Yglesias (awesome title, btw, Matt) has this exactly right:
Can I say that as someone who doesn’t really follow baseball, I’ve been pretty surprised at all the gnashing of teeth over the revelation that Alex Rodriguez was using steroids back during the period when Major League Baseball had no real testing and sanctions policy for steroids. Haven’t we reached the point where we should just assume that back then all the players were using something? After all, what kind of big-time baseball star would willingly eschew a performance-enhancing substance whose use was widespread among his teammates and competitors and which there was no serious policy in place to prevent? It would have to be someone who wasn’t taking his baseball skills all that seriously.
If there is a whinier group of people than the so-called baseball “purists” who want to run around throwing asterisks up next to every record in the game, I don’t know who it is. Everyone knew. The fans, the players, the owners, the officials. Everyone. Now, all of a sudden, people are shocked. Here is a series of numbers for you:
1988- 2
1989- 4
1990- 3
1991- 2
1992- 21
1993- 13
1994- 12
1995- 16
1996 – 50
1997- 18
1998- 18
1999- 24
2000- 19
2001- 8
2002- 1
Now, if you just so happen to think that player all of a sudden found his swing in 1996, it is probably pointless to argue with you. You might, however, be qualified to work as a baseball writer.
Everyone knew this was going on, and here is the worst part- the guys doing the juice that everyone is shitting on now probably saved the game of baseball in the late 90’s. People seem to forget how hurting the game was after the strike in the 90’s.
robertdsc
As a Yankee fan who had to suffer through the Giambi mess, I would like to take the time to say now what I said then: I think A-Rod should retire, forfeit his contract, and leave the game forever. No Hall of Fame, no accolades, just up and quit now. Spare us the sight of him mucking around for the next ten years.
Nick
Brady Anderson?
Zzyzx
Logic doesn’t come into play here. I’m a M’s fan and therefore am honor bound to be amused by this story.
low-tech cyclist
Brady Anderson.
BDeevDad
Ripken saved baseball, McGwire and Sosa made it relevant again to the average fan. (ex-Orioles fan)
John Cole
@Nick: Why, I would never make accusations that I could not prove. I am just throwing out some numbers there as a hypothetical.
low-tech cyclist
Baseball would have recovered after awhile; all the ‘roid rage of the late 1990s meant was that it won back the fans a bit faster than otherwise.
But in retrospect, I feel like the game was BSing me. The McGwire-Sosa HR chase was exciting at the time, but it was about as substantive as cotton candy.
If someone’s a baseball fan from their teens into their 40s like I was, you’d think they’d be a baseball fan for life. Gotta say, I’ve just about lost interest in the game anymore.
Gus
Note the similar career blip for Adrian Beltre. He hit 48 homers in a contract year, never having hit more than 23 before. He hasn’t hit more than 26 since.
Nick
I wish there was a catchy way of tagging Brady as the emblem of the steroids era. I watched him when he started his career on the Red Sox — great player, didn’t want to see him leave. But then, whammo! Out of the blue! 50 home runs?! And then back to not-so-much.
I knew that year something stank in Mudville.
As for A-Fraud, it’s just fun reveling in his agonies. I’m just glad I’ve never been forced to root FOR him — thanks Yanks!
pattonbt
If the hysteria dies and players start to get a pass, McGwire and Sosa need to be in the hall. They single handedly saved baseball from the dustbin in the late 90’s (agree 100% with BDeevDad).
Im a huge McGwire fan as he gave my dad an extra reason to live for a couple extra months when he was dying of cancer (originally from St Louis and we redbird fans love our baseball). I hate the way McGwire has been treated, but if the punishment was going to be uniform and no cheats in the all, then so be it (although I find to retroactively punish people for things which werent against the rules when they played as hypocritical). All I want is consistency.
If A-Rod isnt sanctioned in some way and banned from the hall, then McGwire, Clemens (ugh), Sosa etc must get in the hall next year (or whenever they are eligible). And I am ambivalent to A-Rod, no care one way or another.
