Competition In Baseball
Aaron Miller
English Comp. II
Research Paper
Final Draft
October 29, 2007
Has Cheating Become the New Fair Play?
Competition has long been a part of our culture. From a simple game of checkers to the Super Bowl and everywhere in between, there is competition. A competition is when two teams or two people compete for a single goal or a prize. This goal or prize can be anything from just being called the winner, to money, to the title of world champion. It can be anything. Through time and the evolution of sports, this prize has become more and more desirable. To be the winner has become such a high priority that people will do anything to get it, whether that means playing by the rules or not. Throughout history, people have …show more content…
been cheating. From the first Olympic Games to today, players and teams in all sports have cheated. There is a saying, ‘if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying’ and I think that statement has become a benchmark in today’s world of sports. It is almost every other day you hear of another accusation of someone cheating or getting caught. Players and teams are always finding new ways to cheat, from steroids to video cameras and spies, to taking tests for college athletes. Cheating in sports is getting out of control and it needs to be stopped. According to Gunther Luschen in Oliver Leamans “Cheating and Fair Play in Sport”, ‘Cheating in sports is the act through which the manifestly or latently agreed upon conditions for winning such a contest are changed in favor of one side. As a result, the principle of equality of chance beyond differences of skill and strategy is violated.’ (Morgan 201) The first incidences of cheating go all the way back to the ancient Olympic games. Athletes would rub oil on themselves to protect their skin from dirt and sun. Also they would use the oil to make themselves more slippery. For example, wrestlers would use oil to make it hard for their opponents to grab them. One of the main ways of cheating was bribing. In one incident, a boxer bribed three of his opponents to take a dive, meaning to fake being knocked out. Other incidents include countries bribing athletes to compete for them, countries bribing judges to declare their athlete the winner. In one case, a chariot racer named Nero was declared the chariot champion even though he didn’t finish the race. Cheating has been a part of sports since the beginning of competition. Then as time progressed, new sports evolved and thus, new ways of cheating.
Fast forward to the year 1919 and to one of the biggest cheating scandals in the history of sports. Baseball has skyrocketed in popularity and is setting all kinds of attendance records at this point. The World Series is predicted to bring in 50% more revenue than ever before. The Chicago White Sox were playing the Cincinnati Reds for the World Series title. Before the series even started, a former major league pitcher, William Thomas “Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg, a gambler with an underground connection, approached two White Sox players, Ed Cicotte and Arnold Gandil. They told them that they were going to put $500,000 on the Reds to win the series. They wanted the White Sox to throw the World Series, lose on purpose. So Cicotte and Gandil got 6 more players on the team to agree to throw the series, because it would be impossible to pull off with only 2 players. The gamblers offered each of the players $100,000. At that time, $100,000 was a couple years worth of pay, so it was very good money. So the players all did their best to lose, they would make bad throws and strikeout on purpose. But they had to be kind of sneaky about it; they didn’t want to be obvious. So they couldn’t do it all the time. They had to make sure that they were hitting and scoring a little bit. In the end, the Reds won the series 5 games to 3. Each player got paid his cut of the deal. This scandal went undiscovered for about a year, until one player involved, the most popular player, “shoeless” Joe Jackson came forth and confessed that he knew about the scandal. He said that he knew about it and was tempted to take himself off the roster for the World Series so he couldn’t play. His coach kept him on the roster and he played and he helped throw the series. Each player was then banned from the game of baseball for life and had to give up the money they got. This scandal is known to this day as the Chicago “Black Sox” scandal. Since then, cheating has become much more complicated. Today, one of the more common forms of cheating in all sports is taking performance enhancing drugs like steroids, human growth hormone, and others. Athletes are becoming more and more creative in how they cheat. Today in the world of sports there are more ways to cheat than you can throw a stick at. It seems that whenever you turn on Sportscenter there is always another accusation of someone else cheating. In baseball, the common way you hear of players cheating is taking steroids and other banned substances. According to WebMD.com, ‘Steroids are synthetic substances similar to the male sex hormone testosterone.’ (WebMD.com) Athletes take these drugs to bulk up their muscles, but they have severe side effects. ‘Steroids can cause livers to grow tumors and hearts to clog up. They can even send users on violent, angry rampages. In other words, steroids throw a body way out of whack. Steroids do make users bulk up, but the health risks are high. It's true, on steroids biceps bulge; abs ripple; and quads balloon. But that's just on the outside.’ (WebMD.com). So steroids can definitely help a player to bulk up and get the results they want, but it comes with a bigger price to pay. But steroids are not the only way to cheat in baseball.
