Baseball and Steroids

In many ways this set of recent scandals in baseball could very well aid in dictating the future of sports as a whole. Baseball is considered the American Past Time. I have always felt that how people play games is symbolic of how that person lives life. As an athlete I would like to see the future of sports be be a clean future.

It seems pretty basic....
The athletes should be clean.
Just because everyone does it, does not make it okay. Yes, it is vital for all the players to be on an even playing field; I would prefer to see that playing field to be a clean one; for many reasons.

The protection of the health of the athletes and the health of future athletes is an ethical issues not entirely dissimilar to the notion of a motorcycle helmet or a driver using a seat belt. In some cases the government needs to take control of certain issues to protect a person from themselves. If people are proving that they can not make the correct choices then it may often be best that these choices are made for them. I am not for totalitarism....but more for libetarianism, but....there needs to be a time when the government needs to step in....this may be that time.

As far as roll models go....
Professional athletes as role models is a different issue.
I do not think that it is so much that these athletes are roll modest as much as it is the effort of a young athlete who is striving to compete in the highest arena. For them they need to get any edge they can to finish on top. If no steps are taken to stop the cheating through illegal supplements then there may be no way that a clean athlete can compete and win over the Steroid/Doping athlete, that unfair edge takes the elite athlete up to a superior level that the natural athlete can not contend with. It is the parents, the coaches, and the trainers of the young developing athletes that create the path that these young impressionable athletes head down.
An educated athlete who does not want to take the risks may have to choose to ride the bench clean of substance abuse, rather than be a starter who is cheating and putting their health and future at risk.

Nutrition and Training.....
the athlete should be able to find what they need in the kitchen and in the gym
(or on the bike, in the pool, on the playing field, etc.)
not in the medicine cabinet or in the syringe in the trainer's bag
it is such an odd ethical riddle that must keep athletes from sleeping at night
the pressure to succeed and to come out on top
as well as the pressure to stand tall in front of the world an claim to be clean when in many cases the athletes are not clean

how can someone be so arrogant and vain when they know that the achievements they have made have not been on fair terms?
I guess it is no different than a women feeling that she is beautiful even if her eyes, breast, and buttocks are not her own, but a product of doctor's knife in surgery
these are odd times
the public is looking for superhuman results, but at what costs?