
Trending News Monday: MLB Protecting the Purity of Baseball
As Major League Baseball (MLB) suspended 13 players today, they are attempting to protect the purity of the game (and enforcing punishment for those who use illegal and banned performance enhancing substances).
After the news of the suspensions broke earlier today, top trends on Twitter included the MLB’s fifth all-time home run hitter, Alex Rodriguez (#AlexRodriguez and #Arod), who received the MLB’s heftiest suspension. While some think Rodriguez’s 211 game suspension is drastic and harsh, they must consider the MLB’s stance. The league displayed its dedication to enforcing penalties on those who test positive for illegal substances and sent a message to current and future players that the league is taking this issue seriously. Not unlike a Suburban Chicago Catholic School who is using its authority to crack down on illegal drug use and alcohol consumption, the MLB is simply not allowing people who are a part of their organization to take part in certain conduct without consequences.
At the end of the day, the performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are illegal, and Rodriguez as well as the other 12 players who were suspended knew that. However, they chose to use and the MLB practiced its right to enforce punishments. The 12 other players suspended today agreed to 50-game suspensions, Rodriguez– whose suspension would carry through the 2014 baseball season– is the only one to appeal. Rodriguez is eligible to play until his appeal is heard, according to the New York Times.
[poll id=”37″]
For decades, illegal performance enhancing substances have been changing the game and tarnishing the purity of America’s past-time despite efforts by the MLB to end the trend. Back in the 1998, the Chicago Cub’s Sammy Sosa (who anonymously tested positive for steroids in 2003) and St. Louis Cardinal’s Mark McGuire (who admitted to using PEDs) battled for the home run record; in 2007, Berry Bonds (also linked to PEDs) broke Hank Aaron’s record for most career home runs. The record stands at 762—and some sports analysts have predicted Rodriguez will break that record (he has 553 career home runs). As they have not been stripped of their records, perhaps the only purity left in the game is that Sosa, McGuire and Bonds have not (yet) been voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Cover Photo Source: Keith Allison via Flickr
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://wpmaster.sjadv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Cassandra-Bremer-Our-Space-Photo-e1402061863316.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Cassandra is a Content Manager and Developer at SJG. She earned her BA from Fontbonne University in 2011. Outside the office, she enjoys an active, healthy and well-rounded lifestyle including reading, writing, running, golfing, watching films, listening to music, taking photographs, and consuming media and social media.[/author_info] [/author]