Omnibus A-Rod Post

by
February 9, 2009

Obviously there was a lot of activity over the weekend, and while the blogosphere is often great at picking up and processing stuff quickly, it’s not very good at perspective or organization. So, in the interests of perspective and organization — with the knowledge that the A-Rod story is really three or four stories wrapped up in one — I provide this post as one-stop A-Rod steroid story shopping for the day.

Issue #1: How on Earth did this happen?

I touched on this yesterday, but the fact of Rodriguez’s test should never have come to light. As Mark Fainaru “thank God steroids are back in the news” Wada reported and many others have noted, the results from the 2003 tests should have been destroyed as soon as the positives had been tallied. They weren’t, most likely because Gene Orza or someone at MLBPA either didn’t realize or didn’t care that trying to protect the test results of ten BALCO people risked the disclosure of the at least 104 non-BALCO people from the 2003 tests. This failure to see the forest for the trees is, in my mind at least, tantamount to malpractice, and someone should be sacked for it. Probably should have been sacked already, but what has happened has happened.

In any event, it is my view that long after the Alex Rodriguez-specific portion of this drama has played itself out with an apology, a press conference, and a .300/.400/.600 season, this episode will be remembered mostly as the first known instance of the MLBPA truly betraying the interests of its own players. That, my friends, will have longer legs than anything else that broke on Saturday.

And of course, let us spare no ill feelings when it comes to whoever in the government leaked this stuff. Look, I don’t sit in my study wearing a tinfoil hat all day, but you don’t have to be someone like that to wonder why, if the feds have had this information for years, it’s only coming out now. To me this leak smells like a calculated and maybe even a vindictive move, designed to thrust the steroid story back into the public eye on the eve of Barry Bonds’ trial. I don’t like to use the term “witch hunt” because its misuse has long since caused it to lose its real meaning, but it is certainly the case that the federal government’s investigation of steroids in professional sports has gotten out of hand, both in terms of the resources spent and in the amount of zeal with which it is apparently being pursued.

Issue #2: What does this mean for baseball?

On one level it means very little. Spring Training will start very soon, and the regular season soon after, and the bulk of this will recede to the point where only wackos like me — the “chattering classes” as Pete likes to say — are talking about it. People will forget the idiotic hyperbole that has stunk up the joint over the past 48 hours. People will go to the games to forget how crappy the non-baseball world is right now, and more people will be talking about what Alex Rodriguez is contributing to the pennant drive than what he has contributed to the steroid story. And if you don’t believe me, just recall that this time last year we were still bobbing helplessly in the wake of the Mitchell Report and the opening scenes of Roger Clemens’ one-man tragedy. The A-Rod story is about one man’s acts six years ago. Last year’s stuff was about nearly a hundred dudes and high, ongoing drama. It all receded too.

But on the chattering class level, if there is any justice in the world, the A-Rod story will finally put public lie to the notion that the Mitchell Report meant anything. Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote a pretty spiffy little number in this year’s Hardball Times Annual about how the Mitchell Report was a PR piece that failed on every level except one: convincing the weak-minded that it approached comprehensiveness or represented finality. How does it look now that it missed the biggest name in baseball when evidence that the biggest name in baseball had used was in the league’s possession all along? How can anyone associated with Major League Baseball point to the Mitchell Report as anything other than a historical curiosity when Alex Rodriguez and, presumably, a hundred other ballplayers’ names will be leaking out over the coming weeks and months? Guess what? I hate the Mitchell Report, so I’m glad it has had its horse shot out from under it. I know everyone is sick of it by now, but let’s have a real blood-letting and really get it behind us, cool?

Issue #3: What does this mean for the Yankees?

Not many people are asking this question, but at least one commenter here was yesterday, and I reprint the way in which he raised the issue for everyone else’s consideration:

Above all else, the New York Yankees are a brand. The Mets play baseball, the Red Sox play baseball, and so so the other 27 teams that come through New York City every summer. The only reason people root for the Yankees instead of these other teams is proximity and brand. The last thing that brand needs is nine years of its best player constantly hounded by steroid talk as he gets paid millions in bonus money for hitting #600, #661, #715, #756, and #763.

