Alex Rodriquez had been getting a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons. The article from Biography tells us about Rodriquez’s suspensions due to the use of steroids. The Major League Baseball player has been known for his skills on the ball field—he’s the youngest in the league to hit 500-career home runs—but recently he’s been in the news for using performance enhancement drugs while playing America’s favorite pastime. In an article by for the doping allegations, A-Rod has been given a 211 game suspension, which would last for the rest of the 2013 season and the entire 2014 season. With an unpaid two-year suspension, A-Rod will have to survive off of his millions of dollars. A-rod did get a pretty heavy punishment but it was only a temporary punishment. He like other athletes decided to take the shortcut of using steroids rather then work hard for their achievements. Players like him are cheating and that raises the question of should athletes be given stricter punishments like being banned from the league.

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Steroids are used today as a body growth drug. These drugs are being used worldwide, being the most common setting is sports. Every sport has there own way of handling it which is shown in an article by
Reuters. Just recently in the Rio olympics the Russian swimmer Yulian Efimova was allowed to compete after being banned from 2013-2015.  She was also caught earlier that year but the verdict was overturned by the sports governing
body.

Athletes are getting some form of punishment for using these drugs. The athletes are getting suspensions but in the MLB according to USA Today their athletes are given some newly lengthened suspensions.

Other well known cases of athletes using steroids is Barry Bonds. He played 22 seasons in the MLB while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. In 2003 he stood in front of the grand jury about his steroid use.

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Throughout history athletes have been using steroids.  Athletes are using these drugs to make themselves better than everybody else without having to work for it. They are essentially cheating and they should be punished harshly for it. The rules for the use of these drugs seem to be a little to softer then they should be because athletes don’t have that big a consequence for getting caught the first or second time.

According to Reuters in the NBA it takes a person four different times of being caught to be banned from the league and in the MLB 5 different times to be banned. These athletes are cheating and should be punished more     then just as few game suspension.

If the rules aren’t tightened up more and more athletes will begin using steroids in the future. If more athletes are using steroids it will be destroying the nature of sports.

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Athletes don’t need to banned for life but they should atleast get a couple year suspension like what happened to Justin Gatlin. Justin Gatlin set the record for the 100m in track and field in 2006 but was caught doping just months
later. According to Biography he was stripped of his medal and was banned for 4 years. This was a lengthy suspension but he learned his lesson and he competed in 2012 and 2016 as a sober runner and won a bronze and silver medal.

When an athlete gets a small suspension like in the MLB or NBA for being caught doping the first time they really don’t think of stopping. Now if they were to get a full season suspension right away athletes would most likely not take the drugs because of what is at stake.

If all professional sports leagues decide to make stricter rules is that a good or a bad thing?

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The article from Miami University says why steroids in sports should have stricter rules. “Although steroids are banned from pro sports, and can be extremely dangerous, the National football league only suspends a player four games for a first offense of steroid abuse. Along with the NFL, most sports do not have very harsh punishments
for violating steroid laws; the NFL does not even use blood tests to monitor steroid use. This makes it more likely that an athlete would use steroids, since even if they are caught they wouldn’t get in too much trouble.”

“One reason to keep steroid rules stricter is to keep the game fair. Athletes will do anything to get an edge over their opponents these days. Steroids have definitely changed professional sports these days.”

“A second reason rules should be stricter is that athletes trying to do the right thing by staying healthy and not taking steroids would have an unfair disadvantage. The athletes taking steroids are increasing their strength and allowing themselves to hit a baseball farther or tackle someone better. The athletes obeying the rules will not have this drastic muscle increase.”

As a sports fan myself I want the professional leagues to take action and crack down on steroid usage. Sports are something you should work to get better at and have fun, and not cheat by using steroids to become better.

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