Deviance in Sports: PED's in Baseball

On April 1st and 3rd in class we discussed Deviance in Sports. We talked about examples of deviance in society and sports, specifically the use of illegal drugs (performance enhancing drugs). PED's are an enormous problem in all sports, but the biggest issue with them resides in Major League Baseball.

A deviant is an act or a person that differs from the norm, especially behavior or attitudes that differ from acceptable social standards.

Examples of Deviance in Society and Sports

• Using Illegal Drugs (society)
• Violent Crimes - murder/rape/battery/abuse (society)
• Stealing - robbing a bank (society)
• Fighting (sports)
• Bounty Hunting (sports)
• Academic Cheating (sports)
• Performance Enhancing Drugs (sports)
• Gambling (sports)
• Illegal Recruiting Practices (sports)

Performance Enhancing Drugs - Substances used to improve their performance in sport. There are physiological, psychological, and social reasons that athletes take performance enhancing drugs.

There is an ongoing debate between the side of why PED's should stay illegal and why PED's should be legalized. There are moral, legal, and role modeling reasons why athletes shouldn't take PED's:

• Moral Reasons - Gives the athlete an unfair advantage, undermines the true spirit of the sport, and reflects badly on those athletes not using PED's.
• Legal Reasons - It is against the U.S. Law and the laws of sport.
• Role Modeling - Using PED's sets a bad example to others, especially young people who copy their heroes and put their lives at risk, and it gives sport a bad image and lowers its status.

Performance Enhancing Drugs have changed the game of baseball forever. Whenever an athlete in the MLB achieves something great, the first question asked is always, "Is he on steroids?" It has created a sort of "witch hunt" to try and find out which athletes are and which athletes are not using PED's. Ted Berg, of USA Sports, wrote an article titled 4 reasons the Baseball Hall of Fame should include steroid users

, on December 27th, 2013. Reason number 1 that Berg states in the article is "Ending the With Hunt." Hall of Fame voting has turned from being fun into a search for players that have cheated and trying to determine who hasn't. Reason number 2 is "Saving the Hall of Fame." If those who used PED's are banned from the Hall of Fame, there will be a big gap in Hall of Fame members form the "steroid era." Reason number 3 is "Recognizing Humanity." This basically means that everyone is human, even athletes. The  last reason is "Celebrating Great Players." Use of PED's or not, there are still a large number of great players that will never get into the Hall of Fame because they have been accused of using steroids. Taking PED's does not give you the skill to hit a baseball. The message that this article left me with was that whatever your opinion is, PED use in sports is a huge problem and something greater needs to be done about it.

Former St. Louis Cardinals baseball player, Mark McGwire
*photo is not real

Connecting to the text, Jay Coakley discusses performance enhancing substances on pages 179-187 of his book Sports in Society:  Issues and Controversies. In terms of PED use in sports, Coakley shares a very good quote with the readers, "There are only a few good apples in the barrel, and they're not winning any medals." We have gotten to the point where when the media breaks a story about an athlete getting caught for using PED's it is no longer shocking. We have become numb to this kind of news. Coakley goes in-depth on all of the measures that are being taken to try and reduce the use of PED's in sports like testing, but after taking it all in, I am becoming more and more persuaded that the best route is to let the athletes do what they want with their body. It is unrealistic to thing that PED use will ever stop in sports, and it is also unrealistic to think that every person who uses PED's will be caught and penalized. If the athletes were allowed to do as they please, it everything would run a lot smoother in the world of sports.

Race and Ethnicity: Minority Numbers in Coaching

On April 8th and 10th in class, we discussed the topic area of Race and Ethnicity in regards to sports. We defined some basic terms that deal with race and ethnicity, discussed African Americans and sport participation, and some statistics on how African Americans are represented in the major sports.

Prejudice - An expression of bigotry. Judging without knowledge of the facts.
Stereotypes - fixed ideas about a group.
Discrimination - Treating someone differently from others.
Race - Social category constructed and accepted by society to describe members with genetic similarity.
Ethnic Group - a socially distinct population that shares a way of life and is committed to the ideas, norms, and things that constitute that way of life.
Minority Group - members share common group characteristics, and suffer from discrimination.