Keith
I ask people a lot about Nolan Ryan. Being in Texas, it’s kinda anathema to even suggest Ryan was juicing (and looking at the guy back then, I could believe it), but how else does a 45-year-old guy still have a 95 mph fastball? I want to believe he was just a freak of nature (or that he was like that from raising cattle), but looking back I have to wonder. Are there any baseball fanatics want to educate me on details of Nolan Ryan’s career that would indicate I’m wrong on this one, because I didn’t follow baseball very much back then?
bvac
I don’t understand any of this.
Punchy
SO sick n tired of this "M and S saved baseball" bullshit. Pure crap.
Zzyzx
@Gus: Beltre moved to Safeco Field though which is death to right handed power hitters…
Keith
You mean MetRX and stanozolol? :)
D-Chance.
Of course Ryan juiced. And it made him so fragile that he often couldn’t finish 3 innings without having to leave for "soreness" or "muscle strain" or whatever. And then he’d miss the next couple of rotations, only to come back with another no-hitter where he could still throw 95+ mph fastballs in the 9th inning after 100 pitches.
Also, see: Clemens, Roger.
Krista
@ Keith: Well, Ryan did pitch his first no-hitter when he was 12, so there was obviously lots of raw talent there. As far as the rest of it goes, while a lot of his stats were stellar, he also had some pretty negative stats to balance it out. So no, I don’t think he was on the juice. But, one never knows.
Zifnab
More than a few baseball purists were as pissed off back then as they are today. The new comer to the game – by contrast – didn’t really know or care. I didn’t go to my local Astros game and try to figure out which of my players was jacked up on ‘roids and which wasn’t.
But I still have more respect for Craig Biggio than I do Roger Clemens. And, frankly, I think its a bit ridiculous to put juiced up athletes in the history books when we full well know that normal humans just aren’t going to be able to perform like that. I mean, do you think Hank Aaron might have been able to extend his lead if he’d been jacked up on HGH through the height of his career? It’s silly to compare genuine athletes to a pack of juice boxes.
And while it might have taken a few more years for baseball to recover after the strike, the presence or absence of home run rallies doesn’t hinge on a bunch of pharmaceuticals. They were having them back in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and the 80s without rampant drug abuse. The game was popular straight back to the Civil War era. If you’re honestly suggesting that little good press from a few home runs "saved" a 150 year old sport, maybe the industry wasn’t in as much trouble as it claimed.
demkat620
Don’t care. Eff the effing yankees and A-Rod. Either ban it all or let it all in.
And anybody who is shocked by this is a moran.
Look, I take my kids to the Blue Rocks. Its A ball but for a family its great. I want to watch a game, I don’t want all the sportscaster crapola and egos(or the bucks) that go with it. I love this game, but the MLB is almost unwatchable.
And the Phils won the series and I still feel that way.
Common Sense
A bit OT, but at least it deals with baseball:
While I 100% agree that anyone who had their eyes open during the 1990’s had to know what was happening wrt steroids in baseball, I have another pet peeve that gets on my nerves to no end — the inane argument that a lack of a salary cap equates to a lack of competitiveness in the sport itself. May I present a few facts to argue against this:
There have been 10 different NL Champions in the last 11 years. Every team in the NL with the exception of 3 has gone to the playoffs since the wild card era (the Reds, Pirates, and Nats are the exceptions — and the Nats are a bit unique in that were run from Montreal for so long there was no way they could be competitive there). There have been 2 teams in the history of the sport that won the World Series with a payroll of over $100 million — the 2004 Red Sox and the 2007 Red Sox.
Baseball has greater parity than any other sport. The highest winning percentage in the sport on a yearly basis would barely be enough to qualify for the playoffs in the NFL, and there are fewer dynasties that last for a shorter time in baseball than the other Big 2 (Lakers/Spurs/Pistons/Celtics anyone?) The worst teams in baseball are comparatively better than the worst teams in other sports, and the best teams are closer to the median than in other leagues as well.
6 teams have combined to win 25of the 43 Superbowls ever played (Steelers, Patriots, Cowboys, 49ers, Raiders, and Packers), and when you add in other multi chamiponship teams like the Broncos, Redskins, Colts, Dolphins, and Giants… well it all adds up to a third of the league dominating every single year. There have been a grand total of 6 Superbowls not won by one of these elite clubs (2 were also before the merger — the Jets and Chiefs haven’t won since they became NFL clubs). The NBA is even worse. So someone tell me again why baseball is the only sport where only a select few teams have a chance to win?