I took issue with that by noting that the Yankee Brand, such as it is, is about winning lots of freaking baseball games. If the Yankees continue to win lots of freaking baseball games, the brand will not be sullied. Indeed, the only time in living memory when “the Yankee Brand” suffered was between 1965 and 1975 when they couldn’t win anything. As for now, if they continue to win lots of freaking baseball games over the next few years, it’ll be because A-Rod has continued to hit the cover off the ball, and if A-Rod is hitting the cover off the ball, people will go back to worrying about (a) the Red Sox; (b) Derek Jeter’s clutchiness; and (c) who Rodriguez is sleeping with, all as God intended.

Issue #4: What does this mean for Alex Rodriguez?

As far as career assessments go, I’ll leave the heavy lifting to Neyer:

I hope Alex Rodriguez didn’t cheat. If we do find out that he cheated, I will wish that he hadn’t. But whatever happens, I’m not going to change my opinion that he’s a great baseball player. Like many of the greatest players, he’ll do whatever it takes to be the best player he can be. For a stretch of five or 10 years — and yes, perhaps even today still — being the best player could have meant cheating. Maybe the cheaters were wrong; that’s the direction in which I lean, probably because I’ve got a streak of the moralist in me. But I will not sit idly while great athletes looking for an edge — not all that different from the many generations before them — are demonized by the high priests of baseball opinion. I will not.

That’s exactly where I sit, and I would hope that come 20 years from now, that’s where history will sit too. That instead of blackballing Alex Rodriguez because of steroids, his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of every player in this era, will be judged on a curve, just like we judge pitchers from the 60s and slap-hitters from the 20s and 30s. They’re different, and their numbers must be adjusted in some rough way in order for us to find value in them, but they are not illegitimate per se. Indeed, now that A-Rod is out of the PED closet and given that others will no doubt soon follow, maybe we’re more likely to get there than we would have had we never learned about this.

A Hardball Times Update
by RJ McDaniel
Goodbye for now.

Why? Because the more players who are found to have used PEDs, the less accurate it is to say that anyone had an unfair advantage. Sure, on a matchup-by-matchup basis there were users facing non-users, but the caricature of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — juiced up monsters cheating their way across a league of innocents — grows more ridiculous as each new name surfaces. Many, many ballplayers have used PEDs in recent years. So many, I’d guess, that at some point a blanket presumption of PED use — as long as it’s not accompanied by a blackballing and an excess of moralizing — should be in order for the players of our age.

If you take such an approach, you will admittedly find fewer heroes and villains, which is sad if you write for a major newspaper, because that’s how they seem to like their stories. But it does have the benefit of, you know, matching the reality which holds in the rest of our gray and ambiguous world.

And if you don’t? If you demonize and hyperbolize like Jayson Stark and all of the others each time a new name pops up, proclaiming each new PED transgression to be worst than the last and all of them worse than anything that came before? Well, then, you’re eventually going to have to give up on this game altogether, because you won’t have a recent baseball memory that isn’t terminally tainted. As I sit here today, no baseball memory of mine — 1998 home run race included — has been ruined by any PED-related revelations. If they had been, I probably couldn’t find the will to wake up and write about this game every day. And to be fair, the Jayson Stark’s of the world wake up and, most of the time anyway, seem to enjoy writing about this game too.

Which leads me to wonder: are they lying when they say how much they love baseball, or are they lying when they say that PEDs have destroyed it? It has to be one of those, right?


28 Comments
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Jason @ IIATMS
13 years ago

Best. Recap. Period.

Seriously, Craig, thanks for taking the requisite time to calmly put all of this down in some semblance of order without trying to yell the loudest.

There’s so much I don’t like about this, besides the cold hard fact of ARod testing positive.  Thanks for capturing all of that.

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hermitfool
13 years ago

Bravo, Craig! This piece won’t be the last word on the subject, but it should be.

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VanderBirch
13 years ago

Fantastic Craig, as always.

