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“I'm
not one of those people who refuses to pay for
anything on the Web, and so I pay for a few things. But if I could pay for
just one
thing, it would probably be Craig Wright’s baseball writings.” Rob Neyer ________________
Sammy Sosa - 2005 |
This sample includes
materials from two back-to-back columns, with the second responding to mail
on the first column. Performance
Enhancing Drugs, the Hall, and the Record Books Whether you are a Hall of Famer or not is a matter
of a vote reflecting the perspectives of those who have a ballot. Right now
there are a lot of Hall of Fame voters who are dead set against voting for
players linked to using PEDs. Hal Bodley has a Hall
of Fame vote, and he has flatly written: “I will never give a player, no
matter how great, my vote for the Hall of Fame who’s been connected to
steroid use. I cannot allow the shrine in That seems very unhelpful and overly pompous. I
just can’t see it that way. I think PEDs hurt the game, and I am glad we are
taking action to reduce their presence and impact on the game, but I don’t
see the sense of making these indiscretions an overwhelming factor in whether
someone is a Hall of Famer or not. For me, it is a stain on the whole era. As Chad
Curtis said in a recent interview, it was accepted into the culture of that
day. If baseball was so intent on turning its head the other way that even a
guy like Andy Pettitte succumbed to the temptation,
who can we really be sure was 100% clean? It was so accepted as a
“legitimate” way to cheat that Curtis thought some players honestly didn’t
even realize it was illegal, just like so many players a few decades ago had
trouble comprehending that their use of amphetamines was illegal. Baseball
didn’t seem to care, and this wasn’t like using cocaine, something you took
for your own pleasure and which hurt your career and your team. With PEDs you
were trying to be a better competitor. Even those who resisted,
understood very well the temptation, the motivation. Curt Schilling says he’d like to see all 104 of
the players who tested positive in 2003 named, and that “… if you don’t do
that, then the other 600-700 players are going to be guilty by association,
forever.” Besides being a betrayal of the promise made to those 104 players, that’s ridiculously simplistic and incapable of erasing
the “guilt by association” for everyone in that era. Some players were
recently retired and not tested in 2003, most notably Mark McGwire. The
players knew about the testing in 2003, and just to be on the safe side there
may have been some PED users who cycled off their drugs of choice for most if
not all that year. And the users of certain steroids, such as the Primobolan used by Alex Rodriguez, would not likely have
tested positive unless their random test dates coincided with the smaller
window of detection associated with that mild steroid. And of course, this
2003 testing was for steroids and not other PEDs banned in baseball’s drug
policy such as HGH and amphetamines. Believe me,
you’ve got a whole lot more than 104 players who were “cheating” with PEDs in
this era. I personally would not be surprised if when you count even the
smallest infractions, we are really talking about five times that number. I wholly understand the argument of refusing to
take at face value many of the statistical accomplishments in this era
relative to players from other eras. But if you ever wish to make sense of
statistical measures across eras, you always have to put them in context.
This is just another context. That at least is the way I look at it. And all of that is an incredibly different
discussion than whether someone deserves to be in the Hall of Fame or not.
