As rival sluggers McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds swelled to unnatural sizes in the late ’90s, baseball fans swallowed their skepticism: watching a previously unthinkable number of balls rocket out of parks was too much fun to give up. (McGwire famously edged out Sosa to set the home-run record at 70 in 1998; three years later, Bonds upped it to 73.) But in a few short years, as players copped one by one to juicing, the veneer began to crack. Bonds had tested positive for steroid use in 2000, it was revealed in 2007; Sosa’s positive 2003 test results were reported in 2009. When McGwire admitted to a decade’s worth of on-and-off doping in January 2010, he dug in his heels: “I was given a gift to hit home runs,” he insisted in a television interview. “The only reason I took steroids was for health purposes.”
Top 10 Disgraced Athletes
Baseball star Roger Clemens was just acquitted of all charges of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs during his 23-second career. Although he walks away with a not guilty verdict, Clemens's reputation was damaged in the process, TIME takes a look at other athletes whose names have been tarnished