I second your views on the Mitchell Report- its a shoddy PR cover for 10 years of wilful ignorance. Hopefully this incident will provide the kick in the backside for a much needed housecleaning at the MLBPA. Its pretty farcical that the same guys who let the steroid mess degenerate so far are now charged with the responsibility of cleaning it up.

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spitball
13 years ago

“So many, I’d guess, that at some point a blanket presumption of PED use—as long as it’s not accompanied by a blackballing and an excess of moralizing—should be in order for the players of our age.”

Yes.  Guilt by association should be the conclusion that ALL players used PEDS from sometime in ‘90s into 2004 and beyond.  We can wrap it all up in such a pretty little package for our consumption and all feel…, uh,… somewhat better about it?  I’ll bet ballplayers- Frank Thomas, Schilling (his personal views and quest for attention set aside), Mussina, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz- who did not resort to chemical enhancement to improve performance will certainly embrace this.  Do I know they haven’t used?  No.  Do I suspect this group used. No, that’s my opinion.  If news breaks in the future they did indulge, then I mentally place them into the catagory of ballplayers in the next paragraph.

As you, Craig, are aware, Bonds, Rodriguez, Sosa, Clemens, McGwire, etc., were virtual locks for HOF election without the need for PEDs.  The ability to perform at a higher level due to PED
use certaily helped these guys perform better, not only against guys who used like them, but against premier non-users, like those in the preceeding paragraph.  You’ve probably figured where I’m going with this-  how much did the performance of non-users suffer at the bats, arms and legs of those who did use?  Isn’t it plausible to state the records of Thomas, Schilling , Mussina, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz may certainly be better had they not had compete against men on drugs? 

Assuming blanket use for the era is wrong in my mind- it takes too much away from those who didn’t use, not only as ballplayers, but as human beings.  These men have had an honest on field effort taken from them by those who used.  Lumping them in the same catagory, “assuming” (and with a lawyerly back ground you know how dangerous assumptions can be) blanket use, is not fair to these men and I’m certain they would agree.

If the guilty ones don’t surface, hand ‘em all.  Let’s cut off the nose to spite the face.

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Guido
13 years ago

You missed one of the most intriguing aspects of all, which is that in 2004 Gene Orza was tipping off A-Rod about when his next “random” test was to occur.  So not only did he continue to abuse PEDs but with the consent of the players union.  This was actually mentioned in the Mitchell Report as well, but now we have more specific information, and it’s horrifying.

Also, no wonder A-Rod toed the line so quickly when the union told him he couldn’t reduce the total value of his contract to leave Texas.

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Wooden U. Lykteneau
13 years ago

I’m struggling with how it’s necessarily the union’s fault that the test results weren’t kept confidential. From the MFW story:

“But, for some reason, neither the owners nor the union filed the necessary paperwork ordering CDT and Quest to destroy all the records and samples.”

I’m no lawyer—but Craig, you are (heh heh)—but is there any reason why the players’ agents didn’t file said paperwork? In other words, were they prevented from doing so?

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Craig Calcaterra
13 years ago

Wooden—I’m not totally sure, but my sense of it was that there was no individual right to do it.  The power over the tests resided with MLB and the union.  There’s probably more to learn about this, though, so that’s all I can really say.

Guido—re: the tipping.  The union has denied it, so again, I think we need more information before we can definitively say anything about it (at least responsibly).  That said, if there was tipping, it’s just another reason for Orza (or whoever tipped) to go.

Spitball—Great name, because it highlights the very issue you raise.  before 1920 or so, the spitball was legal. Many used it, many didn’t, and we’ll never know who did or did not for sure. We don’t throw out everyone’s records, however, because we can take a broader view and say “well, many did” and give a rough weight to the era.  On a player by player level this may cause some injustices, sure, but there really is no other practical way to deal with it given the fact that we (a) will never have objective evidence on every player’s use; and (b) we are now at a point where we cannot take anyone’s word on the subject at face value.

This is hard for me to admit, because my favorite player of all time is Greg Maddux. I’d like to think he didn’t use, and if you put a gun to my head I’d say he didn’t.  I’d like to give him more credit for doing what he did in the steroid era, but I can’t know for sure that, on the whole, he didn’t have a greater advantage than he did a disadvantage.  Eventually you find yourself going around and around in circles.