Barry Bonds’ argument for the For me, the link to PEDs is a minor part of any
player’s story from that era. It does indeed reflect negatively on a player,
but it also reflects on advances in drugs and chemistry, cultural attitudes,
and it reflects hugely on what MLB and the players’ union were doing – or
more accurately, not doing – to protect players who were not willing to
compete through the use of PEDs. Unless someone starts pushing someone like
Bret Boone for the Hall of Fame – which ain’t gonna happen – I can’t conceive of anyone from this era
going into the Hall of Fame who would not have gotten there on his own
natural ability if playing in a PEDs-free league. The use of PEDs before MLB and the When a Hal Bodley talks
about this Hall of Fame issue from the standpoint of Cooperstown being a
“shrine” that should not be “tarnished by their presence” – referring to
players linked to PEDs, he has turned it into a moral issue. But I do not think
he has thought through the implications of this kind of moral issue being a
deciding issue on who should be a Hall of Famer. We have this immensely talented slugger belting a
lot of homers and along the way he rationalizes his way into using a performance
enhancing drug that is not only illegal but dangerous to his health. In
explaining his use of the drug, one might argue that “a lot of players were
doing it” and baseball wasn’t really doing anything to discourage it. He
hasn’t expanded his troubles by possibly committing perjury. So who are we
talking about here? Is this player: A)
Hank Aaron B)
Willie Mays C)
Alex Rodriguez D)
Willie Stargell E)
All of the above The answer is (E), all of the above. And if Hal Bodley feels this is a moral issue that should decide who
is and is not a Hall of Famer, let him call for the removal of Aaron, Mays, Stargell, and many others, including Hall of Famers
Johnny Bench and Mike Schmidt. The so-called “moral” difference between A-Rod and
the other three is that when Aaron, Mays, and Stargell
played, the options among PEDs were limited to drugs that had a smaller
impact on player performance. That’s pretty much it. Look, amphetamines are performance enhancing
drugs, a short-term stimulant that gives a jump to your energy and alertness
while staving off fatigue. It is in fact banned under baseball’s drug policy
just as steroids and HGH are. And if baseball
is really concerned about the health dangers from youngsters imitating the
big leaguers, Dr. Charles Yesalis, a professor of
Health and Human Development at Penn State University, says that abuse of amphetamines is "way, way more dangerous" than the
abuse of anabolic steroids. I play racquetball with a pharmacist and asked
him about that, and he said, “Short-term that is certainly true, and it is
much easier to dangerously abuse amphetamines than anabolic steroids.” Amphetamines are intensely regulated, and have been for
decades longer than anabolic steroids. Beginning in 1956, it was illegal to
distribute amphetamines without a medical prescription, although it was still
legal to possess and use them if you found a way to obtain them without a
prescription. That loophole was closed in November of 1970 when amphetamines
were classified as schedule 2 drugs, and it became illegal to even have
possession of them without a valid medical prescription. Our current baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, remembers
that the first time he ever heard about amphetamines was in the clubhouse of
the 1958 Milwaukee Braves. Sportswriter Bruce Jenkins cited “respected
baseball sources” who confirmed to Jenkins that Henry Aaron “liked” and used
amphetamines. There are probably more stories about Willie Mays’
dedication to the use of amphetamines than any other player of his
generation. He eventually gave up the pill form in favor of an especially
potent form of liquid amphetamine called “Big Red.” Amphetamine use was rampant in the major leagues in the
1960s. In 1969 Jim Bouton likened its storage and
distribution in clubhouses to that of a jar of hard candy. Although
amphetamine use went into a decline after the law changed in the winter of
1970, it still had a very significant presence. Mike Schmidt, whose career
began in 1972, has written about amphetamines being
"widely available in major-league clubhouses" during his career,
and "to be under no illusion that the [prescribed] name on the bottle
coincided with the name of the player taking them ..." Four-time batting champion Bill Madlock
was implicated in the illegal use of amphetamines by testimony given under
oath in the drug trial of another player. Players like Carl Yastrzemski,
Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt all have been mentioned as players
who at least "experimented" with amphetamines
during their career. Rose also testified in the trial of a doctor prosecuted
for writing illegal amphetamine prescriptions for Rose and other members of
the World Champion Phillies. Anyone here believe that without the betting scandal that
Pete Rose would be in the Hall of Fame today? Sure he would. The moral issue
of his illegal involvement with amphetamines, a performance enhancing drug,
would not have been held against him any more than it was with these other
star players. An interesting trivia question … Who are the only two Hall
of Famers who have had a teammate testify under oath in open court, that
their Hall of Fame teammate possessed unprescribed
controlled substances that were performance enhancing drugs? That would be Willie Mays and Willie Stargell.
