Having been played professionally in America since the formation of the National League in 1876, Baseball is the oldest and most storied of the four major professional sports played in America.

However the history and tradition of the sport was replaced by a new, power-hitting era in the 1990s and early 2000s.

This era saw hitters reach unprecedented heights, the Major League Baseball’s (MLB) single-season home run record was passed six times in this period and records which had been untouchable for years, Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in 1961 and Babe Ruth’s 60 in 1927, tumbled in the space of four years.

However, many of the power hitters of the 1990s and 2000s were taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), such as anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, to increase their power and enable them to hit the ball further.

We now know that this PED use was widespread and each and every team in the Major Leagues has been implicated in the MLB’s drug era.

So did the MLB turn a blind eye to this use of PEDs in order to facilitate the growth of the sport or were administrators, led by then-acting MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, simply unaware that steroid use was so rampant during the final decades of the 20th century?

In order to answer this question, it is important to define a particular period as the MLB ‘steroid era’. While it is now evident that steroid use was prevalent as early as the mid 1980s, the zenith of the steroid era did not begin until 1995.

Steroid use is still evident throughout the sport, as evidenced by the Biogenesis scandal, but it is widely accepted that the steroid era came to an end when a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was agreed to in 2002. Despite the fact that then-MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent placed steroids on the MLB banned substances list in 1991 following the passing of the Anabolic Steroids Control Act 1990, it was not until the new CBA was agreed to that the MLB began testing for the use of these drugs.

Prior to the CBA that came in to effect in 2002, the only drugs listed on the MLB’s banned substance list are were those that were illegal under federal law. Legal drugs, such as Androstenedione, which were on the National Football League (NFL), National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned substances lists, were not on the MLB banned substance list.

In order to investigate this issue, it is important to understand the context of the era that is being discussed. The 1980s were a period of growth for the sport, from 1980 to 1987 total attendance grew by nine million people.

Additionally, revenue from TV rights deals rose from $80 million in 1980 to $659 million in 1990. However growth in the 1990s slowed, the new TV deal that was signed in 1993 led to national media revenue per team dropping from $15 million per year to approximately $5 million per year.

On top of this, the National League also agreed to a new deal with ESPN that was 36per cent lower than the old deal. MLB crowds reached a peak in the year 1993, with a record 70 million people attending MLB matches throughout the year. However, following the strike, attendance plummeted by almost 30per cent.

The eventual rise in attendance directly correlates to the home run record chases of 1998-2001. Over 72 million people attended MLB matches in both 2000 and 2001 as Bonds, Sosa and McGwire chased down their own records.

In addition to this, revenue from TV deals rose to almost $1.3 billion in 2001. From these figures it is clear that the home run chases of 1998-2001 led to significant increases in the popularity of the sport.

But could baseball’s offensive explosion have been caused by something other than the use of PEDs? The first argument discussed is that the MLB changed the composition of the baseballs, making them easier to hit and bats had been modified to increase their power, the MLB has repeatedly stated that no changes to the baseballs were made and the major bat makers have also denied making changes to their bats.

Additionally, the MLB has also denied informing umpires to reduce the size of the strike zone, a change that would have made hitting easier. The next argument, that smaller ballparks led to more homeruns can also be discredited because while half of the 16 new ballparks built between 1990 and 2001 were hitting friendly, the other half were not and by playing in the National League, Sosa, Bonds and McGwire were not playing in the three most hitter-friendly ballparks in the MLB.

Additionally, Barry Bonds played half of his matches in San Francisco’s new ballpark, one of the hardest ballparks to hit in. It is clear that these other reasons are simply just excuses being made to deflect the blame off of PEDs.

While it is easy to look at the growth of the sport during the steroid era and claim that the MLB knowingly turned a blind eye to the widespread use of PEDs, it is not that simple. The MLB couldn’t just announce that they would start testing for PEDs. In order for the MLB to begin testing for drugs they must first gain approval from the players’ union, in this case the MLB Players’ Association (MLBPA).

This approval would come in the form of a new CBA, which included drug testing for banned PEDs. However, the players were against mandatory drug testing as they viewed it as a breach of privacy.

The era in which we’re discussing is a very complex era of labour relations and seen by many as one of the darkest periods of labour relations in the games’ history. The existing CBA between the MLB and MLBPA expired on 31 December 1993 and a new CBA was not agreed to until 1997. During the negotiations the MLB, led by Executive Vice President Rob Manfred pushed to include testing on PEDS in the new CBA.

