Before this season had started. Mr. Rodriguez admitted to using performing-enhancing drugs to give himself an ever greater advantage to dominate his profession. It is a given that Rodriguez was a Hall of Famer before he had started to use performance enhancing drugs in 2001. Rodriguez would eventually stop using these performing enhancing drugs in 2003. His reasoning behind these actions, all had to do with the pressure of a 10-year, 252 million dollar contract that he signed with the Texas Rangers in 2000.
Rodriguez would express his admission to ESPN reporter Peter Gammons about his use of performing enhancing drugs and the reasons behind his decision to use these substances:"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, felt all the weight of the world on top of me to perform and perform at a high level every day". (1)
This type of reasoning is understandable, but at the same time it does not exculpate the use of these substances. If, Rodriguez did not want the pressure of such a high stake contract, he should not have signed that brobdingnagian type of deal. Rodriguez had a choice, he knew what he was doing as he embarked on a risky procedure to help meet the high expectations of his record setting contract. It really makes me cringe when Rodriguez uses this reasoning to justify his use of performance enhancing drugs.
The fact is every single person on the face of this planet is faced with pressure, it may not be the same level of pressure, but it is still pressure. I work part-time, intern for a State Senator, and are apart of a variety of Student Organizations, but I'm not trying to cheat the system to advance my own interests. I would rather fail and live to fight for another day, than succeed and live with the constant feeling of guilt, as well as the feeling of regret for my actions.
The pressure that engulfs the average individual is a mixture of internal and external circumstances. In regards to the internal circumstances, it is based off of the decisions that we have control of. This includes having a choice at the selected situations at hand, which is basically an elective pressure. Internal pressure can, for instance, consist of joining school organizations or being apart of a school team.
On the other hand, External pressures arise from situations that we cannot control. An example of external pressure, can consist of the tough economic environment that is around today. The average worker has no control over the outside factors that are involved in the fate of their own job security. Due to these external factors, it puts additional pressure on that person to thrive in the terrible economic environment. This inability to control the outside forces only complicates the struggles of the average individual, and their desire to advance their status in the world.
However, in this case Rodriguez had internal pressures before him. He had the choice of signing that contract, and being at the center of living up to the largest contract in sports history, which would later be triumphed by a larger contract that he signed in 2007. Rodriguez had a choice in his actions to sign the contract, and he had the choice to train with integrity to live up to that contract. Still, Rodriguez decided to cheat the game of baseball.
Rodriguez did not deserve to win a ring, but I guess the unethical side of this world is allowed to prevail. This does not only go for Rodriguez, but I feel the same way about people of every profession that go about their ways to cheat the system intact.
It makes me pessimistic that once I actually enter my future profession that people are going to cheat their way to the top because of their own insecurity of failing within the system. I know that people need to survive and will do anything to advance their own well-being, but I would rather be down and out knowing that I did things the right way, than living with the continued pressing guilt to achieve my own potential success. In the end, it all comes down to making the right decision, with the choices that are available. All I can say, it is going to be a long winter, and knowing that Mr. Rodriguez has a ring will only make it harder to have faith that justice is served in our World.
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