The huge increase in home runs hit by baseball players in the late 90’s and early 2000’s was fueled by the use of steroids. The so called “Steroid Era” in baseball began to make baseball fun again. Players were hitting home runs at an unprecedented rate in the 90’s and people would tune in for Cardinals games and Cubs games to watch Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire trade off home run after home run in 1998. From the 1990-1997 seasons, there had been a total of six times that a player hit over 50 home runs in any given season, and Mark McGwire owned two of those six. Additionally, no one had hit over 58 home runs from the 1990-1997 seasons. The one person to hit 58 home runs? Mark McGwire in 1997. In the 1998 season, Mark McGwire finished with 70 home runs and Sammy Sosa finished with 66 home runs. These weren’t the only players that were thought of to be using steroids in that time frame. Big name players like Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Gary Sheffield, and Wally Joyner all admitted to using steroids in the 90’s or early 2000’s and were punished for it. Steroids were not declared illegal in the United States until 1988, when, “The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 creates criminal penalties for those who ‘distribute or possess anabolic steroids…’”(The Associated Press). Following this ruling, in 1991 the commissioner of the MLB decided to add steroids to the list of banned substances in the MLB. While it was illegal to use steroids in baseball, it didn’t stop players from using them.

Mark McGwire is one of the most notorious baseball players in recent memory. While McGwire was always seen as a power hitter during his time with the A’s, he never hit over 50 home runs until his last full season with the A’s when he hit 52 at the age of 32. After being traded to the Cardinals, McGwire began hitting home runs at a rate never seen before.

In the 1997 season, which he split between the A’s and the Cardinals, McGwire hit 58 home runs. Following his historic season, he then proceeded to hit 70 home runs in 1998 and 65 home runs in 1999. After those two seasons, he played limited games with the Cardinals but still managed to hit 61 combined home runs in the 2000-2001 seasons.

The number of home runs in the MLB was skyrocketing. While not all of these players definitely took steroids throughout their time in the MLB, the following players were all relevant in the MLB in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and contributed to the excitement around baseball: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Jose Canseco, Vlad Guerrero, Mike Piazza, Albert Pujols, and many other greats. They all had massive home run amounts and helped contribute to the glory of the “Steroid Era” in the MLB. Regardless who did steroids and who didn’t do steroids, the element of people believing that the players were using steroids to bolster the game somewhat excited fans and it created a fun atmosphere around baseball.

There’s nothing more exciting than a home run in baseball, and players figured that if they hit the most home runs, then fans would want to see them while they helped their team to victory. While home runs were up in the late 90’s to early 2000’s, home runs took a sharp dip in the mid-2000’s to early 2010’s. Prior to the 2002 season, the league didn’t regularly test their players and it was thought that players could easily take steroids without any real worry that they could get in trouble for taking them. Once players began getting in trouble with the MLB for the use of steroids, they began to slow down on the use of steroids and home runs leveled back out again.

The “Steroid Era” in the MLB is one of the most storied and well-known eras for any sport. Baseball, which was once thought of as America’s Pastime and was once the most popular sport in the United States, was relevant again and people began loving the game again. Following the “Steroid Era”, the amount of home runs went down and the fun in baseball was deteriorating. While huge fans of the sport will remain loyal to baseball no matter the circumstances, the “Steroid Era” brought baseball back to relevancy again and was fun for everyone to watch again.