In the cocaine trials of 1985, Dale Berra, who first became Stargell’s teammate in 1977, mentioned in his testimony
that he had gotten amphetamines from Willie
Stargell. John Milner, who
was Willie Mays' teammate in 1972-73, testified vaguely
about getting amphetamines from Mays and spoke
specifically about the red juice amphetamine concoction that Mays used, and
which he kept openly in his locker. Yes, it is messier to deal with the PEDs factor today
because of the greater influence on performance that is possible with the
modern drugs, but it would be hypocritical to get all sanctimonious and try
to turn these Hall of Fame judgments into a black and white moral issue. I’ve been around major league ballplayers and I’ve
competed with them in various sports. They could be easy going if they felt
it wasn’t really a competitive contest, but in the sports where our skill
levels tended to be more even, it was always interesting to see how many had
a competitive strain come out in their personalities that I rarely saw in
folks from other walks of life. Simply put, these are competitive people. Some will look
for any edge, and I don’t doubt that a lot of them will do something they
normally would never do, if they felt that was what their opponents were
doing or being allowed to do. I don’t think the players of this recent era
are any less moral than the players of the 1980s, 1970s, or 1960s. And the
presence of the best of them in the Hall of Fame is not going to tarnish the
Hall anymore than the presence of morally ambiguous stars of those earlier
eras. And even “morally ambiguous” is way too harsh. Hank Aaron’s a good man.
Willie Stargell’s a good man. We are largely
talking about very human mistakes, moral stumbles being made in a room full
of marbles. The Hall of Fame is for ballplayers, not perfect saints.
From the mailbag: … I
get that the “moral” issue of using amphetamines illegally is not different
from using steroids illegally, but you are missing the point that many of us
who oppose Mark McGwire and company as Hall of Famers are not objecting to
the moral taint but the taint on their records. We cannot trust them and put
them in the Hall. Having established that it is not a moral
issue for you, I assume the “them” you do not trust is not the players in
this instance, but their records, and that leaves you saying that their records
are what we put in the Hall and not the players. While I’m not sure you
specifically meant to say that, I know that is the way some folks look at it,
and I imagine this is the source of the anguish over performance enhancing
drugs that comes from a large segment of fans. That’s why some folks want to slap
asterisks on certain records, and why some write me letters asking about ways
to “fix” the records. And some even talk about erasing whole player seasons
from the record book. I’m not joking. One of the questions during Alex
Rodriguez’s recent press conference asked A-Rod his thoughts on “whether his
stats from 2001-2003 should be erased.” Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the
“stats,” the “records,” have the very simple purpose of recording events that
happened. The interpretation of what they mean is left to us. If you “erase”
them or try to “fix” them, you lose the truth of what they are, and that
would be a huge mistake. The greatest act of corruption in the game's history is
the throwing of the 1919 World Series by several members of the White Sox.
This did not change the records associated with that series. They are exactly
what they are. The Cincinnati Reds won the Series. Joe Jackson hit .375 with
exactly the same certitude that the honest Eddie Collins hit .226. There are
no asterisks; no one’s record was erased. What does change is the life we
breathe into these lifeless lines of ink with our understanding of their
context and meaning. Whether you believe Shoeless Joe gave his best or not, we
have his testimony under oath that (A) he agreed to take part in throwing the
World Series, (B) that he received $5,000 for his involvement, and (C) that
he complained to ring leader Chick Gandil that the
amount was less than he was promised. We also know that in the games the Sox
were trying to lose, that Jackson performed poorly both at the plate and in
the field, and that he played brilliantly in the
three games they were trying to win. And many decades after those statistics
were recorded, our sense of context and
understanding got an additional boost when we learned that Eddie Collins and
the other honest Sox players were relying on a scouting report of the Reds’