Manfred believed that he was acting proactively following the Jose Cansesco controversies and the PEDs issues being experienced by other sports around the world.

Unfortunately there were more important issues facing the MLB during the labour negotiations. The MLB wanted to implement a salary cap and revenue sharing in the new CBA to ensure evenness in the competition.

The MLBPA was opposed to the introduction of a salary cap, seeing it as an artificial ceiling to player salaries. After several months of negotiations saw no resolution the players officially struck on August 12 1994. The strike lasted until April 2 1995 and caused a loss of up to 948 matches and led to a loss of an estimated $1300 million for the owners.

Unfortunately, in the midst of the negotiations, the MLB deemed that the new PEDs drug testing policy was expendable. While it is understandable that the MLB was willing to quickly drop mandatory PEDs testing from the negotiations after the strike, it is important to highlight that the negotiations continued for two years following the strike, a new CBA was not agreed to until 1997.

The MLB could have put the PED issue back on the table, especially as PEDs use became an increasingly bigger issue in 1996 and 1997. The reason it wasn’t discussed again is because the MLB didn’t want to discuss it.

The MLB held the high ground in the labour relations when it came to implementing a drug testing policy. The MLB was only required to ensure that they continued to bargain in good faith and, if the MLBPA were unwilling to accept PEDs testing as they initially were during 1994, the MLB could have claimed an impasse, a point at which no further progress is possible. Once at impasse, the MLB can unilaterally implement the new rules, in this case mandatory drug testing.

Once this occurs the MLBPA have four options, to strike, as they did in 1994-1995, to decertify and thus disband the union, allowing the players to file antitrust suits against the MLB, accept the new rules, which is an unlikely scenario, or to file an unfair labour practice against the MLB. This final method would have been seen as ineffective as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has previously ruled in the favour of sporting organisations if the organisation continued to evolve negotiations and bargained in good faith impasse was reached.

The MLB could have forced mandatory testing for the use of PEDs on the players if they really wanted to. The only thing stopping the implementation of this policy was a players’ strike. After the strike of 1994-1995 the MLB owners were terrified by a strike. But the fact that the drug testing policy was never discussed again prior to the signing of the 1997 CBA shows that the MLB did not really want to implement a drug testing policy. Instead of fighting for mandatory testing, the MLB stood back and allowed the fabric of the game, the history, to be destroyed. The owners chose their own personal gains over maintaining the integrity of the sport and the results are evident, stats from this period will forever have an asterisk next to them.

While it took many years for the leadership team at the MLB to catch on that the sport was rife with PED use, it took the media almost as long. Reports on the use of PEDs were very rare up until 1998. This is partly because there was no hard evidence of drug use, but also because many organisations were more willing to focus on home run chases than what was driving the chases. While this does not justify the lack of awareness from the MLB, it highlights that PED use was initially a secret and took some time for knowledge about their use to become widespread. On top of this, many reporters had never even heard of BALCO until the US Federal Government started an investigation into the drug lab in 2002.

Even when it was clear that PED use had become a big issue in the sport, the MLB was still reluctant to discuss drug testing when the 2002 CBA was being negotiated and ultimately, a very weak drug testing policy was agreed to. So weak in fact, that Congress effectively forced the MLB and MLBPA to reopen negotiations in order to implement a more effective drug testing policy.

The policy agreed to in 2002 outlined that testing of Major League players would only commence in 2004 if, after a year of survey testing in 2003, five percent of players tested positive. After over 100 players tested positive mandatory urine tests for the use of anabolic steroids commenced in 2004. The punishments were lax to say the least, no suspension for a first failed test, 15 days or a fine for a second failed test, 25 days for a third, 50 days for a fourth and potentially a one year suspension for a fifth failed test. After Congressional pressure, the two sides tentatively agreed to renegotiate a deal which featured a 50 game suspension for a first failed test. However Human Growth Hormone use was still possible as there was still no blood testing and it cannot be picked up through a urine test.

Major League Baseball found itself between a rock and a hard place during the second half of the 1990s. The use of PEDs was spiraling out of control, yet the MLBPA was still unwilling to allow mandatory drug testing. The MLB could have risked significant financial pain if they wanted to make a stand against drug use. But they were not willing to risk this pain and so, they decided not to make such a stand.

Thankfully drug testing in the sport of baseball has developed over the past decade to the point that baseball now has the toughest drug policy out of the four major professional leagues in America. Following the agreement to a new deal in March 2014, the punishments are now much more severe and blood testing is part and parcel of the testing process. However the sport has been tainted forever due to the inaction of the MLB.

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