There have been
divergent views if steroids indeed enhance the performance of
Major League Baseball
players. There has been one controversial study conducted by the
Tufts University
physicist Roger Tobin that steroids could be great help to Major League
Baseball players since they boost home run production by 50 percent or
more. Tobin further explained that muscle mass, the force exerted by
that muscle mass, and the kinetic energy of the bat could each be
increased around 10 percent if a Major League Baseball player is using
steroids.
Tobin stated that the upsurge of home runs in the
Major League Baseball
during the middle of the 1990s was no coincidence since that period was
considered as the dawn of the ‘steroid era’ in Americans’ favorite
sport – baseball. And then the home run production noticeably slowed
down in 2003, the time when the
BALCO
steroid scandal was exposed. A damning proof that Major League Baseball
and steroids had an alliance.
During the series of investigation on the BALCO’s
steroid distribution activity,
popular athletes from different sports got implicated. Among the
athletes in the customers’ list seized from BALCO were Major League
Baseball players Jason Giambi, Armando Rios, Benito Santiago, and
Barry
Bonds. Because of this scandal and the strong public opinion
against the whole affair, the Major League Baseball community has
adopted a more stringent policy regarding to the use of steroids.
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