How long has steroid use been a problem in Major League Baseball?
For at least a decade, and probably much longer. The 1990s saw a surge in home runs and, not coincidentally, a surge in attendance, as well. There were rumors of illegal doping, but the baseball establishment — owners, players, fans — largely turned the other way, content to see the game bouncing back from the disastrous 1994 players’ strike. Hasn’t that changed since then? Isn’t baseball cracking down on the illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs? Yes. It established mandatory random testing in 2003, and has steadily ratcheted up the penalties for offenders. The big turning point, from a public-relations standpoint, came in 2005, when Congress held hearings on the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Those hearings underscored the extent of the problem, even as some star players such as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa either denied using steroids or evaded questions about their use. Why is the Mitchell Report getting so much attention? Because no other sport in the U.S. has conducted s