There are some pretty creative ways to cheat in baseball. One way that players commonly cheat and get away with is stealing signs. If a base runner is on second base, he can see the catcher giving the pitcher signs. So the runner will relay to the batter, by way of hand signals, what pitch is coming and where it’s going to be. This has been going on for a long time in baseball and is hard to detect. Some earlier attempts to steal signs were more easily detectable. For example, the year the San Francisco Giants came back from 13 ½ games behind to win the pennant, their coach, Herman Franks, would sit in the clubhouse, which was right behind center field. He would read the catchers signs and then send a signal to the dugout, which would sound a bell or a buzzer. Then the dugout would relay the pitch to the batter. Also, batters like to get in the box and grind away the chalk at the back end of the box so they can put their feet illegally out of the box. Base runners are taught when you are sliding into second base to break up a double play, you should slide out of the base path and right at the person making the throw. You are trying to knock them down or make them get out of the way, and give your runner a little more time to make it to first base. These are the more common ways that players cheat in baseball.
Another way of cheating in baseball, surprisingly, has come from the grounds crew.
They work on the field before the games so they can have a little input on the outcome of the game. The Cleveland Indians grounds crew, back in the day when they had portable fences, would move the fences back for teams that were heavy hitters. Also they would soften the base paths. They would soak the base paths with water so it is softer and therefore, harder to steal. The grounds crew can help the home team another way. They are in charge of all the baseball’s, so about a week before the game they would freeze the balls and then thaw them out. When they would thaw them out the balls would be waterlogged a little bit and be heavier, thus not traveling as far. Some people argue that these things like stealing signs and doctoring the baseball and messing with the base paths are not cheating, but just part of the game. Randolph Feezell, author of “Sport, Play, and Ethical Reflection” says ‘All of these things are “part of the game,” a part of the historical existence of baseball.’(Feezell 101) Some people say that these are things that have evolved with the game. If players are being taught how to do them, then it is not cheating. I still see it as cheating, because it is trying to gain an unfair advantage by going outside of the rules. There are multiple ways that players and teams cheat in baseball. But baseball is not the only sport where players …show more content…
cheat.
