While there was a period when steroid use was technically legal, there is no doubt that chemically altering your body is different than using exercise and physical training to strengthen your body. It was stupid for MLB to pretend that it wasn’t a problem for so long. Unfortunately, the players like Roger Clemons, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Lenny Dykstra and lots of others who enriched themselves and their stats with “roids” ultimately did themselves no favors. I had a chance to meet Darren Daulton about 10 years after he retired from the Phillies. By that time his neck and upper body had returned to normal size, and he looked totally different than he had during his heyday. There have been a disturbing number of professional baseball players (including Daulton) who died fairly young from various forms of brain cancer. No specific link has been established to PED’s, but then, I’m pretty sure that MLB prefers not to know if there is a link.
In addition to their humiliating rejection by the Baseball Hall of Fame, a good number of them have suffered long term health problems as a result. And the Houston Astros have forever tainted their records during the approximately 3 year period that they engaged in cheating electronically. Some of them should have been suspended or banned, but I would bet that they suffer long term monetary losses, both in terms of salary but also in terms of endorsement money, which can be significant. It was just really dumb.