What to do?  Say that everyone kind of juiced, adjust offense down a bit and understand that this is an era just like the deadball era and the 1930s and the 1960s.  We have no problem doing that for the old days, so let’s do it for the new days too.

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Sutton
13 years ago

I still think the government piece is worth more attention. Is their plan to leak a name a week? Month? Leaking names from a confidential test in 2003 is pretty distrustful.

I’m not sure why this angle does not get more media coverage. Does the mainstream press not get it?

If the government wants to prosecute Bonds, then they should prosecute Bonds and leave it at that. If their case is weak then they should stop dumping thousands in tax payer dollars into it.

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The Common Man
13 years ago

“Look, I don’t sit in my study wearing a tinfoil hat all day”

I will now adjust my mental picture of Craig working accordingly.

Great post, Craig.  Can we start a pool to figure out when Orza will resign?

@ Wooden

Jon Heyman wrote about this yesterday (and Craig linked to it).  Heyman argues that it was Orza’s determination to pare down the original list of users to under 5%.  As for individual agents, I imagine that, if any of them made a request and that request was ever made public, it would be extremely damaging to that agent’s clients.

http://www.the-common-man.com

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Scott
13 years ago

About the players’ union:
If the players’ union never moved to destroy those samples and records, then I think they bear the largest portion of the blame. It doesn’t really matter why they didn’t make the request. As the one clown in this circus that is supposed to protect the players, the union should have acted sooner.

And on a tangential note:
For some reason that I can’t quite describe, this story from SI.com really bothers me:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/tom_verducci/02/08/arod.qa/index.html?eref=T1

Isn’t it the height of bad form for a newspaper (or whatever SI.com is) to write stories about its own influence? Especially so soon after the report that there’s no way to accurately gauge that influence? It feels a lot more like advertising than actual reporting.

Seeing the headline on the SI.com front page is making it hard for me to read anything else on their site. I think the continuing steroid follies have finally driven me crazy.

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Aaron Moreno
13 years ago

I refuse to give any credence to the suggestion that a GOVERNMENT LAWYER would willingly leak information to the media and public at large in an attempt to poison the well and win an otherwise weak case. To say that we may hear other names on the steroid list soon is absurd, and I will now sing the Star-Spangled Banner while holding my professional ethics book close to my heart until this goes away.

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dlf
13 years ago

What to do?  Say that everyone kind of juiced, adjust offense down a bit and understand that this is an era just like the deadball era and the 1930s an the 1960s.

Why adjust just offense?  We seen from the names released in Mitchell and other sources that pitchers are just as likely to have used PEDs.  It seems to me that there are so many potential drug related factors involved (fastball speed is up, recovery between outings may be improved, bat speed is up, larger hitters less able to play quality defense …) then throw them into a pot with a bunch of unrelated non-drug factors (smaller parks, new ball construction, double lacquered maple bats, changing strike zone …) that it becomes a fools errand to suggest a steroids discount, particularly one that only impacts one side of the ledger.

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Matt
13 years ago

The only thing more annoying than all the moral indignation about the steroid scandal is all the moral indignation about all the moral indignation about the steroid scandal. If it’s not a Shysterball post about poor A-Rod and the evil MLBPA, it’s a Shysterball post about poor Bonds and the evil prosecutors.

I would be a happy man if the words ‘steroid’ or ‘investigation’ never graced the pages of this blog ever again.

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spitball
13 years ago

The spitballs, dead balls, lively balls, the introduction of shin guards by Mr. Bresnahan, pitcher dominance for much of the ‘60s, etc., occured due to rule and equipment changes, and influenced how the game was played. Changes due to drug enhanced performance do not, in my book, fit in this same catagory. 

I understand one’s need to weight and adjust, to neutralize parks for the sake of sabremetrics.  The “steroid era” goes beyond other “eras”.  Even when one adjusts and weights, there is fundamental difference, a nagging thought in the back of my mind, that says this ain’t right.  That thought doesn’t occur with other “eras” come to mind.  Some ballplayers got screwed in this era due to illegal or ethically and morally shakey practices of others.  Something has been taken away from from those who played with PEDs.  Adjustments and weights do nothing but diminish the clean accomplishments of these guys, they continue getting screwed.  Until I’m shown Maddux, et al, used they stay on the pedestal.