pitchers that had been prepared by one of the conspirators (Fred McMullin). But
none of that is relevant to the statistics themselves. It doesn’t change the
events that happened and are recorded. Again, the change is in the meaning we
take from them. This is an important element in the evaluation of many
baseball records, and not surprisingly a factor in whom the voters determine
is a Hall of Famer. For example, before the recent election of Jim Rice there
was considerable discussion about how we should interpret the records of his
career. It was not an argument over steroids but about the impact of And if it is not ballparks, we routinely add context and
meaning for things like absence due to military service, or for shifts in the
balance of pitching versus hitting in different eras due to changes in
equipment or rules – and perhaps now for the prevalence of significant
performance enhancing drugs. From the mailbag: [quoting
from] Arthur De Vaney … in his study on home runs
in baseball; There is no evidence that
steroid use has altered home run hitting and those who argue otherwise are
profoundly ignorant of the statistics of home runs, the physics of basball, and of the physiological effects of steroids. That seems pretty
far-fetched … . Is Arthur De Vaney
nuts or maybe he just requires a higher level of scientific certainty to
agree to a conclusion? What are your thoughts? My first thought is that this kind of
material is important to address. If we are going to try to give a sense of
context to baseball events that have been recorded under the possible
influence of PEDs, it certainly is worth trying to better understand the
extent of that influence. Before getting into the issue itself, let
me quickly answer your direct questions on Mr. De Vaney,
a retired professor from the In analysis we try to isolate things and
relationships in a way that makes them easier to study and hopefully helps
advance our ability to understand things, but it is, in itself, a very artificial
and incomplete view, and thus vulnerable to mistaken conclusions and even
gross errors. The most important counterbalance to an analytic perspective is
a synthetic one. Synthesis has its own weaknesses, as it
can be based on no more than our understanding of the whole – which is, in
itself, limited and incomplete. But for all its own flaws, the synthetic
perspective is the most important test of what we learn from the extremely
artificial world of analysis. Synthesis is our attempt to evaluate those
results against the background of our current understanding of – well,
everything we connect as relevant to the question at hand. It is your sense
of synthesis that rightly causes you to question De Vany’s
conclusion and even has you wondering if he is “nuts.” And for the record, even within the
high-powered statistical analytic world of De Vaney,
his paper on home runs went over like a lead balloon, and the validity of his
conclusions were refuted in August 2007 in a paper by John DiNardo and Jason Winfree of
the University of Michigan. But De Vaney is
not the only one to dispute the impact of steroids on baseball performance. A
bit more than a year ago, The New York
Times did a baseball article titled “A Voice of Skepticism on the Impact
of Steroids” and it said in part: “… many
credible statistical analysts are similarly skeptical about how much steroids
and other drugs may have distorted modern ballplayers’ records. Regarding
Bonds, for example, they note that, yes, his peak home run rates came at 36
through 39 years old, when most players are in decline. Then again, another
slugger three decades before enjoyed almost the same late-30s surge: a fellow
named Hank Aaron." Folks that believe
something like that are doing an analysis that produces a chart that looks
something like this, comparing the change in their relative HR% (HR/AB) at
that point in their career. (By “relative” I mean their HR% relative to the
average non-pitcher in their league):
That does look
remarkably similar doesn’t it? But remember what I said about the artificial
nature of analysis sometimes failing to capture the complexity of reality and
leading us astray. There are two big factors being overlooked in that
analysis, and it results in an illusion that the surge in the performance of
Bonds at ages 36-39 is “almost the same” as the late-30s surge of Hank Aaron.
1) Hitting for power
does not happen independent of other batting skills, and players can and often
do make changes in their approach as hitters where they sacrifice some of
their ability to hit for average to hit for more power, and vice versa.
