According to the report of George Mitchell, Director of the Boston Red Sox Baseball team, there are many players who are using steroids and human growth hormones and he has asked Major League Baseball to form an investigation team to find out the names. MLB head Bud Selig said in a news conference that baseball fans deserve a fair game.
Baseball is one of the most popular sports in America and if such a widespread use of drugs is true, then it will be very disappointing to the fans. Among the names are Barry Bonds who denied that he had used an untraceable steroid and this was investigated by Mr Selig. In the report of Mr Mitchell it was stated that there were evidence of all the 30 major League Clubs being affected by the use of banned substances.
Some of the sport’s biggest stars, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Eric Gagne, Miguel Tejada, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch and Andy Pettitte were included in the suspected list of the report. All the players have to respond to the allegation. But it is not clear about the disciplinary action being taken because many of them are not playing in Major League teams.
Mr Mitchell is of the opinion that public or the media should not focus on the names disclosed in the report but help baseball give ‘a fresh start’. But media reports that doping in baseball started in 1980s but the tests and punishments started only after a decade. The tests for steroids started in 2002 but penalties were not introduced until 2004. In 2005 a ban on human growth hormones was agreed but there was no reliable test to detect the substance. All this shows the lacking from the MLB side and the report has also criticized the officials for this.
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Via:BBC