Henry Aaron’s accomplishments mean much more to me than those of Bonds (and in the future Rodriguez) ever could.  Simply because I can hold to trust the accomplishments of Aaron.  Those of the users I cannot.

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Aaron Moreno
13 years ago

I’m gonna guess here Matt and say that you’re gonna be pissed for awhile.

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Browngoat
13 years ago

I tend to focus on the failure of the union here.  A few years ago, I heard Marvin Miller on the radio, defending the rights of players to NOT take drug tests.  He cited the right to privacy and ultimately, the slippery slope players would find themselves if they gave up their privacy, even in a matter like PED’s. 
He was blasted by the talk show host as being out of touch, and wrong on the matter.

Now, tests that should have been destroyed are seized by the government, and then leaked to the press.  So much for privacy.  Whoever at the MLBPA failed to make sure those tests should be destroyed should be fired if they don’t have the brains/class to resign first.
Whoever leaked that information to the press should face legal ramifications as well.

And to top it all off, Reggie Jackson and Curt Schilling want have the other 103 (or 104) positive tests released, you know, for the betterment of the “clean” guys.  All that would prove is that the clean guys didn’t test positive for what they were testing for.  Maybe a bunch of guys hopped up on steroids stopped, or were taking substances that couldn’t be tested for at the time.  A negative steroid test could mean nothing.

What happened to Fehr and Orza and the union?  They went from competent to idiots overnight, and every one blames the players, and no one looks at owners as culpable in this matter.

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Conor
13 years ago

I agree with spitball – steroids are different. Unlike the spitball pitch, though there wasn’t an explicit punishment by baseball rules, steroids were illegal to obtain and use. The deadball era affected all players without bias. Steroids were used by some and not by others and therefore did not affect all players equally.

Craig is right about the circles, though. I’m sure there are plenty of occasions where steroids turned a routine fly ball into a homerun. But what if that homerun came off a pitcher that had used steroids? I always thought it was fitting that Bonds’ homerun that tied Hank Aaron was hit off a pitcher that had been suspended for steroid use in 2005.

I think this mass media coverage, “witch hunt”, public obsession, whatever you want to call it, is simply a search to find out as much as possible. I agree with spitball that it’s just not fair to the David Ecksteins to write off an entire 20 year era. It may be easier to write it all off as a steroid induced era of baseball and move on. But until we know as much of the truth as possible, we will never be able to put the era into the appropriate historical context.

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bigcatasroma
13 years ago

Amen. 

Re: Jason Stark and ilk.  I believe that they don’t really believe in what they spew—it sells newspapers (or webhits), so they go with it. 

Re: Cheating in baseball in general.  Look, the whole argument is really simple and silly.  Read Bill James’ Historical Abstract.  Some have been cheating from the get go.  There could be as many cheaters in the MLB population as in the investment banker, lawyer, doctor, plumber, or whatever population you want to sample, maybe more, maybe less, who knows.  But they have been doing it forever.  You want to keep Bonds and McGuire out of the Hall of Fame, or the “record books”?  Fine.  Take out Mays for taking greenies (and who knows, steroids – do you see his numbers from when he was over 30??? Re-DIC-ulous—and steroids were around in the form we’ve come to know and love since the ‘60s and ‘70s, let’s not kid ourselves—see the Steelers of the era).  Take out Ruth for using horse semen (the HGH of the 1920s, apparently).  Take out those who violated the morals clause, or the “good of the game clause,” take out EVERYONE.  That’s where this line of whole moral indignation goes . . .

Finally, this is GREAT for the sabermetrics side of the baseball argument.  Because now, perhaps, the MSM will have to embrace metrics like OPS+ or VORP or whatever, to determine the true VALUE of a player.  New metrics to neutralize steroids will be developed, and then we can REALLY determine (if) A-Rod really was the best or not, and not just speculate.  I say, the more steroid news, the better for the metric side of the baseball world . . .

