Federal prosecutors just announced that they would provide evidence during the Barry Bonds trial that the home run slugger failed a steroids test in November of 2001, just weeks after the home run king hit his record-setting 73rd home run.
Prosecutors are seeking to convict Bonds on both perjury and obstruction of justice charges and will assert that he was using steroids supplied to him by his personal trainer and friend Greg Anderson.
World renowned Harvard-trained Cardiologist Dr. James Rippe says, “Steroids raise blood pressure, and can even cause thickening of the walls of the heart. There are multiple other negative side effects from steroids, all the way from predisposing an individual to liver cancer as well as the potential for causing neurological problems such as the well-described ‘steroid rage.’
“Unfortunately,” Rippe says, “many athletes try to achieve a performance edge by taking steroids. While it may be true that steroids increase muscle mass, the potential adverse medical consequences are very serious and should dissuade any healthy conscious person from trying to take steroids to simply improve short term performance edge.”
This so-called “drug culture” in baseball is a manifestation of the drug culture in America. Drugs, whether legal, illegal, performance enhancing, or otherwise, are permeating almost every part of our culture. We hear of doctors who abuse prescription drugs to keep going in a healthcare system that runs them ragged. We hear of movie stars who are battling mental health, probably because of prolonged drug use. We hear of pro wrestlers murdering their families because of steroid use. Now baseball.
What is wrong here? What is the root of this problem? Is our competitive nature to be the best we can be, in some instances, and a mechanism to escape from what we can’t be in others? Thank God He has delivered us from the need to do either. The world needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The world needs to know who Jesus really is. It’s time for the Church to influence in these realms where drug abuse is running rampant and restore these ‘kingdoms’ for the glory of God.
When the focus is always on being the best at any cost, then we will ocntinue to see this deception and compromise. It is sad to know that we can no longer trust the integrity people who seem to do great things, yet it is not of their own, but it has been “manufactured.
The athletic “stars” are so pushed to achieve and be great that they will compromise anything even for a few minutes of being known as great by setting some new record
If they only knew that their greatness resides in the Lord. If they would trust Jesus, they would understand that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; they would understand that it is “not by might, nor by power” but by the Spirit of God they can achieve much and be a shining light instead of a falling star. Jesus is still the only prescription that can make it right!