There is cheating in everything from basketball to horseracing. In basketball the cheating can be as subtle as turning up the heat in the visitor’s locker room so the players are tired faster, to putting the visitor’s locker room farther away so they have less time to talk at halftime. Recently there was a huge cheating scandal in the NBA. Referee Tim Donaghy, who had been reffing in the NBA for a number of years, was caught fixing the games by his calls. He was connected to a gambling operation of some sort and he would call the game according to the bets that were placed on the game. This has sparked a concern that other referees in the NBA might be tied to the same ring. In football there is cheating, in fact just this year in the NFL, one of the more dominant teams in the league, the New England Patriots, were caught cheating in the first week of the season. Team personnel were caught on the Patriots sideline videotaping the opposing team’s coaches giving defensive signals. They were videotaping the signals and then matching them up with the play they ran, so that next time, they would be able to know what play they were running and plan accordingly. Teams in the NFL try to read signs and pick up on what they can just with the naked eye, but nothing has been done like this before where they use video to cheat. It is just another creative way that teams are coming up with to cheat. Overall, the concern with cheating is rising more and more each day as players become more creative and technology is more available to them. Another thing that is happening in sports today that goes along with cheating is crime. Players are getting in trouble with the law more and more as well. If players are getting away with cheating, they are feeling like they are above the law. Players get out of the sports setting and into the public and they still feel like they are above the law. One sport where this comes to mind is the NFL. Football players are getting into a lot of trouble with the law. One team specifically is the Cincinnati Bengals, in the offseason between the 2005 and 2006 season, they had 13 players who were arrested. Some of the things that players are getting in trouble for are carrying illegal drugs; carrying illegal weapons, domestic violence, assaults, and some have even been investigated for murder. Players in the NFL are being suspended for being in violation of the league’s conduct policy. It seems like they don’t know how to act when they are in public. One instance that happened this past summer was Michael Vick being charged with dog fighting. One of the houses that he owned got caught dog fighting and he was found to be involved with it. Once again, a player who thinks he is above the law and can do whatever he wants to. For his actions, Michael Vick was suspended from the NFL for this year and depending on his jail sentence he will be out of football until at least 2010. But it is not just the NFL where players are getting in trouble with the law. Players in all sports are being suspended for conduct in public. There was a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies who was arrested for a domestic dispute with his wife. He ended up being suspended by the league for a while. My point is these players are thinking that they are above the law and that they think that they do not have to follow the rules. It starts with cheating, they do not get caught and so they keep pushing the bar higher. I think that in order to cut back on the crime rates with professional athletes, you first need to punish them for cheating. Let them know that they cannot get away with it and that it will not be tolerated. Then that feeling of invisibility will fade away both on and off the field. These athletes need to start being more positive role models because whether they know it or not, there are people who look up to them. American society is in love with sports. Think about all the different sports we have in America, we have everything from competitive eating to the NFL and everything in between. Also, think about how much of our lives are consumed by sports, we have clothes that support our favorite players or teams, people put their names on waiting lists 20 years long for season tickets, championship games such as the Super Bowl have become like holidays, there are TV networks devoted solely to sports, ESPN, and so much more. Think about your heroes growing up, odds are one of them was a sports star. One of my heroes was Michael Jordan, whenever I played basketball, I was always M.J. I would stick my tongue out like him and I bought his shoes and everything. He was the coolest person in my mind. Now think about whom kids are idolizing today, Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, Mark McGwire, and many others. These athletes are being modeled by our kids. They want to be just like them; they wear the jerseys and imitate them. But is that such a good idea, having kids look up to these athletes who cheat and think they are above the law? Athletes are admired by everyone from young to old.
Sports have such a huge impact on our society. For example, right now the Huskers football team is playing awful, and everywhere you go it seems, people are talking about them and how they think they should do this or that. When the Huskers lose, the state of Nebraska takes a loss, not just a team. Nebraska is a great example of how sports have consumed society. We live, eat, and breathe, Nebraska athletics. You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone dressed in Husker red or a Husker flag is flying. Entire cities and states shut down when their team makes it to the championship game. Players are treated like gods and they get paid millions of dollars a year, and all for what, playing a game. We put sports and athletes up on a pedestal above everything else. The thing that gets me is how much money players make a year. Think about it, they play a game to entertain us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge sports fan, but I just don’t think that we need to be paying them that much money. But, that’s how our society treats sports, they are above everything else.
With all of these players and teams cheating more and more, the leagues have to redefine their rule books. For example, Major League Baseball recently changed their cheating policy, mainly regarding the use of steroids and other banned substances.
“A glance at Tuesday's drug-testing agreement between baseball players and owners:
Steroid Penalties
• First positive test -- 50-game suspension, up from 10 days.
• Second positive test -- 100-game suspension, up from 30 days.
• Third positive test -- Lifetime ban, with player having right to apply for reinstatement after two years and an arbitrator being able to review reinstatement decision. Under the previous agreement, the earliest a player could be suspended for life was for a fifth positive test.