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bigcatasroma
13 years ago

One more thought.

When I was younger, in college, and KNEW that in ‘98 McGuire was on roids (body type, andro is a scam, etc.) I didn’t care that he was juiced; the steroid use on its face isn’t what always troubled me.  It is that, back in the day, G.C. Alexander would pitch a 3 hitter still drunk from the night before, or that Ruth/Mantle whomever was hungover/just pounded a beer/etc. before blasting a 500 foot home run.  There was a certain romanticism in that baseball, since apparently you could excel at it with alcohol coursing through your body, was something that ANYONE could do, if they had the talent. 

Nobody talks about the serious amount of work Mantle put in, from the age of 3 onwards, to be the best.  Nobody talks about the drinking and driving, the destruction it must have caused with his personal relationships or team relationships.  Nobody cares about the alcohol use; it’s an American thing (we love alcohol, guns and alcohol and guns together, but god forbid anyone tokes on a joint, we’re out to punish him tremendously . . . wait, where am I going?  Oh yeah).  We love Mantle, or Ruth, or whomever, for the chemicals he put in his body; but, b/c that chemical is not associated with performance ENHANCEMENT, we look the other way.  Steroids changes the nature of this romanticized view; baseball went from broads and booze to 6 hours in the gym, windsprints, etc. that made already talented people do things we could never do, especially do drunk.  THAT’S the real indignation with steroids.  It dehumanized the ball player.

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Pete Toms
13 years ago

Randomly.

@ Guido: “horrifying”.  Come on man, it’s only baseball.

The baseball writers (whom I’ve defended before during the annual blogger jihad over HOF voting) were complete incompetents on this subject.  On Friday I was watching a Toronto sports talk show and a long time Jays beat writer – Bob Elliott – was one of the participants.  The subject got round to steroids in baseball (remember, this is the day before A Roid) and in particular Clemens’ years with the Jays.  Elliott towed the baseball writers’ party line, “well, there were rumors about guys but we didn’t have any evidence and well, we didn’t really know”.  How, could a baseball beat writer NOT know?  The increased size of the players across the board, Caminiti and Canseco, guys like Anderson, Radomski and McNamee hanging around clubhouses, the ANDRO IN MCGWIRE’S LOCKER.  They revealed themselves to be a bunch of ingratiating jock sniffers, too scared to ask the tough questions and be blackballed.  I see a lot of SI bashing – and I don’t read SI – but I did read Verducci’s 2002 piece on roids in baseball this weekend and he is the one baseball writer who got it right.

Tipping.  The PA has admitted to speaking with all 104 during the 04 season to advise them…and then it gets gray….that the feds had their tests but they (the PA) don’t admit to telling these players that they were positive tests…the PA also admits that the 04 testing was delayed due to logistics and that when meeting with the aforementioned 104 during 04, advising/tipping? (semantics?) them that they were to be tested before season’s end.  (The PA goes to great lengths to explain that the players knew that anyway).  Anyway, go to Maury’s and read the 10 page letter that Fehr sent to Waxman and you’ll understand what I’m on about and where all these “tipping” allegations stem from.

I haven’t been to BP today but perhaps Will Carroll will explain this….did Orza need the test results – both the pee and the identities – to prove “false positives”…or was he and the PA just massively incompetent?

The important question in all of this, much more important than silly old baseball is employee drug testing and Fourth Amendment Rights.  I’m way in over my head here but I’m opposed to employee drug testing, I think it’s an invasion of privacy….and if the federal government can seize your results when your not even under investigation….

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hermitfool
13 years ago

David Eckstein is the perfect example of how much we don’t know. His famous lack of heft makes us less suspicious than were he built like say the average NFL player. But what if his natural build and musculature were 30% smaller than what we’re seeing? What if, like hundreds of MLB players, his reaction to the banning of greenies was to sell freshly minted ADHD symptoms to a known Ritalin prescriber? What if he addresses nagging injuries with HGH, a drug MLB can’t detect. Or what if the smart, scrappy little guy was a pioneer in the world of undetectable designer hormones?  We don’t suspect him of anything, except being puny and scrappy, but we really don’t know squat. Compared with the genetic blue print he was born with he may have exploded into a veritable King Kong. Without the drugs he might have taken, he possibly could be out of baseball because of chronic injuries. Without the Ritalin he might be taking, his batting numbers might be even more anemic.

