Research Paper: Steroid Use in Baseball

When did baseball players go from being heroes to superheroes? Some people think that it started around the late 1980's when the steroid era began. All of a sudden players were hitting the ball harder and more often than ever before. They began crushing records set by some of the greatest players to ever live like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. But it seems that they are not just playing on pure talent like many of us would like to believe. The problem has calmed down since the 80's and 90's, but it is still an issue. Many of the top players today that would normally be shoe-ins for the hall of fame have at one time been caught using steroids or some other form of performance enhancing drugs. This problem needs to be stopped. The punishment needs to be more severe than it is now to stop players from using anymore. Players that are also caught using only one time need to be kept out of the hall of fame.

The issue of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs hasn't always been around. The first real issue of someone using was in 1992 when a trainer named Curtis Wenzlaff was arrested for distributing steroids to major league players. He named one player in particular in which he had sold steroids to named Jose Canseco, he also admitted to selling the drug to about thirty other people but wouldn't name any names. Later in 1998 Mark McGwire was caught with a bottle of androstenedione, which is a pill that is used to increase testosterone in the human body. At this time though McGwire isn't doing anything wring because this drug is not on the list of illegal substances. In 2002 the players were subject to an anonymous drug test to see exactly how many of the players were using some type of performance enhancing drug. The players that tested positive were not going to be punished and if there were more than five percent that test positive than then players were going to be randomly tested for the next two seasons; about five to seven percent tested positive. After the players failed the steroid test, they were now going to be punished for being if they failed another test, but it was only counseling for the first offense and a fifteen day suspension for the second. When the news came out that of the fourteen hundred players that were tested about one hundred of them tested positive for steroids baseball on the government really started to crack down. Later in 2003 ten players were called to testify in a case involving Barry Bond's former trainer, the vice president of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, and its founder were convicted of forty two federal charges that involved them in a steroid-distribution ring. In 2004 President Bush got involved when he signed into effect the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004. This act banned all steroid type drugs from being used in baseball and any other drug like it. It got real serious for some players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens who were facing perjury charges for lying to congress. Neither player was ever charged with anything serious and got off scott free. It wasn't until 2005 until the punishment finally got serious when it changed to a fifty game suspension for a first time offense, a one hundred game suspension for a second offense, and a ban from the game for life if caught a third time. TIMELINE OF BASEBALL'S STEROID SCANDAL

This entire paragraph came from this website and was wondering if I needed to cite throughout the entire paragraph or if it is ok to just have it at the end.

It's nice to see that the commissioner of baseball Bud Selig to be finally taking this problem serious, but I don't think that he is taking it serious enough. Up to this point players were just getting basically a slap on the wrist and it wasn't scaring anyone away from taking steroids, and it still isn't enough. In the past few years at least one player has been caught using some type of drug that has been banned by baseball and has been suspended the fifty games. Last season it was Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera and Athletics pitcher Roberto Colon. At the end of the 2011 season N.L. MVP Ryan Braun had tested positive for having high levels of testosterone in his system that came from an outside source. He made the same claim that everyone else does and basically said that he never took anything that he knew of. He eventually got the suspension overturned and on his appeal. (Fainaru-Wade and T.J. Quinn, ) So the new punishment system has quieted down the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs since the 90's and early 2000's, it still isn't enough. I think that they really need to scare players into never using steroids again by making the punishment process even stricter. It needs to be a full season suspension for the first time offense as well as the player paying a large sum of money for the penalty. The second offense should be the last with a life time ban from baseball. They should not get a second chance. They should be removed from baseball and forfeit whatever money they would have received from their remaining contract. It seems that the only thing that really affects the way the players in any professional sport behave is their wallets. So if you threaten to take away their money then maybe they will put the needles down forever.

So what about after baseball? What should happen to some of the greatest players to ever play the game that have also been caught using steroids? I agree with most of the people that I have ever watched on television that they should be kept out of the hall of fame. Even if a player has only been caught once they should never be allowed into the hall of fame. If a player has been caught one time then you would have to think that they have used before and just never been caught so you would never know which seasons he was clean or not. They should never be allowed into the same room as some of the greatest players like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. I would think that most everyone that is a baseball fan would agree with each other on not allowing these players into the hall of fame because of their tainted numbers.

However there are always two sides to everything. A writer for bleacherreport named Zeke Fuhrman seems to think differently. In his article named Baseball's Steroid Era Players Belong in the Hall of Fame...Somewhere. He thinks that no matter when players like Alex Rodriguez has gotten all of his hit or home runs; who by the way has admitted to using steroids as early as 2001; he still hit them. He thinks that the best solution is not to keep them out of the hall but to prevent it from happening again.

This is not my entire essay but it is about half way done and want to make sure that i am on the right track or if I need to change a lot.

Such a long essay! Generally saying, I reckon that it's quite normal. I didn't find any grammatical mistakes
But, IMHO it'd be better to use "turn to" in your first sentence than "go from being heroes to superheroes", you know, it'd sound better

Thank you for your reply.