Stuck
I am long past being outraged by MLB and it’s players. There are lots of scars for this die hard baseball fan, but the heart remains, as long as they are trying to clean up their act. What happened 10 years ago does not matter one wit. And besides , I hate the Yankees.:)
bootlegger
@Keith: Ryan worked out every day and as he aged he lost velocity on his fastball but gained command of his slider and curve. SI analyzed his mechanics and kinesiologists said Ryan was about as perfect as you can get in a throwing motion. So with Ryan I believe it.
As for all the pearl clutching, they did ‘roids, BFD. It wasn’t against the rules and they still had to hit, throw, catch and run. I never saw Barry’s arm get any stronger and ‘roids will not improve your hand-eye coordination.
"The purity of baseball" is one of the lamest phrases ever uttered and if this outrage hurts baseball because of some polyannish belief in the baseball tooth fairy, then good freakin’ riddance.
J. Michael Neal
Here are four more series of numbers:
1 2 2 7 16 9 9 9 13 21 20 38 18 13 2
3 2 8 8 6 6 8 3 3 21 9 7 6 8
7 10 9 7 10 18 5 43 15 0 8 4
5 5 6 8 8 24 5 3 6 8 7 2 11 5 2 4 7 2
These series all have a peak that is about as divergent (more so in the third and fourth cases, and maybe in the second) than Brady Anderson’s figures. See if you can figure out who the players are, and what year the peak came in.
Really strange, fluky seasons happen. They aren’t evidence of anything more than the existence of statistical outliers. The same is true of Norm Cash in 1961, though that was batting average.
John Cole
@Common Sense: I have followed the management decisions of the Pirates. Giving them more money (or restricting what others could spend) would not help at all.
Raul Mondesi, anyone?
skeeball
i’m just not offended. i have a lot of friends who played college baseball and they all universally agree that if someone had come to them and said "if you take this, you’ll have a real shot at making it as a baseball player" they all would have. there was a system with no disincentives for players, so they basically all were using. its the fault of ownership and the best players from that era should be in the Hall of Fame, juiced up stats or not.
baseball purists can blow it out their collective ass
bootlegger
@J. Michael Neal: Very good point about outliers and regression to the mean.
fredrick of hollywood
I see that a 21 year old pitcher just singed a three-year deal for $36 million. That seems a bit odd, given that the nation is teetering on the verge of total financial implosion. I wonder if there are going to be a lot of empty seats at the ballpark this summer?
nylund
Back in college, I used to play a lot of baseball on the Playstation. The year after Brady hit 50 hr’s, they turned his player into a monster. I used to play the Orioles all the time because you could get Brady to hit a homerun in almost every at bat. Jay Buhner, Albert Belle, and Andres Galarraga also all had some serious blips around that time.
Two people hit 60 homeruns or more over the course of the century, then, all of a sudden, a dozen guys start threatening the record all at the same time…
Common Sense
@John Cole:
I agree John.
How’s about giving the Pirates decent management?
If Billy Beane ran the Pirates, they would win. With their current payroll.
The problem with the Pirates isn’t that they are small market. It is that their ownership and management don’t have a fucking clue how to run a baseball team. It’s the same reason the Orioles, Rangers, and Cubs lose every goddamn year — hardly failing clubs financially.
Vince
i was a die-hard baseball fan until the strikes. when my parents couldn’t afford to take us to games anymore because the costs skyrocketed, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. even as a kid, i figured out that i lost an opportunity to go to the park because of the players and owners bitching about $$$.
it’s a kids game!
Common Sense
@Vince:
I can go to a baseball game for less than the cost of eating at McDonald’s. There’s no sport that comes close to being as cheap.
ericvsthem
As King Kaufmann (the sportswriter at Salon.com) wrote today, the steroid era is no worse than the segregation era, which includes all records prior to 1955 – including Babe Ruth’s homerun record. "Real" baseball fans don’t watch baseball for the statistics, they watch it because they have developed a deep appreciation of the sport itself AND enjoy going to dozens of games a year.