Because Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record, we tend to think
that he always emphasized power-hitting. But really, Aaron passed the Babe in
part because of his very long and healthy career. While Aaron hit a good
number of homers in his early years while with 2) Aaron's late
surge in home runs relative to his prior career is also a basic reflection of
the impact of the change in his home park factor that took place at age 32
when he moved from a pitcher’s park in
Note how in the
Milwaukee years that Aaron did not really have a gigantic HR rate and how he
was at that time focusing more on batting average, hitting 54 points above
the norm. Then moving to The more
meaningful look at Aaron’s late-30s surge is the comparison to just that
middle section, his earlier years in Atlanta. Looking at it this way, we can
see that Aaron did age with unusual grace in that period, but it is nothing
at all like what Bonds did. In this more realistic light that description of
“almost the same” now seems ludicrous. Bonds has a much bigger leap forward
in his HR power and is also doing it while becoming a far better hitter for
batting average. This not only is not comparable to what happened in Aaron’s
career. It is not comparable to any player, period. It is literally
unprecedented in the whole history of the game. The
New York Times article also heavily
featured comments from retired sabermetrician Eric Walker on a
study he did that suggests steroids do not significantly impact on baseball
performance. Eric was working under the theory that if steroids had such an
impact, the place it would be most visible is in “Power Factor” (PF) which is
total bases per hit. He found that with the exception of a small blip in
1993-94, which he attributed to a likely change in the manufacture of
baseballs, that PF “… since 1980 has remained essentially flat.” But the flaw of this analysis is readily
apparent in the article’s explanation of Walker’s focus on the PF, which is
that “… any added strength hitters get from steroids would not help them make
solid contact with the ball, but only hit it farther when then do.” Making it
clearer that this interpretation is an accurate view of Does that make sense to you? He is
essentially saying that strength does not impact on the number of hits you
get, but only influences how far they go. Have you ever even heard a major
leaguer or batting coach express a theory saying that strength is not a
factor in the ability to make solid contact? In your own hitting experience
would you say there is no difference in your ability to make good solid
contact between times you are feeling strong and when you are feeling weak
and tired? Or to put it another way, did Ted Williams do over 100,000
finger-tip pushups during his career simply to help himself swing harder, or
did he do it to help himself both swing hard and command his swing? But let’s set aside for a moment this
notion that strength does not influence the ability to make solid contact.
Even if your frequency of “solid contact” remains the same, would it not make
sense that hitting the ball harder would also increase your chances of some batted
balls becoming singles rather than outs, and and
not just turn existing singles into extra-base hits? Is the average batting
champion really no stronger in his swing than the average hitter of the era?
If you go through the 134 players who have won a major league batting title,
you’ll quickly say, “No, that is not true.” There
are certainly exceptions along the line of Matty
Alou, but batting champions are – on average – bigger than the average player
of their era, which suggests greater strength in their swing, and also their
power percentages are higher than the average hitter of their era. (Power
percentage is simply slugging percentage devoid of batting average. It takes
away the first base of each hit, so a single is zero, a double is one, a
triple is two, and a home run is three.) Barry Bonds is not the only player who
went through a radical body change suggestive of steroids that led not to
just a boost in power but also a boost in batting average as well. While there
is no hard evidence that Bret Boone was “juicing,” I’ve never met a personal
observer of his play who did not believe that Boone’s physique was
significantly chemically enhanced by age 32. But even if you want to believe
the fairy tale that he managed to achieve that physique naturally, the point
would still exist that he was physically bigger and stronger. In his first
three years with the new physique he not only set career highs in his power
numbers, he recorded 3 of his top 4 seasons in batting average. We know by
Ken Caminiti's own admission that he was an
extremely heavy user of steroids when he hit his
career high .326. Sammy Sosa's top three batting averages all come from his
steroids period – or his “strength period” if you prefer. We know Miguel Tejada was purchasing steroids from Adam Piatt in early
2003, and by 2004 he was hitting a career-high .311, followed by .304 and
then a new career-high of .330. And
because most of the focus on Bonds was related to HR records, it is worth
coming back to his case to help folks see that his gains in batting average
after he began using PEDs are absolutely unique in the history of the game.
The year he hit 73 homers, the 36-year-old finished seventh in the batting
race, matching his previous best. The next year, at age 37, he took the
batting title with a massive lead of 32 points. He remains the oldest
first-time batting champion in the history of the major leagues. The next
year he finished 3rd, and then in 2004, at age 39, he unseated Ted
Williams as the oldest batting champion in history. The idea of a player who
had never finished higher than 7th in the batting race through age
36 then taking two batting titles at ages 37 and 39 is in many ways as
remarkable as Bonds’ awesome power display in his steroid years. It just
didn’t get as much ink.
