The ethical role of congress and the steroid scandal in major league baseball

Introduction

The crack of the bat, the smell of the grass.there.s just something about baseball. Most Americans have grown up with the game, sharing a passion that spans generations, geography and social class. To many of us, baseball, especially its history, is representative of a simpler and purer world. That view has been under assault from the Steroids Era of 1994 to 2004 and its repercussions on the game. (Assael, Shaun and Peter Keating, 65-78) As fans, America enjoyed the jump in offensive statistics and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.s chase of the great Roger Maris. However, the sudden offensive explosion raised questions about how these numbers were being achieved. The rumors of steroid use among players finally began to explode with the revelation in 1998 that McGwire was taking androstenedione. As baseball finally begins to get serious about its steroid problem, this paper investigates the economic motivations for steroid use in baseball and the expected effects of different anti-doping policies and punishment regimes.

Explaation

Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

The use of performance enhancing drugs has tracked the rise and fall of mass-entertainment sports. Going back to the ancient Olympics and Roman times, athletes used performance enhancing herbs and mushrooms in order to improve their performance in competition by making them faster, stronger or braver (Cook, David et. al, 45-76, 45-76). Use of performance enhancing drugs seems to have drastically diminished in the post-Roman, pre-modern era in Europe until the rebirth of spectator sports in the U.K. in the nineteenth century (Assael, Shaun and Peter Keating, 65-78)

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act was signed into law on November 15, 1988 by President Ronald Reagan. The Act requires employers who contract with or receive grants from federal agencies to certify that they will meet certain requirements for providing a "drug-free workplace." In general, the requirements are:

Make a good faith effort to maintain a drug-free workplace;

Publish a drug abuse policy statement; (Dahlberg 2005)

Distribute to each employee a written copy of the drug abuse policy statement;

Notify the granting or contracting federal agency within ten (10) days of receiving a conviction notice from an employee;

Impose sanctions (up to and including employment termination), or require convicted employees to participate in a drug abuse assistance or rehabilitation program;

Establish a drug-free awareness program to educate employees on the dangers of drug abuse, available drug counseling and other programs, and the drug abuse policy of the University. (Dahlberg 2005)

Start of modern Federal prosecution tactics

This act also made mandatory minimums apply to conspiracy convictions. A conspiracy is an agreement with at least one other person to commit a crime together, even if it never gets carried out. Although intended as a minor clerical edit of the original mandatory minimums passed two years earlier, it substantially increased the number of disproportionate sentences handed down in Federal drug cases. Assael, Shaun and Peter Keating, 65-78)

The vast majority of Federal drug cases are for conspiracy charges, because hearsay testimony from snitches can be ...