Ever since its inception, baseball has been considered America’s pastime. It’s a game steeped in tradition. Every spring, all across the nation, thirty-one teams take the fields and prepare for a season that will last seven months. As this season starts, parents may think twice about teaching their kids the traditions of this storied pastime. Amidst controversies of steroid use and large salaries, America’s favorite pastime has come under heavy controversy this year for the habits of its players.

The free agency system affords players the opportunity to earn more money and the chance to play for a World Series with another team. For example, the 1995 Atlanta Braves are starting out this year with only two players left on the roster that helped the franchise win the championship eight years ago. There is something wrong when half of a championship team three years down the road the team has no recognizable players who won it all for the franchise. What happened to the old days of team loyalty? Who could ever imagine Babe Ruth or Roger Maris wearing anything besides pin-stripes? However, more money, bigger cities, and the opportunity to go to the playoffs just one more time sway players. Players have become more and more greedy. Although the nature of the game is still the same, the players have considerably changed since the beginning of the sport. Why is it that players are looking for outrageous contracts every year? Why are the Yankees paying Alex Rodriguez twenty two million dollars this year? One person cannot reasonably spend that much money in one year. Players forty years ago would never dream of making that kind of money in 20 seasons of playing.

The use of steroids is another issue that has become a major scandal in Major LeagueBaseball. The use of perfoming enhancing drugs has become so prevalent that Congress has threatened to step in and take action if the commissioner of baseball will not. It is never a good thing when the government threatens to intervene to clean up the game. Why didn’t the league take things into their own hands when the problem first emerged? The use of steroids has tarnished all the records that were once seen as historic and almost unmatchable. It took Mark Maguire thirty-seven years to break Roger Marris’s home run record of 61. However, Mark Maguire only held that record for five years. Home run records are not the only things being broken these days: strike out records, stolen bases, and batting averages all have been trumped. What good is the sport to the fans if the only way for someone to actually earn these meaningful titles is to cheat? Records that took a lifetime to achieve are now being shattered by players that some would argue are not nearly half as good as the players of thirty and forty years ago.

The players from long ago would look at today’s game and be astonished when they saw the league’s present condition. Currently, there are two major issues on Commissioner Bud Selig’s plate: the large salary caps and the use of drugs to enhance performance. Both are ruining the game of baseball. If major league baseball takes steps now to get rid of these two problems, I can see a full recovery of the sport to the national pastime that it once was.