Through age 35, Barry’s career batting
average was .289, and then suddenly his batting average for ages 36-39 is .349. Relative to the average
non-pitcher in the league, Ted Williams is the only player in the whole
history of the game to do better in batting average at that advanced age. But
the really interesting comparison is to look at how the rest of the top ten
did relative to the league in their prior career. Other than Bonds, in their
earlier career they averaged 70 points above the other hitters in their
league and none was lower than +39 points. Yet Bonds’ batting average was
just 23 points above the norm for his prior career. Very
few hitters have ever improved their relative batting average in their late
30s. For over 30 years Hall of Famer Zack Wheat held the record for that kind
of improvement, and it was just an 11-point gain. When Ted Williams finally
passed him, he moved the mark up only another 3 points. And then the
chemically strengthened Bonds completely dwarfed their accomplishments with
an astounding 58-point gain.
And
to directly answer Eric Walker’s faulty notion that added strength doesn’t
produce added singles but only increases the distance of one’s hits, take a
look at the change in Bonds’ rate of singles per at-bat that did not
result in an extra-base hit. Granted,
you are not going to see that in every steroids case. Some of those using
steroids are looking to solely be better power-hitters and will sacrifice
some ability to hit for average to hit for more power. But you actually do
find a surprising increase in the ability to hit singles among many of the
players linked to strength gained through steroid use, including Ken Caminiti, Bret Boone, Sammy Sosa, and Miguel Tejada.
Beyond
the impact of PEDs on power and hitting for average, we should also consider
their influence on durability. That only makes sense as many PEDs, especially
steroids, help players build strength by enabling them to work harder in
their workouts and to recover faster. As I noted in an earlier column, the
players who are testing positive for steroids tend to be overrepresented at
the positions where players have to worry most about fatigue and physical
breakdowns: catcher and pitcher. I
find it interesting that the most significant statistical change in Alex
Rodriguez’s three years of light steroid use is in the games played column.
The previous five seasons that A-Rod was a regular shortstop, his games
played went 146, 141, 161, 129, 148 (average 145). Then during his three
years using steroids, he missed one stinking game (162, 162, 161)! When
Miguel Tejada was acquiring steroids and likely
using them, he was the new ironman of the game, putting up the longest
consecutive playing streak since Cal Ripken. If
you haven’t noticed, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez has
caught far more games then any other catcher has
managed to do through the same age. He is miles ahead of where Carlton Fisk
was at the same age, and he has a good chance this very next season to break
Fisk’s record for games caught in a career. Ivan has been linked to the use
of PEDs more than any other catcher. He was prominently named by Jose Canseco
as a player using steroids, including claims by Canseco that he personally
injected Ivan with steroids. The change in body type was certainly there, and
as testing made it tougher to use many forms of PEDs, Rodriguez gradually
began to shrink in size which he weakly explained was due to his belief that
he would play better at a lighter weight. In a recent AP interview Ivan
sounded very much like a player who wants to come clean, but can’t quite do
it. When asked if he is on the list of players who tested positive in 2003,
he replied, “Only God knows.” Asked to comment on A-Rod’s claim that the
culture of the game was different back then, Ivan said, “It happened and
everybody has to move forward.” From the mailbag: In
March of 2004, … Gene Orza
[of the Players Union] … said, “I have no doubt that [steroids] are not worse
than cigarettes.” Care to comment. Sure,
my comment is that I do have a doubt. And
I assume the FDA also has a doubt, which is why steroids are a controlled
substance and illegal to possess or use without a valid prescription. I
would also say that even if steroids were no more harmful than smoking a pack
of cigarettes a day, I would argue that players should be allowed to compete
on a level playing field without taking on the risk of smoking a pack of
cigarettes a day. But
this brings up an interesting question as we try to feel our way to a context
for evaluating players we think were chemically enhanced. To be completely
fair, don’t we also have to consider that there can also be a negative
impact from the use of PEDs. Prolonged, heavy use of
steroids is linked to a higher incidence of certain types of injuries that
can sharply curtail a player’s performance, and even end a career -- in
particular setting off tendinitis and degenerative conditions in major
joints. You
remember the hip problem that ended Bo Jackson’s career? That type of injury
is associated with steroid use. When his avascular
necrosis was diagnosed, an orthopedic surgeon shared his opinion that he
immediately suspected steroid abuse. Same with the degenerative hip condition
that hampered and eventually ended Albert Belle’s career. And also the
degenerative knee condition that suddenly shot down the career of Mo Vaughn.
