by Chris Messner

Created on: January 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Yes, and for more than one reason.

Sadly, as with most things in America, it comes down to money. My knowledge is of baseball more than of other sports, but I'm sure that the chase for big bucks has athletes in all sports willing to chemically enhance their natural abilities.

In baseball, "America's Pastime", until the mid-1970's, major-leaguers were basically just working stiffs, albeit fairly well paid, but only the biggest stars earned enough by playing baseball to avoid having to work at another job in the off-season.

Thanks to Andy Messersmith, Marvin Miller and George Steinbrenner, that all changed, for the worse, in my opinion. Messersmith challenged the system, Miller organized the players' union, and Steinbrenner started throwing money around to buy the best available talent.

We all know that money does strange things to people. They start to believe they are invincible, that the rules don't apply to them, that the "ordinary" people that generate their obscene incomes aren't important. What superstars earn is, apparently, never enough.

They're enticed by the shady hangers-on that, for reasons I don't understand, are allowed to enter clubhouses and put all kinds of ridiculous notions into players' minds. Next thing you know, guys like Ken Caminiti are doing coke AND 'roids to excel, chasing money and glory, and, in his case, to what avail? He gave his body and soul to illegal drugs, and he died at 41 years of age. That's a lifetime ban for you, eh?

Many have argued that, in baseball, statistics from one era are really not comparable to statistics from other eras. There is some truth to that. For example, during Babe Ruth's day, a fly ball that bounced over the fence was a home run. Before the so-called "modern era" of baseball, it took 9 balls to draw a walk. In the early days of major league baseball, many fields had no fences. Equipment was different, strength conditioning was different, the rules were different, parks were much larger in the old days.

Nevertheless, records have been established since the start of the modern era, and they stand regardless of changes in rules, field dimensions, the addition of many more teams, and changes in physical conditioning.

So when Roger Maris managed to hit his 61st homer in 1961, surpassing Ruth's 1927 record of 60, well, records are made to be broken, right? Maris suffered greatly that season. He allowed the press to put great pressure on him by hounding him about breaking the Bambino's most hallowed record.

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