Essay Sample on Use of Drug Enhancement in the Major Baseball League in the Late 1990S to Late 2000

Introduction

Ethics is a fundamental global issue, and it is a value that should be part of every person, regardless of their profession or position. In our working lives, we face situations whose outcome is not evident: ethical dilemmas that require an honest, determined and determined professional capable of making the right decisions, even if they are more difficult (Lazan, Ariela, and Dov 72). Ethics is not a superfluous quality; it is an indispensable value for any sportsman.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

In this paper, the reader is informed on the implication that an adverse decision of an athlete brings to a company related to sports. The importance of values and clean competition in the field of sports are highlighted. It should be everybody's responsibility to contribute to generating better decisions by athletes and managers to make the business thrive in the hand of a solid image based on the highest human values.

With time, professional sport has become more critical for the world population and business: the masses that are moved and the money that can be managed in a major sports competition no longer have limits. With this constant increase, salaries and prizes for athletes are also increasing. Also, it is expected that athletes, who we as spectators enjoy watching, also improve or maintain their performance, which puts even more pressure on athletes (Rodenberg, Ryan, and John 1316). During the 1990s, the major league baseball was characterized by an abnormal increase in the performance of players - the period between the year 1961 and 1994 experience the single 50-home run mark - this type of a performance that had never been seen before. Many players since then have been surpassing this mark, raising a lot of questions. A survey testing taken in 2003, with the aim of finding out the degree of usage of the enhancing drugs, revealed that 5% of total players tested positive. The high number witnessed was even after steroid getting banned by baseball league from 1991.

These reasons, among others, have caused that some players of multiple sports have decided to use drugs to improve their performance. For instance, one-third of the cyclists who finished in the top 10 of the Tour de France since 1998 have been related to doping or have admitted that they have used substances that improve performance throughout their careers (Rodenberg et al. 1316).

From the mentioned incidences, some issues related to ethics can be extracted. Many players make some decision to improve their performance - the desire to improve our cognitive behaviors as humans are widespread and morally upright. And the technology used to achieve these effects is not, in general, discussed. There are currently improvements through surgery, implants or drug compounds that are correctly assumed socially. For example, for cosmetic purposes surgery, body modification (piercing) or appetite suppressants are allowed. In the field of music, it is entirely possible to take propranolol to avoid tremors that can affect a musician before a concert. At a universal level, some substances improve our cognitive abilities or to modify the character. these include alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. There are even substances that are acquired in pharmacies to enhance sexual performance, such as the famous Viagra.

The use of technology in sports can be carried out for different purposes, therapeutic or improvement, beyond which said the distinction is debatable. The doubts about their legitimacy in the sport arise when the use is with improving effects. It is then when it becomes one of the central issues for the sports authorities that must establish the conditions of participation of athletes in the different tests. Although the conditions of future realization are very different, the three types of improvement modifications that athletes could experience in the not too distant future are genetic doping, implants in the body that will convert athletes into cyborgs and the creation of beings hybrids and chimeras.

The scientific and medical advance to improve the physical performance of humans, and athletes, in particular, has been exploring new ways to reach what is known as genetic doping, understood as the injection of a trans-gene or improvement of the present status to achieve an extra physiological benefit. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) similarly defines genetic doping.

Genetic interventions can be of two types, depending on the effects they may have:

• a) Somatic interventions: this type of treatment involves the response in cells to modify the genome (the genetic structure) of existing beings, to improve immunity against certain diseases or enhance physical capacities. This intervention is being applied in the industry dedicated to the cultivation of seeds and animal feed. In the field of sport, it can involve intervention to achieve better sports performance. These are interventions whose purpose is the modification of those genes linked to physical performance (Erythropoietin, growth factor-1 insulin, growth hormone, hypoxia induction factors, and r activation receptors.
• b) Genetic modifications in the germline: here, the germinal line of the body cells is modified enhancing the metabolism thus improving physical performance capabilities. The basic structures of the human body develop during the early stages of growth, necessitating this modification to be done while the receptors are still young. Once modified, the process is irreversible and can be passed even to the next generations. In some cases, the modifications are done before birth as some human body capacities are built before the cells have developed.

The risks to the health of athletes that involves the abuse of these prohibited substances have been witnessed. However, the repercussions go beyond the individual who decides to use them. For this reason, it is relevant to ask ourselves: in what way are companies in the sports industry affected when they are involved in enhancement drugs usage?

