Imagine having a great baseball career available to you if wanted it. What if it was as easy as getting an injection? That dream is a reality, courtesy of steroids. As long as you have money and time to work out, you can be a great baseball player, all because of science. Imagine it – the money, the fame, the attention, anything and everything you could ever want. Is it right? I don’t think so. But people do it.

Steroids have many medical benefits. They help asthmatics, they shorten recovery time, and they help you get jacked. I don’t mean a few more pounds of muscle, I mean going from 200 pounds to 230 pounds of pure, powerful muscle. Whom do you think a baseball team will pick? The decent player with a good work ethic, or the bigger, faster, stronger player on steroids? You wouldn’t think twice. If you had to, then let the facts convince you ­otherwise.

Look at Adrián Beltré. Before 2004 he had never hit more than 20 home runs or driven in more than 80 runs in his career, nor had he hit over .450 (which represents the total number of bases divided by the player’s at-bats – essentially how much power production the player has). So Beltré ­wasn’t a power hitter, until 2004, that is, when he ­became a free agent and had his one shot at big-time money. This was also the last year that the MLB didn’t test for steroids. That year he hit 48 home runs and drove in 121 runs, with a batting average of .629. Beltré signed a five-year, $64 million contract. In 2005, however, MLB started testing for steroids. Beltré went right back to his 20 home runs and 80 RBI, and his slugging percentage dropped 200 points to .432. [Editor’s note: Beltré has never ­admitted to or been positively tested for steroid use.]

Using steroids is wrong, in my opinion, but what ­reasons do players have not to do it? First off, there are appearance-altering side effects. For men, steroid use can cause shrinking of reproductive organs, development of breasts, and ­infertility. In women it can result in masculine traits: facial hair, a lower voice, masculine facial changes, and cessation of the menstrual cycle. For both sexes it can cause cysts, acne, balding, and oily skin and hair. Steroid use can also result in serious health problems like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and tumors and cysts in the liver and kidneys.

Knowing the side effects of steroids should discourage people from using them, right? Well, consider this: The minimum wage in the major leagues is $316,000, and the average salary is over $3 million, which is 1,797 times the average salary in the capital of the Dominican Republic. Would you be willing to risk the side effects of steroids in order to secure the ­future of your family?

Barry Bonds was a great baseball player before he took steroids, probably Hall of Fame caliber. But ­apparently great wasn’t enough for him. He needed more. He got more, but he paid the price.

The game has been tainted, tampered, and testosteroned to the point of questionable recovery. Science has taken players who are as thin as pancakes and made them as thick as linebackers. I am beginning to look gravely upon the once-glorious game’s future, and I wonder how it is ever going to recover.

For every armor built there is a bullet to pierce it, and steroids have become that bullet. Every time the MLB makes a new steroid policy, someone discovers a loophole. Imagine the greatest game ever, free from steroids and controversy. Why imagine? Perhaps ­because that’s all there is left for us to do.