I think what is worst than steroids are all these new ballparks being built for HR’s. If you look at the old school baseball history, in the early 1900’s, games were played on the polo grounds with the fences 550ft from home plate!! The most HR’s hit in any one year for a person was 8 !!! Triples were at an all time high !! Christy Mathewson started 4 games as a pitcher in the WS back then, without steroids…. LOL

I wish MLB can go back to the rules of the early 1900’s again, but without the player segregation…..

Peace

When I said you were certainly wrong, I was speaking specifically about your assertion that steroid use during the last decade or so has rendered comparing players from different eras impossible. I don’t care about being right, I care about the facts being presented properly, and the discussion being based on what is known, not propaganda. It is propaganda that has colored this argument in the public sphere, and here at OBM, it isn’t tolerated.

Historically speaking, there are always reasons why outlier seasons happen. Bob Gibson’s historic 1963 season occurred during the height of the pitchers era. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t great, but it does mean that it wasn’t the greatest pitching season of all time, because it’s unbelievable impact was due, in some part, to the conditions that he pitched in.

Likewise, Pedro Martinez’s 1999 season, in which he posted an ERA that was half what the league average was, is way more impressive. It isn’t very difficult to understand these details, a degree in statistical analysis isn’t needed to understand that one guy threw up a 1.12 ERA when the league average was 3.1, and one guy threw up a 1.92 when the league average was over 4. When Bonds hit 73 hone runs, the league was in an explosion of offense, and home runs. He still did it, and nobody else did. But it also is important to remember that one of the reason Ruth’s 60 home runs was more than 8 teams was because the style of the game was different; players were discouraged from trying to hit home runs, the offensive strategy of the game was centered around batting average and speed and stolen bases. He still did it.

At the end of the day, I’d rather root for Bonds, who got every single ounce of performance out of himself, than, say, Ken Griffey Jr., or Mickey Mantle, neither one of whom paid the price to be the absolute best they could be. And let’s not forget that PED’s are already being used by pro athletes throughout all sports. Deciding that steroids are the one that shouldn’t be allowed because they may have deleterious side effects makes no sense at all. There are dozens of things that an athlete endures that we know have negative effects on their long-term health. To say that steroids are THE ONE that shouldn’t be allowed is foolish at best, and sanctimonious on its face.

A take on Steroids and Bonds that I thought was sensible.

Certainly we can at least agree that steroids increase muscle mass? The physical change in users is significant in and of itself. Now, I would say that this sets an unfortunate precedent in elite training methods, whereas you seem to feel the opposite–that steroids can be healthfully implemented in an adult athlete’s nutritional regimen. You say there is no valid evidence of steroids’ harmfulness, but it’s not like you have valid proof of their harmlessness either. I imagine the truth lies in between, and that steroids are not as harmful as many would have us believe, but neither are they without risk. For me, the jury is out, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to flat-out decriminalize steroids, thereby condoning their use in mainstream society (including among young aspiring pros), when their impact on body composition is so dramatic (and perhaps traumatic).

I fear this argument could drag on forever, so I would just like to say that I am trying to absorb the facts presented by the “other side” to come to a fuller understanding of this issue. I hope you would do the same, rather than simply proclaiming that I am “certainly wrong,” as making such an assumption seems to imply that you are certainly right, and this is a multi-faceted issue.

Regarding McGwire, Bonds, et al, in comparison to their legendary predecessors, I never meant to imply that breaking old records diminished the former achievements, only that I am less amazed by some modern records knowing that they were achieved with the benefit of increased muscle mass resulting from steroids.

You are certainly wrong. Statistics have lost no significance or meaning. They never had significance or meaning. They are what they are, numbers. Using statistics to bolster an argument about a players greatness is fine, but stats alone will never be the end of any serious piece of analysis. Whether you think Bonds’ numbers are somehow distorted or not should be one of the many ways in which you analyze his accomplishments. It shouldn’t be a reason to discount his greatness, anymore than the 191 RBI season of Hack Wilson means that he was the greatest clutch hitter of all-time.

Comparing players and/or teams from different eras is doable, has been done, and has been done well. You, along with many uninformed sportswriters and fans, are mistaken in believing that PED’s have somehow changed the game. If you believe that, then how do you explain the rampant use of amphetamines that was going on in baseball for 5 decades? Where are the super results you speak about from the ’50’s or ’60’s?

I wrote, years ago, that the trend towards more home runs has been going on since before the 1994 players strike. Not just home runs, and not just the players you believe were the abusers, but everybody has been hitting more home runs for more than a decade. The reasons why are debatable, DEBATABLE. Baseball is a complex game, played in different eras, ballparks, with different equipment, under different weather conditions, altitudes above sea level…. There are a multitude of possible explanations, and the simplest is that there are several contributing factors to explain the recent trend towards offense.