The history of doping in baseball is a little different from other sports. In this case, the use of banned substances was a poorly kept secret. The players, technicians, sports leaders and fans knew that they were frequently doping, but nobody said anything. According to Hoberman in his book 'Testosterone Dreams: Rejuvenation, aphrodisiac, doping,' the use of this type of substances was prohibited in 1991, but sampling was not mandatory. The 1990s went by, and the players' bodies kept growing with their performance. At the beginning of the new millennium, the press could not stand it anymore. The system was strongly criticized, and all the damage that these substances did to the sport and to the players who used them was reviewed. In 2004, the rule was implemented so that sampling and anti-doping controls were mandatory. As expected, more than 100 players were suspended and their reputations damaged (Rodenberg et al. 1316).In the year 2000, J. Henderson wrote in his book 'The Balls Not Juiced - The Players Are' that it was estimated that 90% of influential players (those who used to hit home runs) used steroids.

The most famous case of steroid use in this sport is that of Barry Bonds. Today, this player holds two of the most important records of the competition. The problem is that there is a debate between people who say that he was clean and people who say that he only achieved these feats with the help of banned substances. It is proven that Barry Bonds is doped to improve his performance, so much of the sport does not want to make those records official and its entrance to the list of members of the hall of fame2 is in doubt (Rodenberg, et al. 1316).

McGwire, who was honored the sportsman of the year, confessed using androstenedione which was under ban by the National football league. By the time of use, the substance was not banned in the major league basketball. It's therefore evident that enhancing drugs have a direct impact on performance.

According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), doping is the administration or use by an athlete, any foreign substance taken in quantity with the purpose of artificially increasing the body's performance in the competition. Also, it is considered as when the athlete ingests some food or drug that by its nature, dose, or application increases its athletic performance. Use of enhancing drugs is one of the numerous strategies that man has sought to improve artificially one's resistance in war, hunting and sports.

The use of drugs in sport is ancient; it goes back at least to the third century A.C. As the philosopher Philostratus documents, some Greek competitors consumed a mixture of seeds and hallucinogenic mushrooms to increase their performance (Loland, Sigmund 15). In Rome, gladiators used stimulants to overcome fatigue and injuries, while other athletes experimented with caffeine, alcohol, nitroglycerin, opium, and strychnine. At the end of the 19th century and during several decades of the 20th, the most used were strychnine, caffeine, heroin, and cocaine. In the year 1886, the first case of an athlete who took a drug to increase his sports performance, and reports a cyclist who died of an overdose of narcotics during a race between Bordeaux and Paris (Abrams, 2003).

Olympics of San Luis in 1904, the marathoner Thomas Hicks, winner of the medal of Gold was about to die when he competed under the influence of brandy with strychnine. In 1967, cyclist Tom Simson died of a heart attack due to alcohol consumption and amphetamines in the Tour de France. At the 1968 Olympics, the tests begin of doping in the Olympic Games, and the first athlete who fails in the parameters of established analysis was a Swiss competitor, for the excessive use of alcohol, which he used to calm the nerves during the competition. In the 1983 Pan American Games, 19 athletes are disqualified for steroids (Loland, Sigmund 15).

Loland reports that in the 1988 Olympic Games, runner Ben Johnson of Canada lost the gold medal won in the 100-meter event after she tested positive to the anabolic steroid, Stanozolol. Another critical incident in the history of doping in sport occurred in 1998, when the player of the San Cardinals Luis Mark McGwire, admitted the use of a dietary supplement called androstenedione, which was prohibited by the IOC but not by the Major Leagues (Barnard). It fits highlight that in the year 2002, at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, three-star skiers were favorable to the darbepoetin drug that helps in the recovery of chemotherapy patients producing red cells. The use of drugs in sport is an illegal act that exposes the athlete to dangerous health risks. That's why anti-doping tests have increased in quantity, quality, and complexity. These increases because the type of drugs, the form of administration and the methods fraudulently surpass the exams improve day after day. The occurrence of this practice is very high in professional sports, amateur and recreational. Due to the adverse effects of doping in sport and the enormous risks to the health that implies its use, the IOC periodically elaborates and disseminates a list of substances prohibited. Although many of the athletes avoid them, there are more and more cases of men and women who use them to compete.

We can consider the interactions of these drugs in the athlete as an advantage although the side effects outweigh the benefits. Some enhancing drugs improve the level of concentration and attention. Stimulants reduce the feeling of fatigue and increase aggressiveness. Some enhancers stimulate the breathing system and enhance the heartbeat rate output. The stimulants most commonly used by sportsmen and women are amphetamines, cocaine, caffeine, ephedrine, and derivatives. Most negative effects of enhancing drugs usage cause...