• In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 60-to-80 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 120-game to one-year penalty. A third offense nets the offender a lifetime ban. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 80-to-100 games, while a second offense equals a lifetime ban.
Amphetamine Penalties
(There was no testing for amphetamines in previous agreement)
• First positive test -- Mandatory additional testing.
• Second positive -- 25-game suspension.
• Third positive -- 80-game suspension.
• Fourth positive -- Commissioner's discretion, with an arbitrator being able to review.
• In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 15-to-30 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 30-to-90 game penalty. A third offense nets the offender a one-year ban, while a fourth offense equals punishment at commissioner's discretion. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 60-to-90 games; while a second offense equals a two-year ban and punishment for a third offense is commissioner's discretion.
Testing frequency
A player will be tested during spring training physicals and at least once during the regular season, with additional random testing. Under the previous agreement, each player was tested once from the start of spring training through the end of the regular season, with additional random testing. Both the new agreement and the previous deal provided for offseason testing.
Independent Administrator
A person not connected to management or the union will schedule and supervise the tests, which currently are administered by a join management-union committee.
-- The Associated Press contributed to this glance.” (ESPN.com)
Rules like these have to be established so that players and teams do not feel comfortable cheating. There is always going to be a little fear of getting caught with rules like these in place. The rules may sound a little strict but that is the way it has to be to get the point across that cheating will not be tolerated. In the past several years in major sports like NFL and NASCAR and the MLB, there have been some record fines and punishments handed down. For example, this year in NASCAR, Michael Waltrip’s team was fined $100,000 and docked 100 points for cheating on the setup of their car prior to the Daytona 500. The biggest fine handed down by NASCAR in its history. Another example in the NFL, the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team lost their first round draft pick for next year, for videotaping the opposing coaches signaling defensive plays. This also was a record fine for the NFL. In the NBA, with the referee betting scandal, the league is trying to install a more strict review of the referees. Commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, has said in a recent interview in “Sports Illustrated”, ‘talk about ways we can improve the [referee] system and deal with issues such as recruitment, education, mentoring, teaching and rules, both on and off the court.’ (McCallum 81) Stern is saying that he wants to start the improvements at the core of it all, going back to the basics of the teaching and the fundamentals of refereeing the game. So the leagues are starting to buckle down and make it hurt for cheating. They are beginning to take a zero tolerance attitude, which is exactly what they need to do. There is a big question that is raised by all of this cheating. Are all of these records that are being set allowed to stand? In baseball, Barry Bonds just set the record for most career home runs, which some argue to be the most prolific record in all of sports. He is in question about steroid use, so would his record be allowed to stand and if it does, will it have an asterisk beside it? There are so many records being set these days in sports that it makes me question how legitimate the records are. If players are cheating to get these records then they should be wiped out. I believe that a record has to be set by someone who plays the game fairly and how it is supposed to be played. If someone is cheating, then they do not deserve the record. If you think about the people who set the records way back in the day, the people who played the game fairly and the right way, they did not have all of this “extra” stuff use. Records that are set today are all tarnished because if someone is setting it, whether they have cheated or not, the question will be asked if they cheated. I think that the fans today have all been numbed to the cheating; it has been going on for so long now and has become such a big issue that no one can do anything good anymore without being questioned. Fans cannot trust any players or teams anymore. In conclusion, cheating has taken over the world of sports.
It has been going on since the beginning of competition and has just continued to get worse and worse. Players and teams are finding new ways to break the rules and to push the bar a little higher. So leagues have to step down a little harder on fines and punishments to get the point across that cheating will not be tolerated. Our society continues to hold sports on this high pedestal above everything else and because of that we have become numb to the cheating. Not only are we becoming numb to cheating, but so are the athletes. They seem to have this feeling of invisibility and that they are above the law. They are getting in trouble with the law more and more. The bar continues to be pushed higher and higher and it is about time it stops climbing. Cheating in sports is getting out of control and it needs to be
stopped.
