Big Mac gets even bigger
Pro baseball players and steroids
Nick Nelson
Issue date: 1/28/10 Section: Opinions
Like it hasn't been before, steroids are back in the news. Recently on Jan. 12, long-time Oakland Athletic and St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire finally admitted to the sports world that he had used steroids. In 1998, Mcgwire broke the single season homerun record which had been held since 1961 by Roger Maris. I was in fourth grade when Mcgwire hit that homerun, and I thought it was unbelievable and so did everyone else. As a kid, I'd never heard of ESPN, Sportcenter, or steroids. All I knew was that Mark McGuire was a great baseball player, and I looked up to him for it.
Steroids are usually prescribed by doctors to help control an inflammation in the body after an injury. The type of steroids that athletes use are called anabolic steroids. As stated by kidshealth.org, anabolic steroids are synthetic hormones that can boost the body's ability to produce muscle and prevent muscle breakdown. Some athletes use steroids, hoping that they will improve their ability to run faster, hit farther, lift heavier weights, jump higher, or have more endurance.
Yes, you'll be number one on the team, but like every positive thing, steroids have their bad side, too. There is a huge list of negative effects on kidshealth.org, but some that you should be aware of are: abnormal enlargement of the heart muscles, violent, aggressive behavior and mood swings, stunted growth in teens (by causing bones to mature too fast and stop growing at an early age), and liver tumors, just to name a few. I don't know how frequently this happens, but I bet some get lucky and miss out on these symptoms.
Yes, Mark McGwire is under the spotlight from lots of people in the baseball world, yet there are those who stand behind him - not because he used steroids, but because he finally came out and told the world he did. The funny thing to me (and I'm sure to lots of other people) is that in 2005, McGwire and 12 other baseball players and executives were subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing on steroids. In his testimony, McGwire refused to answer questions "under oath" when he came before the House Government Reform Committee.
Steroids are usually prescribed by doctors to help control an inflammation in the body after an injury. The type of steroids that athletes use are called anabolic steroids. As stated by kidshealth.org, anabolic steroids are synthetic hormones that can boost the body's ability to produce muscle and prevent muscle breakdown. Some athletes use steroids, hoping that they will improve their ability to run faster, hit farther, lift heavier weights, jump higher, or have more endurance.
Yes, you'll be number one on the team, but like every positive thing, steroids have their bad side, too. There is a huge list of negative effects on kidshealth.org, but some that you should be aware of are: abnormal enlargement of the heart muscles, violent, aggressive behavior and mood swings, stunted growth in teens (by causing bones to mature too fast and stop growing at an early age), and liver tumors, just to name a few. I don't know how frequently this happens, but I bet some get lucky and miss out on these symptoms.
Yes, Mark McGwire is under the spotlight from lots of people in the baseball world, yet there are those who stand behind him - not because he used steroids, but because he finally came out and told the world he did. The funny thing to me (and I'm sure to lots of other people) is that in 2005, McGwire and 12 other baseball players and executives were subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing on steroids. In his testimony, McGwire refused to answer questions "under oath" when he came before the House Government Reform Committee.
Be the first to comment on this story