Many professional baseball players use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) everyday to improve their abilities.
With the help of the drugs, they hit more home runs, throw more strikeouts and gun runners down from the outfield.
Eventually, all of these players get caught. They fail a drug test and their secret is out their for the world to see.
Taking PEDS is a violation of a clearly stated rule in the MLB. Players should be severely punished for this violation. Pete Rose was banned from all baseball activities for life because he bet on games, but people who cheat by using PEDs only get suspensions. How is that fair?
There can be exceptions, but almost everybody who uses an MLB banned substance should be banned from the game for life.
If a player uses one by accident, or uses it for a very short period of time before realizing it is cheating, then they should be given a short suspension before being reinstated. But any player who knows what they are doing and gets caught using PEDs on a regular basis should no longer be allowed to be a part of "America's favorite pastime."
Barry Bonds is the all-time home run leader in the MLB. It has been proven time and time again that he used PEDs to improve his game.
His stats prove that he is easily a future Hall-of-Famer, but is that fair? Rose has been banned for something much less substantial than Bonds, yet Bonds is still eligible for the Hall of Fame. Players like Bonds, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez should all be banned from Hall of Fame contention just as Rose was.
The reason I am being so strict on these players is because it is obvious that they are cheating on purpose. The list containing all banned substances for ball players is easily available to them, and in fact, it took me less than thirty seconds to find it on the Internet.
This means that anyone saying they didn't know it was banned is either lying, or an idiot for not taking the thirty seconds to look it up.
Two very recent cases of PEDs in baseball are Ryan Braun and Rodriguez. These two players (assuming Rodriguez' appeal doesn't go his way) will both not be playing next year. One year isn't enough for these guys.
The Milwaukee Brewers don't have a shot at anything next year, and the New York Yankees will just buy another player for $20 million a year to replace A-Rod. So what are these teams and players losing?
The only thing they are losing is a year to pile on stats and one year of salary, which is nothing to these guys that make millions every year. I don't think there is any question that these players should be banned for life, Hall of Fame contention and all.
If the MLB doesn't change these rules, then people will continue to abuse, knowing that the max they will get is a year suspension. Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, because what he did was not a direct effect on performance on the field.
The directions of A-Rod and Braun have directly affected their performances, and that is why all players using PEDs should be suspended from baseball for the rest of their lives.
--Mauk is a freshman from Cincinnati, Ohio whose major is undecided.