The Juice: The Real Story Of Baseball's Drug Problems?

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Recommended: Should performance enhancing substances be allowed in sport

Hayden Pratt
Mr. Ball
History
May 16, 2014

The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems
By: Will Carroll

Doping in Sports: verb, the use of performance-enhancing drugs by an athlete to improve his or her performance.
If you follow sports without a doubt you have heard of players using performance enhancing drugs. It is in every sport and almost every age level too. Performance enhancing drugs are slowly becoming more and more popular. In the case of cycling, they have become more popular than the sport itself. With the use of these drugs on the rise people continue to wonder when and how it can be stopped. On the other side, why not just allow all the performance enhancing drugs?
I think that high level athletes should be allowed to use performance enhancing drugs. Now you’re probably thinking, “He is advocating cheating”, and in a way you’re right. But you’re looking at this from the outside in. To really understand the issue you need to look from the inside out. As athletes are constantly getting bigger, faster and stronger the sports they play continue to change. Look at football as an example. There is currently a major issue regarding concussions in the NFL today. Why was this not a problem in the 1980’s? The simple fact is that athletes hit harder than they used to. Even with advanced technology protecting players, these elite athletes are simply too good. There are many reasons of why athletes should be able to dope. Athletes should be free to improve their performances as they see fit. Why not dope? If all PEDs were legal, it wouldn’t be cheating. That is just my opinion the book goes on to explain that performance enhancing drugs wouldn’t be bad for baseball.
Will Carroll says in the book ...

... middle of paper ...

... has an advantage on the other guy, but did he do something illegal? No, in the case of the pitcher and the boxer neither of them did anything against the rules, but they gained an unfair advantage on their opponent. And that is what the definition of cheating is. So why is this any different for performance enhancing drugs? PEDs are the same as if a city changes a speed limit on a road from 35 to 45. You still are on the same road, and you still are safe. The only difference is the excitement.
This book is important to read because PED’s are a huge issue in the sports world today. Many people only hear the argument from the side that says steroids are bad or that they will ruin sports. The great thing about this book is that it shows that the environment that comes with steroids isn’t necessarily a bad one. In fact it might be the boost that sports need.

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