Steroids, Major League Baseball and the Cult of Celebrity

Mitchell report article

I don't usually pay much attention to sports articles, but this is about the Mitchell report, which is the result of the almost two-year investigation of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. In the article it states that 3 to 6 percent of adolescents have or are using performance enhancing drugs, which I guess is a nice way of saying steroids. This does, as the article states, translate to hundreds of thousands of adolescents. There are so many different ways this impacts the lives of teens and I guess there are a number of different reasons for taking steroids, but one of the major contributors to this has to be the cult of celebrity surrounding these wealthy and highly celebrated athletes, some of whom flaunt their wealth like they were movie or rap stars. That is a report only dealing with professional baseball, also. There has yet to be something of that magnitude about other pro-sports, especially football, which has become infamous for the aggressive off-field lives of some of its star players.

There is such a drive to be successful in sports, especially for inner city youth, and particularly among young black men, for whom sports seems to be the only answer for escaping inner city violence or lower economic status. That coupled with the promises of college scouts and coaches, some of whom must be encouraging and or supplying the drugs, only makes for ruined lives if those young people are injured or fail to reach the goals set for them by their coaches and family.

Despite all these issues and the highly visible criminal cases of pro athletes just is further reason why these people shouldn't be made into gods like they are, and why most of them shouldn't be considered role models for young people, otherwise they are modeling the wrong behaviors.