According to the article, the use of steroids by prominent baseball figures has confounded all logic and has bewildered Commissioner Rob Manfred. At the beginning of a recent baseball season, four top athletes tested positive for a common and easily-detected steroid, stanozolol. In the past six seasons, nearly 125 professional baseball players were caught using stanozolol. So why the recent upsurge in usage of such an easily-detected and damaging (to both physical health and one’s career) drug? Deeper analysis shows that social forces are a likely culprit for this concerning phenomenon.
Professional baseball players are under extreme pressure to perform, and perform well, for the sake of their team, their career, and for pride as an individual and as a representative of their respective countries and cities. According to the article, about eighty percent of professional baseball players who have recently been caught using the steroid were pitchers. Furthermore, about seventy percent were from the Dominican Republic. Therefore, there is strong evidence that social forces are a strong cause for the recent upswing in steroid usage. Professional baseball pitchers are often seen as the captains of the team – whether or not they hold such a formal title. The pitcher is responsible for a large majority of the moves and outcomes of a game. Therefore, as the pitcher for a team, one must perform at his or her best and lead the entire team to victory.
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When teams are highlighted in the media for losses, it is often the pitcher who receives a great deal of the blame for “allowing” a certain number of hits, pitching a certain number of balls, and not striking out an opponent. Therefore, this pressure from society at large, including baseball fans, the media, teammates, and coaches, amounts to powerful societal pressures that can convince a professional athlete to do even the most foolish of behaviors, such as engaging in the use of a highly detectable illegal drug.