English Comp. II
Research Paper
Final Draft
October 29, 2007
Has Cheating Become the New Fair Play?
Competition has long been a part of our culture. From a simple game of checkers to the Super Bowl and everywhere in between, there is competition. A competition is when two teams or two people compete for a single goal or a prize. This goal or prize can be anything from just being called the winner, to money, to the title of world champion. It can be anything. Through time and the evolution of sports, this prize has become more and more desirable. To be the winner has become such a high priority that people will do anything to get it, whether that means playing by the rules or not. Throughout history, people have …show more content…
been cheating. From the first Olympic Games to today, players and teams in all sports have cheated. There is a saying, ‘if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying’ and I think that statement has become a benchmark in today’s world of sports. It is almost every other day you hear of another accusation of someone cheating or getting caught. Players and teams are always finding new ways to cheat, from steroids to video cameras and spies, to taking tests for college athletes. Cheating in sports is getting out of control and it needs to be stopped. According to Gunther Luschen in Oliver Leamans “Cheating and Fair Play in Sport”, ‘Cheating in sports is the act through which the manifestly or latently agreed upon conditions for winning such a contest are changed in favor of one side. As a result, the principle of equality of chance beyond differences of skill and strategy is violated.’ (Morgan 201) The first incidences of cheating go all the way back to the ancient Olympic games. Athletes would rub oil on themselves to protect their skin from dirt and sun. Also they would use the oil to make themselves more slippery. For example, wrestlers would use oil to make it hard for their opponents to grab them. One of the main ways of cheating was bribing. In one incident, a boxer bribed three of his opponents to take a dive, meaning to fake being knocked out. Other incidents include countries bribing athletes to compete for them, countries bribing judges to declare their athlete the winner. In one case, a chariot racer named Nero was declared the chariot champion even though he didn’t finish the race. Cheating has been a part of sports since the beginning of competition. Then as time progressed, new sports evolved and thus, new ways of cheating.
Fast forward to the year 1919 and to one of the biggest cheating scandals in the history of sports. Baseball has skyrocketed in popularity and is setting all kinds of attendance records at this point. The World Series is predicted to bring in 50% more revenue than ever before. The Chicago White Sox were playing the Cincinnati Reds for the World Series title. Before the series even started, a former major league pitcher, William Thomas “Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg, a gambler with an underground connection, approached two White Sox players, Ed Cicotte and Arnold Gandil. They told them that they were going to put $500,000 on the Reds to win the series. They wanted the White Sox to throw the World Series, lose on purpose. So Cicotte and Gandil got 6 more players on the team to agree to throw the series, because it would be impossible to pull off with only 2 players. The gamblers offered each of the players $100,000. At that time, $100,000 was a couple years worth of pay, so it was very good money. So the players all did their best to lose, they would make bad throws and strikeout on purpose. But they had to be kind of sneaky about it; they didn’t want to be obvious. So they couldn’t do it all the time. They had to make sure that they were hitting and scoring a little bit. In the end, the Reds won the series 5 games to 3. Each player got paid his cut of the deal. This scandal went undiscovered for about a year, until one player involved, the most popular player, “shoeless” Joe Jackson came forth and confessed that he knew about the scandal. He said that he knew about it and was tempted to take himself off the roster for the World Series so he couldn’t play. His coach kept him on the roster and he played and he helped throw the series. Each player was then banned from the game of baseball for life and had to give up the money they got. This scandal is known to this day as the Chicago “Black Sox” scandal. Since then, cheating has become much more complicated. Today, one of the more common forms of cheating in all sports is taking performance enhancing drugs like steroids, human growth hormone, and others. Athletes are becoming more and more creative in how they cheat. Today in the world of sports there are more ways to cheat than you can throw a stick at. It seems that whenever you turn on Sportscenter there is always another accusation of someone else cheating. In baseball, the common way you hear of players cheating is taking steroids and other banned substances. According to WebMD.com, ‘Steroids are synthetic substances similar to the male sex hormone testosterone.’ (WebMD.com) Athletes take these drugs to bulk up their muscles, but they have severe side effects. ‘Steroids can cause livers to grow tumors and hearts to clog up. They can even send users on violent, angry rampages. In other words, steroids throw a body way out of whack. Steroids do make users bulk up, but the health risks are high. It's true, on steroids biceps bulge; abs ripple; and quads balloon. But that's just on the outside.’ (WebMD.com). So steroids can definitely help a player to bulk up and get the results they want, but it comes with a bigger price to pay. But steroids are not the only way to cheat in baseball.
