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A-Rod and Baseball
On September 11, 1985 Pete Rose struck base hit number 4, 192, and in doing so made baseball history, surpassing Ty Cobb as the all-time hits leader. Little did fans or those in baseball realize that Rose's accomplishment occurred while he was betting on baseball in most cases betting on his own team. Commissioner of baseball A. Bartlett Giamatti presented Rose with substantive evidence collected by John M. Dowd and compiled in a report of the same name (Baseball Library.com. N.D.). Based on the evidence, Rose on August 24, 1989 "agreed to a deal in which he dropped his suit against baseball and accepted a lifetime suspension" (Baseball Library.com. N.D.). The ramifications of that action meant that Rose was shut out of the game he loved and continues to be ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
Fast forward two decades and a player of similar talent, drive, passion, and athleticism' Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) admits to his teammates and the public that he used steroids during two years 2001-2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers. A-Rod's admission of banned substance use was the final exclamation point of the steroids era "a period of time in Major League Baseball when a number of players were believed to have used performance-enhancing drugs, resulting in increased offensive output throughout the game"...
September 27, 2010). The question then is quite straightforward, do the use of steroids by Alex Rodriguez and other MLB players warrant a lifetime suspension from the game similar to the suspension of Rose for betting on baseball?
Impact of Performance Enhancing Drugs
The question of whether A-Rod should be banned from playing Major League Baseball contains many facets. The first involves whether the use of performance enhancing drugs substantively impacted the game of baseball. According to Cam Inman in his piece A-Rod, steroids, and "My Cousin Vinny" the "steroids era didn't ruin the sport, but it thrashed the record books as much as it actually enhanced it" (Inman, C. February 17, 2009). For A-Rod however, the answer is not so clear, on steroids benefits he says "I'm not sure what the benefit was. I will say this, when you take any substance or anything, especially in baseball, it's half mental, half physical…I certainly felt more energy but it is hard to say" (Inman, C. February 17, 2009). Who is correct? The answer lays in the statistics compiled during the steroids era, particularly the increased offensive output as measure by home run proficiency. Home runs flew out of ballparks at a record pace in the steroid years. Mark McGwire set the single season home run mark in 1998…
A Utilitarian Perspective
Is that fundamental change though necessarily deserving of negative connotations? If the issue of steroids use is viewed from the utilitarian perspective, which according to John Stuart Mill articulates "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness" (Brainy Quotes. N.D.); then the surge in popularity of the sport during the years of heightened offensive production promoted considerable happiness. The 1998 home run chase to eclipse Roger Maris' sixty one home run season saw baseball fans engrossed in the pursuit by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. "The home run onslaught captured the attention of the country and helped to reclaim popularity for the league four years after a strike had shortened the 1994 season" (ESPN.com. September 27, 2010). The prolific home runs and offensive output may have in fact saved baseball "Baseball sales figures and attendance were in a slump before McGwire was en route to his home-run record, and they've been climbing ever since" (Steroids.com. N.D.). The reality of the steroids era is that fans wanted to see players succeed offensively on the field. "More people actually came to games during the three-plus years that steroids were widely publicized than they ever had" (Sojo, T. May 24, 2008).
Of course the obverse of the utilitarian argument is that the use of steroids tainted the honor and integrity of the game and thus ultimately hurt the sport's image and its history. Baseball more than any other sport, defines itself by its historical context and its records. From a utilitarian perspective those who used performance enhancing drugs tarnished the game and its historical legends by cheapening the statistical records. In this way an entire nation of baseball fans was
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