There are literally millions upon millions of great stories and moments that have taken place in the world of professional baseball. However, while the majority of those stories and moments are mostly of a positive perspective, some terrible things have happened in the sport as well. Unfortunately, you folks checking out this piece right now will not be getting much in the way of the positive stuff, as we will be primarily focusing on the negative here when it comes to baseball. That is because from here on out, we will be looking at the top five baseball players (in no particular order) who were involved in steroids scandals.
#1: Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds, to this day, still holds two of the biggest records in all of baseball as he holds the records for the most home runs in a single season and the most career home runs. A few years later after breaking both records, Bonds would be indicted by a federal grand jury for not only taking legal steroids, but for providing false testimony and obstruction of justice. Bonds would see the majority of those charges dropped in the following years, but the scandal has affected him to this day as he has yet to be voted into the baseball hall of fame.
#2: Roger Clemens
Clemens is one of the most decorated pitchers in the entire century-plus history of professional baseball, but his mouth and steroid use would catch up to him during and after his career. A former trainer of Clemens would admit to shooting the pitcher up with steroids during his career, Clemens would also be indicted for lying to a federal grand jury. Clemens would get lucky and all charges were dropped against the player after a federal prosecutor was caught and charged with misconduct in connection to Clemens case.
#3: Mark McGwire
The home run record that was broken by Barry Bonds was held beforehand by Mark McGwire, who much like Bonds, would have his career defined by steroid usage. McGwire denied using steroids throughout his career, later admitting to using a substance that was legal at the time in professional baseball. McGwire would also famously avoid answering all steroid related questions from congress in 2005, but would admit to using steroids a few years later in 2010, but the home run record was already broken by another steroid user at that time.
#4: Manny Ramirez
Ramirez would go down in infamy in the baseball universe for using illegal substances, but that’s not what makes his case so darn weird and interesting. Ramirez would be suspended a total of fifty games in 2009 for using an illegal substance, an illegal substance that was actually considered to be a female fertility drug. Ramirez would retire after a second suspension of one hundred games for using another banned substance, he would return after serving half of the suspension, but he would never regain that magic he once had before the two steroid controversies happened.
#5: Andy Pettitte
Pettitte would become infamous in the illegal substance portion of professional baseball for two hugely important reasons. The first would be that reports suggested that Pettitte would use illegal substances in both 2002 and 2004 respectively. Several years later, Pettitte would tell investigators that he would help inject Roger Clemens with human growth hormone, those statements would lead to Clemens road down illegal substances persecution from the sport and the federal government.
So there you have it folks, a total of five professional baseball players who would go down in history for what they injected into their bodies and not for what they did on the field.