The Harsh Reality of Steroids and Sports

Ideally, sports have always been and always should be played on a fair playing field. Although this may seem true most of the time, cheating occurs not just around one sport, but all of them. This past week, All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano was handed an 80-game suspension due to a failed drug test administered from Major League Baseball. This suspension goes into effect immediately which forces Cano to sit out for the next 80 games. This suspension kills Robinson’s hope at a future Hall of Fame bid and possibly ruins his chance to be an All-Star in the future.

Performance enhancing drugs, or PED’s, are commonly found throughout baseball in big names like Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Mark McGwire. Robinson was teammates with Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez for 8 years, making this case a little more suspicious. Robinson was best friends with A-rod after he was caught illegally taking PED’s, which may have had an influence on what Robinson was taking. The drug Cano was taking was called Furosemide. This drug is a diuretic that is banned by the MLB. The only thing this drug does is make someone need to urinate quite frequently. This may not seem too bad on the surface. What’s wrong with using the bathroom a lot and why would baseball ban this substance? The diuretic helps flush the system of anything performance related on a drug test. This means that Cano took steroids and was using this diuretic as an efficient way of flushing them out of his system before the actual drug test. This is a large part of taking Performance Enhancing Drugs and is outlawed by MLB, resulting in the 80-game suspension.

On the other hand, Cano showed no signs of any steroids and says he was prescribed the diuretic from a Dominican doctor. Although he says that he has a doctor’s prescription for his own medical reasons, he willingly accepts this suspension and holds no contest. Cano’s suspension came as a huge surprise to all of his teammates and family members. Now, his long and successful career will forever be clouded by the use of steroids. While, Cano seems to have learned an extremely harsh lesson, all he is able to do now is sit and hope that his future is not ruined by a little pill.

By Adam Smith