In the News - Steroids in Baseball

Ryan's In the News presentation today covered Jose Canseco's problems with steroid use in baseball and the actions he took that exposed other player's use of these drugs. I imagine that book publishers pushed Canseco to produce a tell-all book that would intrigue readers and cause a stir. If he headn't named names, it's unlikely the book would have been as successful or generated as much interest. So, while Canseco may have regretted such revelations, the balem for it may lie with the publisher, the econmoics of the publishing indiustry, and the desires of the reading public, and not just Canseco's desire for revenge.

I would say that American sports istarnished by drug use, but not irreparably. One could say that professionalization started the conditions by whcih players and teams would do things such as use performance-enhancing drugs. With the big salaries, the pressure to perform, and the public's demand for more records broken, you might say that baseball needed performance-enhancing drugs. No one really gets excited over amateur sports; but you also don't find steroids there either. How many fans of baseball play baseball? Maybe if sports were more participatory and less professional, we'd have less demand to have such high levels of performance.