The steroid era in baseball began during the late 1980’s and lasted roughly to 2005 when baseball began to conduct more testing and giving out harsh punishments for those who fail drug tests. Some of the game’s most famous stars have tested positive, admitted to, or have been suspected of taking performance enhancing drugs. Some of these names in addition to Bonds and Clemens include Jose Canseco, Andy Pettite, Raphael Palmero, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramierz, and Mark McGwire.
Current members of the Hall of Fame are backing the shut out claiming that if you cheated in order to be one of the best, then you are not one of the best and do not deserve to be enshrined with the best. And as always whenever the subject of the Hall of Fame comes up, the name of Pete Rose is mentioned, perhaps the best player in history to not be in the Hall of Fame. In the entire course of baseball history, no player has more hits than Pete Rose; yet Mr. Rose is banned for life from Baseball after it was discovered he gambled on games in which was a player and a manager.
On Thursday it was announced by major league baseball that they are taking their testing procedure’s even farther. While they had been conducted urine tests in order to search for performance enhancing drugs, these tests could not find HGH (Human Growth Hormone) – the only thing that can detect this drug is a blood test. Baseball’s commissioner has announced that starting this season players are subject to unannounced, random blood testing. Clearly baseball is trying to clean itself up.