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ralphdibny
13 years ago

So now Rodriguez has publicly admitted to using steroids.  It seems that he has learned from the Clemens/Pettite comparisons and decided that he prefers the media’s treatment of Pettite.

EXCEPT—Once you open you mouth, and your explanation doesn’t sound convincing, aren’t you in worse shape than before?  Are we really supposed to believe that he used steroids because of the pressure of joining the Rangers, but that the pressure of joining the Yankees didn’t faze him?  That he stopped taking in spring training of 2003, a fact which both explains the positive test and exonerates his MVP season? 

I don’t even care that he used steroids; I’d be more surprised if he didn’t.  But his version of events is so laughably self-serving that I will be surprised if this all goes quickly away.

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Kenn Frye
13 years ago

Craig – I truly wonder if steroids have had all that much impact on the stats.  It seems everyone is forgetting all the other aspect of 1990’s MLB that boosted offense:  1) Expansion (how many hr’s would Maris have hit in 1961 had that not been an expansion year especially looking at his hr total in 1960 and 1962.  See also Norm Cash or for 1962 in the NL, Tommie Davis). There were multiple expansions in the 1990’s.  2) New, smaller ballparks with shorter power alleys, less foul-ball area. Any park in Denver.  3) the umps calling a smaller strike zone. 4)improved bat technology with slender handles and thicker barrels. 5) alleged juicing of the balls.
  The central skill in baseball, whether pitching/hitting/fielding, is hand-eye coordination.  No study has shown steroids to have any positive effect on this skill.  What steroids can do for a person working out is to allow him to a bit work longer and recover a bit sooner. Given two people starting with the same weight/strength and one using steroids, the latter would be marginally faster/stronger/ bigger.  How would that translate into stats? Who knows?  In the 1988 Olympics, steroid aided Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis by 0.13 seconds rather than some amount like Bob Beamon’s long jump).But I can’t imagine it would be much more than negligible when compared to expansion/smaller ballparks/etc.  If steroids are the cause of the hr records, why haven’t some stud pitchers struck out 400+ batters or speedsters stolen 150-200 bases/year?  At least half the players testing positive for steroids have been pitchers.  The poster boy for steroid use is Jose Canseco.  Jose has an identical twin, Ozzie.  One would think that the same chemicals working on the exact same DNA would give reasonably similar results.  But Jose had a career on the fringes of the HoF while Ozzie had a career on the fringes of the Majors Leagues.

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tadthebad
13 years ago

I agree that the persecution of ARod is bad, and I hope he doesn’t have to fight this battle for all of the players and MLB by himself.  That said, I don’t understand the absolution given to any and all players who tested positive for banned substances.  People attmept to make the point that the effect of steroids may have been marginal…um, how the hell do you know that, or what do you base it on?  The players weren’t taking these drugs because they had no affect.  Stronger muscles are an advantage in almost any sport, and baseball is no exception.  It’s an edge, it is cheating.  We’re going to hide behind some prehistoric information and argue that PEDs don’t help increase performance: so it’s OK to believe Canseco when he reports which players used PEDs, but we don’t believe him when he reports that PEDs make great athletes “once in a lifetime” athletes?  Further, we’re going to argue that PED usage isn’t necessarily cheating, and/or that cheating is OK?  This line of reasoning is incredibly frustrating and naive.

It strikes me that as a group, we are quite arrogant about the superiority of baseball to football.  But now, many of us are acting like NFL fans with regards to PED use: just part of the game, let ‘em all use, no big deal, etc.  Complete hypocrisy.  I wonder if someday MLB fans will see their game turned into nothing more than outsized neandrathals who use anything and everything, all in the name of the evolution of the sport.

