This is a very important issue to the health of all sports, but especially baseball because stats are being blown way out of proportion and hence history is being rewritten unfairly. Another reason why baseball could least afford a scandal like this is because our country is feeling so patriotic lately, and the last thing we need to hear is that our national pastime is tainted with drug abuse.

I went through a large cycle of emotions when I first heard that steroids were running rampant in baseball. The first thing I thought was that if almost everyone is using them anyway we may as well legalize it. After I came up with this idea it got shot down for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons was that steroids are illegal in the United States. There is no way we could make it OK for athletes to take them and not make them legal for everyone else. Another reason why this is a terrible idea is, because steroids are very bad for your health. Not that I care if the athletes are willing to take time off their life or not. My only problem is that if an athlete isn't willing to do it then he's at a disadvantage and that's not fair. A player should not be penalized for not wanting to screw up his future.

My next thought was that we should just follow the exact same procedures as the other major sports. Just to clear it up the NFL and NBA both do random drug tests for steroids, however, not all players have to get tested. For example, during the NFL season the NFL randomly picks two players off every roster every week. This amounts to 1,088 players out of the possible 1,440 in the league. There is also a major problem with this system, though. First of all, the players get 24 hours before they have to submit their tests, that means if someone has been taking an illegal or banned substance that they can attempt to clear the system in order to pass their test. Second of all, this means some players are going to get unlucky by getting caught and others are going to get away with it, which isn't fair either.

As you can see I did a lot of thinking about what leagues could do to clean up their sport or at least make a level playing field. I'm certainly not trying to tell you that what I'm about to propose is a fail-proof plan, but it is the most logical and fair solution I've heard suggested yet. My plan is to test for everything you can, that means creatine, marijuana, androstendione, and steroids are all abolished. My plan also suggests that you test everyone on the first of every month throughout the season, because it's not fair that some people can get away with it and some can't. The punishment for failing a drug test is up to the league, but it should definitely be severe enough to deter other people from using the same drugs.

My plan is good for two reasons. One reason is because it prevents athletes from hurting themselves in the long-term just to become a little more physically superior. The second and most important reason is because this tells teenagers or other young athletes that these are truly harmful substances and should not be used. I think banning these substances could have the same effect as when the PGA bans certain types of balls and clubs. What I mean is golfers think it's like cheating if you use PGA banned balls or clubs and I think and hope kids would start thinking the same way.

I don't know if this plan will ever go into effect or not, but I would at least like to see them experiment with it to see whether or not it would work. It would also be interesting to know how much the numbers would go down in baseball. Well, thanks for reading my article and I hope you enjoyed it.

» Tim Phipps is an 18-year-old guy about to go to Bethel College of Mishawaka, IN in the fall. My web site address with all of my columns on it is www.geocities.com/doypstick/the_magic_man

Also by Tim Phipps
» Meeting Joe Black and Frank Robinson

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