There are some pretty creative ways to cheat in baseball. One way that players commonly cheat and get away with is stealing signs. If a base runner is on second base, he can see the catcher giving the pitcher signs. So the runner will relay to the batter, by way of hand signals, what pitch is coming and where it’s going to be. This has been going on for a long time in baseball and is hard to detect. Some earlier attempts to steal signs were more easily detectable. For example, the year the San Francisco Giants came back from 13 ½ games behind to win the pennant, their coach, Herman Franks, would sit in the clubhouse, which was right behind center field. He would read the catchers signs and then send a signal to the dugout, which would sound a bell or a buzzer. Then the dugout would relay the pitch to the batter. Also, batters like to get in the box and grind away the chalk at the back end of the box so they can put their feet illegally out of the box. Base runners are taught when you are sliding into second base to break up a double play, you should slide out of the base path and right at the person making the throw. You are trying to knock them down or make them get out of the way, and give your runner a little more time to make it to first base. These are the more common ways that players cheat in baseball.
Another way of cheating in baseball, surprisingly, has come from the grounds crew.
They work on the field before the games so they can have a little input on the outcome of the game. The Cleveland Indians grounds crew, back in the day when they had portable fences, would move the fences back for teams that were heavy hitters. Also they would soften the base paths. They would soak the base paths with water so it is softer and therefore, harder to steal. The grounds crew can help the home team another way. They are in charge of all the baseball’s, so about a week before the game they would freeze the balls and then thaw them out. When they would thaw them out the balls would be waterlogged a little bit and be heavier, thus not traveling as far. Some people argue that these things like stealing signs and doctoring the baseball and messing with the base paths are not cheating, but just part of the game. Randolph Feezell, author of “Sport, Play, and Ethical Reflection” says ‘All of these things are “part of the game,” a part of the historical existence of baseball.’(Feezell 101) Some people say that these are things that have evolved with the game. If players are being taught how to do them, then it is not cheating. I still see it as cheating, because it is trying to gain an unfair advantage by going outside of the rules. There are multiple ways that players and teams cheat in baseball. But baseball is not the only sport where players …show more content…
cheat.
