Levine post 14

After listening to the speeches this week, one of them that had an effect on me was Ryan Knightly's speech about steroids in baseball.  This has been a hot button topic for a long time and I thought that he brought up some interesting points during the speech.  For example, a lot of times when the issue of steroids in sports is discussed, nobody focuses on the wide range of affects it can have on a person's body.  While steroids may be a good idea for the short term, is it really worth the long-term issues that can come with repeated steroid use.  I love baseball, and although the "steroid era" made the game extremely popular due to the excessive amount of home runs that were being hit, I still think that it made the game worse.  In any other sport, anybody who is caught cheating is immediately suspended, so I don't understand why the MLB let the players who were known to be taking steroids remain in the league without any punishment.  The players were not on an even level playing field.  I think the most telling point from Ryan's speech was when he mentioned that a higher percentage of players were going on the disabled list in the "steroid era" because while steroids are nice for the short term, they can also have negative consequences to your body.  Some of the best players the league has ever seen have had their life's work questioned because they chose to use steroids, so was it really worth it for players like Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire to use steroids when they would have been hall of fame players anyway.  I love baseball and I don't want to see the game that I grew up idolizing be ruined by steroids.