[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

As always, times are different now. Baseball has a much greater impact on kids and adults than it formerly did, because in part your child could earn serious income, even from just his signature!

So the pressure is on to excel. Professional training on all aspects of the game is readily available to pre-teens, and is used by more than the most affluent families. Parents are gambling that their child will hit it big in baseball. In many cases the money spent on sports training of children is better spent on lottery tickets.

So yes, there are steroids and other tools used by grade schoolers to excel, most often under their parents ill advised monitoring.

Do I think that the actions of big league players have an impact on the acceptability of steroids to parents and children? Yes, I do. But I think that the behavior of big leaguers has less of an impact than the rationale "if you take this drug you may make $10 million per year; if you don't take it - you won't".

I wish that kids could be kids longer, but they now have to face many more sophisticated decisions than I ever had to, at their age.

This type of pressure includes far more areas of potential achievement than just baseball, but those considerations are clearly OT.

This is my opinion only.
Gil