There is cheating in everything from basketball to horseracing. In basketball the cheating can be as subtle as turning up the heat in the visitor’s locker room so the players are tired faster, to putting the visitor’s locker room farther away so they have less time to talk at halftime. Recently there was a huge cheating scandal in the NBA. Referee Tim Donaghy, who had been reffing in the NBA for a number of years, was caught fixing the games by his calls. He was connected to a gambling operation of some sort and he would call the game according to the bets that were placed on the game. This has sparked a concern that other referees in the NBA might be tied to the same ring. In football there is cheating, in fact just this year in the NFL, one of the more dominant teams in the league, the New England Patriots, were caught cheating in the first week of the season. Team personnel were caught on the Patriots sideline videotaping the opposing team’s coaches giving defensive signals. They were videotaping the signals and then matching them up with the play they ran, so that next time, they would be able to know what play they were running and plan accordingly. Teams in the NFL try to read signs and pick up on what they can just with the naked eye, but nothing has been done like this before where they use video to cheat. It is just another creative way that teams are coming up with to cheat. Overall, the concern with cheating is rising more and more each day as players become more creative and technology is more available to them. Another thing that is happening in sports today that goes along with cheating is crime. Players are getting in trouble with the law more and more as well. If players are getting away with cheating, they are feeling like they are above the law. Players get out of the sports setting and into the public and they still feel like they are above the law. One sport where this comes to mind is the NFL. Football players are getting into a lot of trouble with the law. One team specifically is the Cincinnati Bengals, in the offseason between the 2005 and 2006 season, they had 13 players who were arrested. Some of the things that players are getting in trouble for are carrying illegal drugs; carrying illegal weapons, domestic violence, assaults, and some have even been investigated for murder. Players in the NFL are being suspended for being in violation of the league’s conduct policy. It seems like they don’t know how to act when they are in public. One instance that happened this past summer was Michael Vick being charged with dog fighting. One of the houses that he owned got caught dog fighting and he was found to be involved with it. Once again, a player who thinks he is above the law and can do whatever he wants to. For his actions, Michael Vick was suspended from the NFL for this year and depending on his jail sentence he will be out of football until at least 2010. But it is not just the NFL where players are getting in trouble with the law. Players in all sports are being suspended for conduct in public. There was a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies who was arrested for a domestic dispute with his wife. He ended up being suspended by the league for a while. My point is these players are thinking that they are above the law and that they think that they do not have to follow the rules. It starts with cheating, they do not get caught and so they keep pushing the bar higher. I think that in order to cut back on the crime rates with professional athletes, you first need to punish them for cheating. Let them know that they cannot get away with it and that it will not be tolerated. Then that feeling of invisibility will fade away both on and off the field. These athletes need to start being more positive role models because whether they know it or not, there are people who look up to them. American society is in love with sports. Think about all the different sports we have in America, we have everything from competitive eating to the NFL and everything in between. Also, think about how much of our lives are consumed by sports, we have clothes that support our favorite players or teams, people put their names on waiting lists 20 years long for season tickets, championship games such as the Super Bowl have become like holidays, there are TV networks devoted solely to sports, ESPN, and so much more. Think about your heroes growing up, odds are one of them was a sports star. One of my heroes was Michael Jordan, whenever I played basketball, I was always M.J. I would stick my tongue out like him and I bought his shoes and everything. He was the coolest person in my mind. Now think about whom kids are idolizing today, Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, Mark McGwire, and many others. These athletes are being modeled by our kids. They want to be just like them; they wear the jerseys and imitate them. But is that such a good idea, having kids look up to these athletes who cheat and think they are above the law? Athletes are admired by everyone from young to old.
Sports have such a huge impact on our society. For example, right now the Huskers football team is playing awful, and everywhere you go it seems, people are talking about them and how they think they should do this or that. When the Huskers lose, the state of Nebraska takes a loss, not just a team. Nebraska is a great example of how sports have consumed society. We live, eat, and breathe, Nebraska athletics. You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone dressed in Husker red or a Husker flag is flying. Entire cities and states shut down when their team makes it to the championship game. Players are treated like gods and they get paid millions of dollars a year, and all for what, playing a game. We put sports and athletes up on a pedestal above everything else. The thing that gets me is how much money players make a year. Think about it, they play a game to entertain us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge sports fan, but I just don’t think that we need to be paying them that much money. But, that’s how our society treats sports, they are above everything else.
With all of these players and teams cheating more and more, the leagues have to redefine their rule books. For example, Major League Baseball recently changed their cheating policy, mainly regarding the use of steroids and other banned substances.
“A glance at Tuesday's drug-testing agreement between baseball players and owners:
Steroid Penalties
• First positive test -- 50-game suspension, up from 10 days.
• Second positive test -- 100-game suspension, up from 30 days.
• Third positive test -- Lifetime ban, with player having right to apply for reinstatement after two years and an arbitrator being able to review reinstatement decision. Under the previous agreement, the earliest a player could be suspended for life was for a fifth positive test.