To say that PED’s are THE reason is absurd. It isn’t even close to being provable, while we know, FACTUALLY, that, for instance, Coors Field has added a huge number of home runs and runs scored and allowed to the National League since it opened. It is a provable fact that when the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, their entire team hit many more home runs in the next decade than they had the previous decade. That is why Hank Aaron is the home run king that Bonds just passed, and not Babe Ruth.

That doesn’t mean anything, it just is.

Twenty years ago, Bill James wrote, (I’m paraphrasing a bit here), “You either have to conclude that all of the greatest hitters of all-time played in the 1930’s, or you have to make an adjustment.” Fifty years from now, somebody’s going to write the same thing about the decade that just passed. Statistics have no mythical power, players do, transcendent achievements do.

When McGwire passed Maris, we all remembered the man whose record had been broken. His legacy was renewed and passed on to a new generation who had only seen him as a name in a book. Just like what happened when Bonds passed Aaron. Everyone recalled what a difficult task it was for Aaron to break a white man’s record, at a time in our country’s history when black men and women were thought of as unequal. Bonds did nothing to damage Aaron, in reality, he restored him.

1)improved training regimens, accentuated by rises in salaries
2)use of thin-handled bats, often made of maple as opposed to ash
3)every ballpark (Petco excluded) built in the last 20 years being a hitter’s park
4)no tolerance policy towards knockdown or brushback pitches, allowing batters to stand on top of the plate and otherwise be more “comfortable”
5)chicks dig the homer-certainly one must be aware that fandom is a pyramid, and with record-setting attendance levels, the additional fans are not hard-core baseball nuts. More homers, happier crowds, bigger contracts.

I am still unsure, outside of a plethora of 500/career home runs hitters (which can be largely explained above) where the “enormous impact on statistics” is. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe only one of the top ten scoring teams of all time come from the last 30 years (the Indians)? Surely comparing a historical “norm” to 1968, 1930, or 1910 provides far more variation than say, 2000. Perhaps in all these instances offense/defense was out of balance, and pitchers/hitters adjusted? I think it is a given that this happens in baseball. One certainly cannot compare any year with another year ten years apart. The 80s era of the 100 steals a season player is gone because of…..? Surely one must note how the use and style of pitching has changed from 1968 to 1975 to 1990 to the present. Are pitching stats “enormously impacted” from 1990 until now? Defense? If no, then the other side of the equation must not be either.

I would assume that if a “great many teams were using steroids, effectively cancelling out any one’s team’s advantage” then steroids cannot at the same time “(have) an enormous impact on the statistical output of the last 15 years”. And 2/3 of those cited (actually caught) for steroid use have been pitchers. It has been proven at great length via Baseball Prospectus that the maximum steroid use could change an individual player’s statistics is about .010 across the board. The majors batted .300 in 1930, .230 in 1968, .270-.280 generally – the argument then would be that in these eras only pitchers or hitters (and ALL of same) were “cheating” in some manner, and it was as much as seven times as impactful as steroids. And that’s assuming ALL players were cheating. Is that logical? Or perhaps there are simpler explanations that are less cloak and dagger and more plainly obvious as opposed to rumored?

Marc, it -is- generally believed that a great many players throughout the league were doing steroids, effectively canceling out any particular team’s unfair advantage. My issue is not with the equality of the playing field, but with the growing indifference I feel towards athletes with bodies that are blatantly pumped-up due to chemical injections.

I think one thing that both steroids bashers and boosters can agree upon, is that statistics have lost a great degree of significance as a useful measure to compare players from different eras. Stats are great fun for sports fans, and have traditionally carried almost mystical significance as symbols of legendary achievements. However, the positive correlation between PEDs and homerun totals (among other power-stats) diminishes the relevance of numbers as a trans-generational measuring stick . Granted, there are many other factors besides steroids, such as ballpark variations, mound height, segregation, etc., that have significantly influenced statistical trends, but steroids have undeniably had an enormous influence on the statistical output of the last 15-odd years. So when the players themselves refuse to acknowledge such a significant factor in their accomplishment of statistical milestones, why should sports fans unconditionally acknowledge their accomplishments in an all-time context.

I have no doubt that Barry Bonds is the finest hitter of this generation, and that Roger Clemens is at least a top 3 pitcher, but many of their astounding statistical achievements are inseparable from the unique conditions of the steroids era. So, within this era, they have no peer, but in an all-time context, the gaudiness of their numbers does not seem as impressive as they would otherwise be if this era weren’t so heavily influenced by steroids. Statistics have lost much of their mystical power to measure value across eras with distinct conditional variations.