To follow up our recent posts about How to Spot Steroid Users and Manny Ramirez using Performance Enhancing Drugs, I wanted to ask everyone, did steroids make baseball better?
Remember, baseball was coming off a strike and we all fell back in love with it because of all the dingers being hit and records being broken. Right?
Or was it a temporary glitch and now baseball is returning to its roots and becoming a better game too?
Did Steroids Make Baseball Better?
- No (54%, 19 Votes)
- Yes (46%, 16 Votes)
Total Voters: 35
Vote in the poll (voting closes at the end of the month) and let us know how you feel in the comments below.
Thanks to Ricky Rhodes for the picture.
Did Steroids Make Baseball Better?…
Remember, baseball was coming off a strike and we all fell back in love with it because of all the dingers being hit and records being broken. Right?
Or was it a temporary glitch and now baseball is returning to its roots and becoming a better game to…
I’m not ready to say it made the sport better but i think it definatley caried it out of a slump and made it more relevent to none baseball fans. ( you gotta admit) Even the negetive steroid press made it increasingly more press obsorbing.
I’ll agree that it mode it more exciting and buzz worthy, but it was also a departure from the core of what makes baseball unique. Getting runs is tough and some of the best baseball games are pitcher’s duels where you really have to fight and scrap for each run.
For the record, I voted no. Personally, after a while all the home-runs become boring and almost expected. It also made one aspect of the game way, way more dominant than the others.
no i dont admit. its stupid and honestly a waist of time and money for the athlets as well as the people that are making the steriods.
some nice banter back and forth here.. as far as the steroids thing, no, it didn’t make the game better it made it more buzz worthy for the pink hats of the world, with all the dingers..
As far as the Pats cameragate– I can’t lie. It bothered me. I hate cheating so much in sports and just wished the Pats hadn’t done it, but the fact is most teams do it. Jimmy Johnson was the funniest when he said he used to send up interns into the coordinators box (visiting team) at Texas stadium to steal any left over playbook material that they might’ve left up there.
Exactly Chuck, that’s why I say “spygate” wasn’t cheating. Every team does it, the league just frowns upon it. Collectively, all teams understand it gets done, that’s why they change their signs and signals every game, half, quarter, set of downs.
Thinking about this from another angle; baseball is just a profitable game. So what difference does it make what players do to their bodies? If people knew exactly what went on in locker rooms & doctor’s offices & etc, would they suddenly stop going to watch baseball games? Or stop buying team merchandise? And if yes, would the players care enough about the loss of revenue (which pays their salaries) to scale back on the use of chemical advantage? Or are they playing for themselves, for the feeling of winning, and pushing themselves beyond their own limits?
Personally, I enjoy the excitement of watching a competition unfold — everything else is just noise. As far as racking up home runs, it seems to me that lower scoring games are more exciting. Not being able to predict who will win keeps everyone (players, fans) emotionally involved and focused on the game until the very last.
Lastly, I really enjoy this blog, and this is a great question! So I hope my comments are not too misguided.
Great point Kay about how baseball, in the end, is a business. And let’s not forget, they’re in the entertainment industry. Often times we hype sports to something they are not. I think it’s clear that performance enhancing drugs did not cause fans to stop watching the game. If anything, it drew new fans to the game who got caught up in the home run race(s).
As for whether the players do it so they can earn more money, or if it’s driven by pride or a desire to win. Well, I think it depends on the player. Some might use it purely to help recover so they can get back in the game sooner, while others might do it just to boost their stats so they can get a fatter paycheck. And I’m sure there’s some players who do it for both reasons.
And I certainly agree with you Kay that the lower scoring games are more exciting because each pitch, each swing of the bat becomes that much more crucial. It is insanely tense watching a post season score-less or one run game knowing that it might be near impossible to score one run.
Thanks for the great comment Kay, please do keep them coming! You brought some excellent insight into this discussion.
I don’t think it would result in people not watching the game Kay, but playing baseball for a number of my younger years as well, I think the whole cheating with steroids thing is absolutely disgusting. When I played the game, I played to win and I played because I loved to, not to have the highest amount of home runs in the league.
I understand some of the people who use PED’s are doing it to win, but if you can’t rely on your own play to begin with, maybe they shouldn’t have been playing at that level.
And you are 100% spot on with the fact that the closer games are better than the blowouts that could confuse a viewer for the score of a football game. I’d much rather watch a game coming down to the wire where both teams are pushing with all they’ve got to come out on top.
Thanks alot Kay, glad you gave your opinion, you have great points of view when you comment!
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i voted no as well becuase we should not put hte players danger in health just for our intertainment
i ment no becuase you should not put the players health in danger just so that we can have an intersting time watching them have a more “beast” game
please post your full opinion over all on what your thoughts of steriods are. I would love to reade them.
You should feel guilty for voting yes. I understand that’s your opinion, but I strongly disagree with you.
Steroids did not make baseball better. How can cheating make a game better? How can illegal use of illegal drugs make the game better? If all you want to see in baseball is home runs, they have your game played once a year in July. For those of you who love to see baseball manufacturing runs and winning games in the bottom of the 9th, I’m sure you all voted no.
Remember The Simpsons episode where Bart finds out the MLB is using satellites to spy on everyone? Then Mark McGwire shows up and says:
“Do you want to know the terrifying truth? Or do you want to see me sock a few dingers!”
And of course, the crowd responds “Dingers! Dingers!”.
One could argue it made the game better because it gave the masses what they wanted to see, home runs. It’s why the home run derby is often more popular than the actual all-star game. I know I loved watching the home run derby at Fenway more than the actual All-Star game, though that says more about the state of the All-Star game at the time than anything else.
Anyway, I voted no because I like my baseball the way I like my football, low-scoring with tough defense.
A question for you Josh. Did the Pats camera cheat make the games more fun for you?
i agree with you josh, cheating and illegal drug use does NOT make me enjoy the game better. Nor does many of the other people that voted.
That’s a story for another day Adam, it’s called scouting, not camera cheating.
You know I’m a Pats fan but it’s not scouting when it’s prohibited by the NFL, when the Pats were previously warned about it, and when the team was penalized for doing it. It might not be logical but it is against the rules and hence cheating.