3 of respondents banning players from the HoF after a single positive test. Congress–always interested in grandstanding–has scheduled more hearings for January.
Frankly, the fan reaction over performance-enhancing drugs in the sport is, IMO, a little overblown. Let me be clear in that statement; it doesn’t mean I’m in favor of steroid use among professional athletes. However, as players’ stories emerge we’re beginning to see a less sinister side to the issue (makes you think the union strategy of not cooperating with the Mitchell report was a huge PR mistake). Andy Pettite and others admit to using HGH as a way to recover from injuries, while Brian Roberts admits to using steroids briefly, but concluded it wasn’t for him (take that for what it’s worth). These aren’t necessarily the blatant acts of irredeemable cheaters, a natural assumption whenever “steroids” and an athlete’s name are mentioned in the same sentence.
There is a problem here, no doubt, one that needs to be fixed. But some fans are IMO too much in love with the pastoral, 19th-century version of the game, one that never really existed (or at least it ignores some of the ugly details). And IMO, the issue provides fans an excuse to vent other, more emotional criticisms they have about the game. Let’s face it: A number of fans are jealous that MLB athletes are paid colossal salaries to play a game they themselves would play for nothing. That jealousy is fueling some of their outrage about steroids.
Of course, baseball is the most corrupt major sport in America. It has a culture of cheating that is part of it’s appeal to some. Look at all the pine tar, spitballs, and so forth that MLB players/coaches are always trying to get away with. You don’t see that sort of thing to that extent in other sports. Of course, hockey and the NCAA have their own foibles, but it’s not so ingrained as in baseball.
Even the umpires in the M.L.B. are resistant to enforcing the strike zone as is defined on the books. Japanese umpires are notorious for setting differing strike zones for foreign players.
The N.F.L., N.H.L., and N.B.A. effectively operate as monopolies as well.
No offense, but this quote proves beyond any doubt or question that your level of ignorance on this subject is almost total. This is very much akin to saying that a standard major league game is fourteen innings long, or that the man who pitches the ball is called a quarterback. We are here to fight ignorance, not invent it.
I’m also curious as to how Major League Baseball is a monopoly, but the other leagues or not. Yes, I know MLB has a Congressional exemption from antitrust law, but there is nothing about MLB and the way it is run that is different from the NFL, NBA, or NHL.
Major League Baseball is NOT a government-sanctioned or enforced monopoly. In any meaningful sense it’s not a monopoly at all, since it competes with other forms of sports-related entertainment for the consumer’s dollar. If you would like to start a competing professional baseball league you can start one up tomorrow. There is no law against it. You will likely fail because you would need billions upon billions of dollars to construct such a league. Even if you HAD billions and billions of dollars, you will still likely fail, for the same reason the USFL failed and the WHL failed; at this point there is so much history and legitimacy that ties into the existing structure of pro baseball - we are talking about a professional sports organization that started when Ulysses S. Grant was the President - that fans will see a competing league as being a pale imitation of the existing league. (In one of the recent “Family Feud” threads, the question “Name a Hall of Fame athlete” was answered “Babe Ruth” by 80% of respondents. Bear in mind that Babe Ruth last played a major league game in 1935 and has been dead for almost sixty years. This is a sport with a LOT of history.)
The only way you could succeed is if there were a number of very large un-served cities for baseball where the offering of big league sports could overcome the stigma of being “the USFL of baseball.” That’s how the AFL and ABA managed to get along long enough to surrender on good terms to their bigger cousins. (Actually, to a limited extent, it’s also why we have Major League Baseball, instead of just the National League.) But there aren’t a bunch of those cities anymore.
Owners are businessmen not necessarily fans. If they strongarm the people into buying a stadium for a multi millionaire the team is suddenly worth much more money. Io do not recall an owner dropping prices or giving any back. They do what makes more money. They do not just hope the big market teams win. They influence it in any way they can.
I see baseball a little less corrupt than other sports. A steroid and HGH test in fNFL ootball would result in highschoolers being suited up.
But I see it as none of our business what a player does to play better. It is their choice.
But in another sense it is absolutely a monopoly. It’s all about how you define the market. If your definition is “professional baseball clubs,” then the M.L.B. has all the characteristics of a monopoly – it controls prices, it controls market entry. You simply cannot be a successful professional baseball club unless you are admitted to the M.L.B. This is sharp contrast to some European soccer leagues, for example, which set criteria for membership and allow any club so qualified to join and compete.
Whatever we choose to pay for is our business. You mean we’re obligated to view or attend games regardless of whether we believe that doping violates the spirit of athletic competition? I really am not interested in the athletic feats of a steroid freak, any more than if you set up a bazooka on the mound to show me what a great pitcher it is. And if the majority of the public has similar demands, then it is in the interest of the owners and players to accede to such concerns if they want to continue collecting consumers’ money and being gifted with taxpayer supported venues.
Quaint idea, the spirit of athletic competition. It has been gone a long time.
I played racketball with a guy who was a former big ten linebacker. I asked him what his school stance on steroids was. He said they had none. But , when he came to play guys he whipped in highschool were suddenly 40 lbs heavier and a couple tenths faster. He had to decide how badly he wanted to play. He could not compete clean and he knew it.
If they had 2 olympics ,one clean one steroidal, which one would draw viewers. The one with record breaking performances.