(While I have no clue if Belle was using PEDs, there is little doubt Vaughn
was. The Mitchell report cites evidence of Vaughn purchasing PEDs back in
2001, and some believe that, like Mark McGwire, Vaughn used the synthetic
steroid androstenedione when it was still legal.) Mark
McGwire’s problems with the connective tissue at the bottom of both his feet
(plantar fascia) is something he explained away as a genetic weakness, but
it, too, is a physical problem linked to abuse of PEDs. Tearing of the
plantar fascia is a fairly rare injury, but another player from the steroids
culture in And
of course, for some of the bulkiest players, the excessive weight they carry
relative to their frames is hard on their knees. Three of the heaviest, Mark
McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Mo Vaughn, all ended up with serious knee problems.
And finally there is the impact on the player’s mental well being. I’m not so
much talking about “roid-rage,” although that
raises the likelihood of events that can hinder a career as well. I’m talking
about difficult withdrawal symptoms when cycling off steroids or when
quitting or switching to something else (hopefully legal and less harmful).
Amphetamines are more addictive in the short-term, but I’m told that steroids
are as addictive or more addictive in the long-term, and can result in
serious withdrawal symptoms that are “… likely greater if you have been
taking dosages not related to correcting a medical condition.” (At Alex
Rodriguez’s press conference, a father showed up whose son had killed himself
during a depression that was considered a withdrawal symptom from his former
heavy use of steroids.) We downplay the negative impact of PEDs
on player performance because we don’t want to cut any breaks for “cheaters,”
but if we are trying to better understand the context of the steroids era and
how their use potentially affected and still affects the records, it would be
defeating and dishonest not to acknowledge the reality that PEDs can also end
up hurting a player’s career. Even more important, talking about that
realistically could be a deterrent for a young athlete on the fence about
experimenting with PEDs. Even
as our understanding of the influence of PEDs grows, our assessments
of how PEDs affected individual careers is never going to be more than
loosely based opinion. There are just too many different ways for the
elements to weave together. But I think we can form reasonable opinions such
as saying that players like Ivan Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds
were having and would have continued to have Hall of Fame careers without
PEDs.
From the mailbag: If
performance enhancing drugs were such a big part of these player’s careers,
why did they continue to put up great numbers when they were finally being
tested and came up clean? In 2004 Sammy Sosa was still a big HR hitter and
Barry Bonds had the greatest season ever for a player his age. Yet they both
passed all their drug tests. For one thing, it is not like turning a light switch on
and off. Particularly for those who are using PEDs to help build up their
bulk and strength, it takes awhile to reach the peak, and it also takes
awhile to come down. Guys like Sosa, Bonds, and Ivan Rodriguez did lose some
of their added bulk, but it did not happen overnight. Shoot, even in 2005
Sammy Sosa was still rather grotesquely huge. But there is no denying his
performance started to slide as the testing began, and in 2004 he was also
sacrificing batting average to try and keep his power numbers up. Admittedly
part of his decline was simply the aging process, but that’s a pretty steep
decline.
In Bonds’ case, keep in mind he was reportedly using
designer drugs that were supposed to be difficult to detect in a urine test. And
it was not an ideal testing situation in many other ways. While random, a
player could only be tested once a season. If you were a steroids user, you
could cycle off, wait to be tested, and then feel free to start another cycle
of whatever could avoid detection by next April. And the Players’ |
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The Diamond Appraised baseball column is dedicated to
Eddie Robinson |
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