Players Using PED’s in the 60’s and 70’s are Why Players in the Modern Era Who Use Steroids are Banned from Baseball

Many players used some type of PEDs in the 60s and 70s. It was a very common thing that more than half the players were using it. Have any of them ever been suspended or banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame? The answer is no. Much less players have used PEDs in the modern Era (Last 25 years). Some still do, but almost nothing compared to the 60s and 70s. Have any of the modern players been suspended or banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame? The answer is almost all of them. It is clear that there is something that caused the MLB to take a stand and start disciplining their players for using PEDs. What could have been the trigger? Why did Major League Baseball ignore it for so long and then all of a sudden start taking charge and giving players consequences?

It is believed by some that they did not ignore it at all. It is very possible that the MLB had no idea it was going on. There would have definitely been suspicions in the 60s and 70s, but nobody really knew what PEDs were so they did not investigate. As time went on, and more players were inducted into the hall of fame, guys like Hank Aaron and Tom House admitted to using “Greenies,” a form of PEDs that made a player more focused. They were amphetamines. Tom House said, “If other guys were beating you with what they were using, then you moved up and found something better.” It is known that more than half of the Braves team and most likely most of many other teams were all utilizing some form of PEDs at the time. With this information, it is prevalent that many guys that are in the Baseball Hall of Fame have used things like “Greenies” or other forms of PEDs. Yet there has never been any kind of sanction for them. They are allowed to be in the Hall of Fame, yet guys from the Modern Era who have used PEDs are not allowed into the Hall of Fame. It does not make much sense to allow the older guys, but not the newer ones who all cheated. Why is it like this? Why are the newer guys no longer allowed in?

Some people may say that the older guys that used PEDs ruined it for the new Guys. The baseball hall of fame is chock full of guys who cheated their way along, but not a lot of that is known by the general public. That is because media was not as big and easy to access back then as it is now. The media make the newer guys who used PEDs look much worse than the older guys. The MLB does not want a bad rep on themselves or the Hall of Fame so the baseball writers do not want the newer guys who used PEds to be in the Hall of Fame. A lot of people believe that it should be as clean as possible so the known PED users should not be in the Hall. It is sad that he older guys ruined it for the new ones. Guys like Jim Thome and and Trevor Hoffman are in, “But the two guys who combined for 15 MVP and Cy Young awards – 13 more than the combined total of the six previous inductees 2 years back  – will be sitting home for the sixth and seventh consecutive years,” said Bob Nightengale in a USA Today Article.

It is a common conception that if someone completed an accomplishment are achieved a milestone than it should be recognized. The MLB is in a weird spot where they are counting records like Bond’s home run record, yet they will not allow him to be in the Hall of Fame. Many people believe that Hank Aaron’s home run record should be the real record, buy he used PEDs as well as Bonds did. People just do not know very much about Hank Aaron’s because he is a beloved player so the media decides to rip on Bonds and ARod and Clemens instead of admit the truth that so many players that are already in the Baseball Hall of Fame are known cheaters just like guys like Bonds, ARod, and Clemens. It is evident that the media plays a factor and that the guys who used PEDs in the 60s and 70s may very well have ruined it for the newer guys because Major League Baseball does not want anymore known users in the Hall of Fame. They want to keep it as clean as they possibly can. And at this point, it is just wrong to segregate them from other players who have also used PEDs.

Something else that many people do not realize is that around the time that Mark McGwire used steroids, is the same time baseball got popular again. Even though the players were not supposed to take them, they brought in many more fans because it was so much more fun to watch the game. In “Yearning for a Past that Never Was,” and article by Ron Von Burg, Burg discusses the benefits of steroids in baseball. He writes how steroids saved the game. Baseball was losing a lot of interest from fans and when players used steroids they started breaking records. Fans wanted to come out and see these records being broken. Steroids added to the game. Fans were electrified.

References

Nightengale, B. (2018, January 22). Nightengale: It’s past time for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens to earn Hall of Fame induction. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2018/01/22/barry-bonds-roger-clemens-hall-fame-steroids/1053787001/

Burg, R. V. (n.d.). Yearning for a Past that Never Was: Baseball, Steroids, and the Anxiety of the American Dream. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295030903176641