• In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 60-to-80 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 120-game to one-year penalty. A third offense nets the offender a lifetime ban. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 80-to-100 games, while a second offense equals a lifetime ban.
Amphetamine Penalties
(There was no testing for amphetamines in previous agreement)
• First positive test -- Mandatory additional testing.
• Second positive -- 25-game suspension.
• Third positive -- 80-game suspension.
• Fourth positive -- Commissioner's discretion, with an arbitrator being able to review.
• In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 15-to-30 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 30-to-90 game penalty. A third offense nets the offender a one-year ban, while a fourth offense equals punishment at commissioner's discretion. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 60-to-90 games; while a second offense equals a two-year ban and punishment for a third offense is commissioner's discretion.
Testing frequency
A player will be tested during spring training physicals and at least once during the regular season, with additional random testing. Under the previous agreement, each player was tested once from the start of spring training through the end of the regular season, with additional random testing. Both the new agreement and the previous deal provided for offseason testing.
Independent Administrator
A person not connected to management or the union will schedule and supervise the tests, which currently are administered by a join management-union committee.
-- The Associated Press contributed to this glance.” (ESPN.com)
Rules like these have to be established so that players and teams do not feel comfortable cheating. There is always going to be a little fear of getting caught with rules like these in place. The rules may sound a little strict but that is the way it has to be to get the point across that cheating will not be tolerated. In the past several years in major sports like NFL and NASCAR and the MLB, there have been some record fines and punishments handed down. For example, this year in NASCAR, Michael Waltrip’s team was fined $100,000 and docked 100 points for cheating on the setup of their car prior to the Daytona 500. The biggest fine handed down by NASCAR in its history. Another example in the NFL, the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team lost their first round draft pick for next year, for videotaping the opposing coaches signaling defensive plays. This also was a record fine for the NFL. In the NBA, with the referee betting scandal, the league is trying to install a more strict review of the referees. Commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, has said in a recent interview in “Sports Illustrated”, ‘talk about ways we can improve the [referee] system and deal with issues such as recruitment, education, mentoring, teaching and rules, both on and off the court.’ (McCallum 81) Stern is saying that he wants to start the improvements at the core of it all, going back to the basics of the teaching and the fundamentals of refereeing the game. So the leagues are starting to buckle down and make it hurt for cheating. They are beginning to take a zero tolerance attitude, which is exactly what they need to do. There is a big question that is raised by all of this cheating. Are all of these records that are being set allowed to stand? In baseball, Barry Bonds just set the record for most career home runs, which some argue to be the most prolific record in all of sports. He is in question about steroid use, so would his record be allowed to stand and if it does, will it have an asterisk beside it? There are so many records being set these days in sports that it makes me question how legitimate the records are. If players are cheating to get these records then they should be wiped out. I believe that a record has to be set by someone who plays the game fairly and how it is supposed to be played. If someone is cheating, then they do not deserve the record. If you think about the people who set the records way back in the day, the people who played the game fairly and the right way, they did not have all of this “extra” stuff use. Records that are set today are all tarnished because if someone is setting it, whether they have cheated or not, the question will be asked if they cheated. I think that the fans today have all been numbed to the cheating; it has been going on for so long now and has become such a big issue that no one can do anything good anymore without being questioned. Fans cannot trust any players or teams anymore. In conclusion, cheating has taken over the world of sports.
It has been going on since the beginning of competition and has just continued to get worse and worse. Players and teams are finding new ways to break the rules and to push the bar a little higher. So leagues have to step down a little harder on fines and punishments to get the point across that cheating will not be tolerated. Our society continues to hold sports on this high pedestal above everything else and because of that we have become numb to the cheating. Not only are we becoming numb to cheating, but so are the athletes. They seem to have this feeling of invisibility and that they are above the law. They are getting in trouble with the law more and more. The bar continues to be pushed higher and higher and it is about time it stops climbing. Cheating in sports is getting out of control and it needs to be
stopped.