Sport Participation and African Americans

• Prior to the 1950's, African Americans faced a segregated sport system
• African Americans participate in a very limited range of sports
• African American men and women are under represented in most sports

Statistics 

• NBA - 87% are African American
• NFL - 70% are African American
• MLB - 9.8% are African American

African Americans do not only face challenges when it comes to playing sports, but they also face challenges becoming coaches of high level sports. Richard E. Lapchick wrote an article in volume 16, issue 44 in Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal

 that highlighted the problem with African Americans being under represented as NCAA coaches as well as other positions. In the article, Richard states that among 125 top FBS teams that were surveyed, 89% of the presidents, 85% of the athletic directors, and 100% of the conference commissioners are white males. So overall, 89% of the 382 leadership positions on the 125 FBS schools are held by whites. The article also contains some statistics on the make-up of Division I NCAA basketball teams. About 56% of male student athletes on basketball teams are African American, and 48% for women. About 23% of the men's basketball coaches are African American, which is an increase of 4.4% from last year. About 20% of women's basketball coaches are African American, which is an increase of 6% from last year. These statistics show that the numbers are heading in the right direction for equal representation, but there is still a long way to go.

Some final statistics from the article:

• Division I,II, and III all men's sports head coaching positions
• 86% Division I - white
• 88% Division II - white
• 92% Division III - white
• Division I,II, and III all women's sports head coaching positions
• 85% Division I - white
• 88% Division II - white
• 92% Division III - white

University of Connecticut head men's basketball coach Kevin Ollie

Connecting to the text, Jay Coakley discusses race and ethnicity on page 276 of his book Sports in Society:  Issues and Controversies. Race and Ethnicity are terms that the average person often confuse with each other. Coakley defines race as, "a population of people who are believed to be naturally or biologically distinct from other populations. He defines ethnicity as, "a cultural heritage that people use to identify a particular population." Another term that Coackley defines that the Sports Business Journal deals with is minority. Coakley defines minority as, "a socially identified population that suffers disadvantages due to systematic discrimination and has a strong sense of social togetherness based on shared experiences of past and current discrimination. It is important to understand these and the other terms that we defined in class to fully understand an article about the issues that African Americans are facing in head coaching positions in college athletics.

Sports and the Media: Social Media

On March 27th in class, we discussed the topic area of Sport and the Mass Media. We discussed a lot of different ways that sport and the mass media are connected, and one of those ways we discussed that is very relevant today was new media and sports, specifically social media.

Social Media is defined as a group of interest applications that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content. Some of the appealing traits that social media offers users are a better reach, accessibility, usability, and immediacy. Most fans or community members go to a form of social media for sport information. Social media is used by 96% of businesses for marketing. This is considered mobile marketing.

A site is considered a social media site if the users dictate the content and/or the popularity/visibility of that content. There are so many social media sites out there, that they have been put into specific categories based on the services that they provide:

• Communication Services - Ex) Facebook, 4square, Gowalla, Blogging, Twitter, Fanvibe.
• Entertainment Services - Ex) Myspace, Youtube, Virtual Worlds, Vimeo, Instagram, etc.
• Professional Services - Ex) LinkedIn, Plaxo
• Multimedia Services - Ex) Ustream, Skype, Livestream, Flickr, Blubrry.com, etc.
• Smart Phone Apps - Ex) Fanvision, Zinzcam
• Mobile Couponing - Ex) Groupon, Living Social

These sites are constantly growing larger and larger. Facebook adds 1 million visitors a week. Twitter currently has 554 million users and 150,000 new users sign up per day. Athletes and teams have embraced the opportunities that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have given them to connect with their fan base.