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VanderBirch
13 years ago

Tad,

I definitely agree with you that PED use is ‘cheating’, and that it leaves something of a sick taste in my mouth. I absolutely believe MLB needs to really agressively seek to stamp out drug use in baseball, through stringent testing and harsh suspensions.

But I don’t believe it is at all fair to castigate players who used prior to the introduction of drug testing. That is not to say that their behaviour reflects well on them, but that everything must be viewed through the prism of the pervasive drug culture that existed then. The Verducci article from 02 is fantastic in setting this out- it was like the wild west for a while. 

Moreover, as has been discussed here and elsewhere, ‘cheating’ is rather difficult as a concept to tie down. Is it intent that matters? What if everyone is doing it, nullifying the advantage? Are steroids that far removed from simply lifting weights or getting LASIK?

I guess I am hoping people can find a middle ground on this, but I am always acutely aware of human fallibility. Putting people on a pedastal, particularly athletes, is almost always a terrible idea- I think if people examined closely a lot of what has happened in baseball history, they would see a lot of things they would not like. Consequently, I don’t think players who used should be judged too harshly. They just wanted to be the best players they could be (and make a shitload of cash at the sametime).

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archilochusColubris
13 years ago

I must say it’s incredibly refreshing to hear points of view like those spitball and Conor provide here. Part of the real problem analytical fans are having with the steroid hoopla is the utter lack of cogent argument as to why these players should be punished so harshly. As Neyer put it, PED-users are being absolutely demonized by the high priests of baseball, none of whom have taken any steps toward arguing WHY this offense is so much more egregious than a DUI or thrown punch, let alone spitballs or greenies. Spitball and Conor identify the singular reason why fans could consider steroids deal-breakers for worthiness: they require incredible personal sacrifice for a fair shot.

That said, i don’t agree with it at all. Maybe it’s a secret Schadenfreude that fills me with glee when i hear of Dock Ellis confusing baseball and dodgeball or Randall Simon taking some time out to fix a sausage race. But for me, entertainment is entertainment and i think that such dangers are a small price to pay for getting the opportunity to play a wonderful game for millions of dollars a year. Not to say i that i condone cheating or would find it in anyway acceptable if pursuing a career in baseball made it necessary to take extreme legal risks or significantly cripple your body; it’s just that as i perceive it, the competitive advantage gained from juicing up and the personal sacrifice required to do so do not reflect a balance so abhorrent as to render their use inexcusable. In light of football-player lifespans and the state of post-career pitching arms, i would be hard-pressed to even make such an argument. The fact of the matter is that we do require athletes to put their bodies on the line to compete at professional levels.

The worst part about all these public shamings is that we’re condemning the very people forced to make these personal sacrifices. Do you think that Alex Rodriguez wanted to take steroids for the sake of his personal fitness? Do you think it profited players any more than it did the owners? Yeah it was bad for the game and yeah it should be stopped but the last person i want to jump on is anyone who undertook this personal sacrifice because others told them it would make them better. I can’t believe what they’ve been through already. I’m not ashamed to say that all this steroids-moralizing has turned Barry Bonds from a despicable player-villain into my favorite player. I’d like to hear anyone tell me he’s getting more than his just desserts.

Bring on more past offenders. Perhaps eventually we’ll swallow the fact that a lot of people tried PEDs, the game made some mistakes, and it didn’t change the game all that much—other than perhaps adding some marginal moments of excessive entertainment.

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joepro
13 years ago

Excellent post and commentary.  This blog is THE AUTHORITY on steroids in baseball.  When Craig says the steroids don’t wipe away the memories, I totally agree.  Showing up for a game two hours early to watch McGwire drill bombs 500 feet into the upper deck is something I will never forget.  It was awesome, and I do remember comments that he was “on something.”  Also, the sports writing industry is so irrelevant, I don’t read into anything they have to say.  I read blogs like this instead.

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The Asterisk
13 years ago

I am one of those tinfoil hat wearing skeptics and I smell a conspiracy.  Eventually it’s going to come out that Major League Baseball as a selfish acto of preservation actively encouraged it’s players to take performance enhancing drugs. (http://www.tinfoilonmyhead.com)

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