LOS ANGELES, CA — This past Monday, Phillies’ left-handed star reliever José Alvarado, Maracaibo, Venezuela, was suspended for 80 games by MLB without pay after testing positive for the use of PEDs. Gee, when did we hear this story before?
Dating back to the sport’s earliest days, there is a history of cheating to gain an edge on the competition. Like doctoring bats and balls. Yankees catcher Elston Howard was known for reportedly using his shin guard buckles to scuff baseballs for Whitey Ford and other Yankee pitchers. There is the use of sticky stuff on a ball that is now checked when a pitcher enters a game and at the end of an inning. Way back when, as a means of intimidation, Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes to injure opposing players while sliding into a base. That sounds like he was committing a felony! He took breaking the rules to another limit.
Image Credit: MLB
We may think that the game has changed, and the players have become more inventive, but we can go back to the late 1800s where it wasn’t only altering equipment. Using performance-enhancing drugs goes back many years. Back then players were looking for a drug to give them an advantage.
The first player widely known for using PEDs was Pitcher Pud Galvin, who supposedly used a testosterone supplement derived from animal testicles known as the Brown-Séquard Elixir. Imagine having the balls to try that.
Image Credit: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
After WWII, returning soldiers introduced the use of amphetamines to college and pro sports for increased endurance and focus. Amphetamine use, sometimes referred to as “greenies,” was reportedly widespread in baseball clubhouses from the 1960s to 1970s. During the “Pre Steroids Era,” from 1975 to approximately 1993, pitcher Tom House said he and other players used “steroids they wouldn’t give to horses.”
Then there is the “Steroid Era,” from the late 1980s to the Late 2000s we saw a major increase in the use of steroids and other PEDs. It has not been officially proven but has been widely discussed as a time when baseball higher-ups looked the other way because of its impact on attendance when home run records were falling dramatically it eventually would impact the integrity of the game.
Image Credit: ESPN
Why these gifted athletes feel the need to take PEDs or cheat in other ways is mindless.. But it has been a part of human nature forever. People cheat in society every day. Cheating on your income taxes, jumping turnstiles, school exams, and not stopping at stop signs.
Yeah, those sound trite compared to what baseball players do. But we hold these gifted heroes to a different standard. No one likes to be cheated, unfortunately in our society cheating as a whole seems to be okay when it is your team’s player who is doing it and the other team’s guy is the bad guy.
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