Ryan Baucom wrote an article in volume 16, issue 47 in Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal

that ranked and discussed the most supported college basketball teams that participated in this years NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament based on social media following. Baucom used statistics form Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. A "supporter" is considered the same thing as a "follower" or "like" in this case. The top 3 schools based on Twitter followers of their basketball account were North

Carolina (156,071), Duke (103,964), and Michigan (100,764). The order changed when using Facebook instead of Twitter. This time North Carolina again held the top spot (869,479), but Kentucky took over the number 2 spot (421,222), and Kansas came in 3rd (329,921). Instagram also held a different order. Duke took the top sport here (125,381), Kentucky was next (44,987), and Ohio State came in 3rd (16,469). Based off the the numbers you can see that Instagram currently has a lot less users, but schools are beginning to figure out how to better utilize the platform to connect with their fans. When all three platforms were added together, the top 3 overall supported schools were:

1. North Carolina - 1,035,245 supporters
2. Kentucky - 529,996 supporters
3. Duke - 410,274 supporters

Statistics like these show that social media sites are a great way for athletic programs to connect with their fans. The area of social media is growing, and we can assume that if these statistics are taken agin next year, the total number of "supporters" for the schools will rise. 

Connecting to the text, Jay Coakley discusses how new media has changed sports on page 398 of his book, Sports in Society:  Issues and Controversies. He explains how online access can provide active involvement with sports content. It allows us to interact with:

• fellow fans 
• players
• coaches
• identify scores and statistics
• play online games that are sport related

Social media sites allow us to create content that matches our own interests and the interests of others in the world. Coakley believes that this new media consumption is replacing traditional media consumption like television and radio. Professional sport teams are now becoming more active in managing their media representations.  

Sports and Economics

The first topic area that we covered in second semester of class was Sports and Economics. We discussed this topic area in class on March 11th and 13th. Some of the information that we covered included:

• Who benefits economically from sports?
• Free Agency
• Average salaries of athletes in different leagues
• League minimums 

The individuals that benefit the most economically form sports are of course the athletes. They benefit form salaries, endorsement deals, appearance fees, etc. Restrictive labor practices kept athlete salaries down for the most part until the last twenty years of the 20th century.

Free agency began in 1975 for baseball, 1976 for basketball, and 1993 for football. Free agency is what has allowed athletes to sign the extremely expensive contracts that we see today.

Average Salaries In Sports

• National Football League  - $1.9 million
• Major League Baseball - $3.31 million
• National Hockey League - $2.4 million
• National Basketball League - $5.15 million

League Minimums

• MLB - $480,000
• NFL -$405,000
• NBA - $475,000
• NHL - $525,000

It now seems like every year we see an athlete sign a record breaking contract in on of the major sport leagues. The latest in this list is 30 year old Detroit Tigers 3rd baseman Miguel Cabrera. On March 27th, 2014, SB Nation writer Patrick Kennedy wrote an article titled Cabrera's new contract is the biggest in baseball history. In the article, Kennedy breaks down the contract for the average reader to understand. Cabrera received an 8 year, $248 million extension to his current contract that still has 2 years remaining that pay him $22 a season. All together, Cabrera's contract adds up to be 10 years, $292 million. This contract is more money than any one player has received under one contract in the history of baseball. Cabrera will make $31 million a season for the first 8 seasons and $29 million each of the last 2 seasons. Kennedy explained the impact that the contract will have financially on the Tigers. The Tigers now have one of the top 5 highest payrolls in baseball, and it is going to be tough for them to find the money to re-sign their other "star" players when that time comes.

Detroit Tigers 3rd baseman Miguel Cabrera
Image courtesy of CBS sports

Connecting to the text, Jay Coakley discusses the concept of free agency and the average salaries in major U.S. professional leagues, compared to the median family income on pages 381-382 of his book, Sports in Society:  Issues and Controversies. He writes that professional athletes obtained the right to become free agents under certain conditions in 1976. He defines free agency as "allows some players whose contracts expired to seek contracts with other teams that bid for their services." He also writes of how free agency has had a huge effect on salaries from the 1970's to today, something we are all seeing in the sports world currently. In 1970, the average MLB salary was $13,300 and the median family income was $4,000. This was about a $9,000 dollar difference. In 2008, the average MLB salary increased to $3,142,000 and the median family income was $58,480. That difference of only $9,000 has increased to a difference of about $3 million dollars, and contracts like the on Miguel Cabrera just signed are the reason for statistics like this.