J. Michael Neal
Aaron was an acknowledged user of amphetamines. The evidence is much more convincing that they help performance than it is for steroids, in a baseball context.* Why is this exempt from outrage, while current steroids use seems to mandate it? Either taking performance enhancing drugs invalidates the records, or they don’t. If they don’t, this is a non-issue. If they do, then we have to chuck Aaron, too.
Mostly what has been "discovered" here is that athletes will do almost anything to gain a competitive edge. Why this shocks anyone is beyond me. Known use of performance enhancing drugs goes back to the Greek Olympics, when athletes would consume raw bull’s testicles, to get exactly the same effect.
Given how destructive to the body much of the training and performance for modern sports is, I can’t muster the outrage that some were taking anabolic steroids. Yes, there’s a public health reason to try to get them out. However, anyone who cheers the way Hines Ward runs through tacklers or Ben Roethlisberger hurries back from a concussion** needs to get a grip before mounting too much of an argument that steroids need to be banned because they harm the users.
*Steroids undoubtedly help a lot in things like weightlifting, and other drugs in other sports. This isn’t as clear in baseball. Both pitching a baseball*** and hitting one are tremendously complex actions, and the interactions of all their parts aren’t understood even before you throw in a complicating factor like extra testosterone. My guess is that they help some, but a lot less than people think.
**Not to unfairly pick on our host or anything, given that he doesn’t seem to have pegged the outrage meter, either. It’s just that the Steelers are a common reference around here.
***Far more pitchers have actually been busted for steroids than have hitters, though you wouldn’t know this from the way people argue that they have boosted home run totals. Given that the actual effect of steroids is faster healing of damaged muscles, and the fact that pitching is incredibly destructive of the arm, the causal effect for steroids helping pitchers is much stronger than it is for hitters.
fredrick of hollywood
Vince,
What kind of game can you go to for less than a Happy Meal at MacDonalds? Your local Little League?
schooner
@D-Chance
You’re clueless when it comes to Ryan. He was a workhorse who threw over 200 innings pretty much every year even into his early 40s (he pitched to the 7th inning in most games even then).
He even threw a no-hitter in 1990.
The pattern you suggest of "soreness" and missing starts is pulled out of your ass.
Like Seaver, his power came from his delivery style and emphasis on leg strength which is why they both lasted so long.
Brien Jackson
"But I still have more respect for Craig Biggio than I do Roger Clemens. And, frankly, I think its a bit ridiculous to put juiced up athletes in the history books when we full well know that normal humans just aren’t going to be able to perform like that. I mean, do you think Hank Aaron might have been able to extend his lead if he’d been jacked up on HGH through the height of his career?"
Sure. But on the flip side of that, if he’d come along 40 years earlier and played in Ruth’s era, he’d have a career MLB total of 0 home runs because they wouldn’t let black players in. Not that that’s the same thing entirely, but spare me the nonsense about the record books.
Common Sense
@ericvsthem:
Exactly. Half the country was banned from playing during this era. Not to mention that MLB wasn’t drawing from anywhere near as large of a pool internationally — today Asian and Latin American players actually play the sport.
There isn’t a single record ever set that doesn’t deserve some type of asterisk — whether it is the era the player set the record in, the field they played on, or the players they surrounded themselves with. Just take every record in context. It’s not that they are meaningless — it’s just that they aren’t set in a perfect vacuum.
bootlegger
@Common Sense: What the hell do you eat at McD’s?
Brien Jackson
It’s the sports equivalent of "music today sucks." You have to pine for yesteryear to be taken seriously.
Common Sense
@fredrick of hollywood:
I assume you are referencing me and not Vince. Astros tickets are 2 for $2 on Tuesdays. That is less than the cost of a Happy Meal. Even regular tickets are $5 a pop for upper deck — PLUS you can actually move down and get a superb seat since the stadiums usually aren’t packed to the gills.
bootlegger
@J. Michael Neal: ‘roids help pitchers recover faster, that’s about it.
Common Sense
@bootlegger:
see #40.
oh really
That’s an easy one.
Republicans. Glad I could help.
Common Sense
And while I’ll grant that not every team has the same cost structure, can anyone show me a city where their MLB team isn’t the cheapest sport in town?
An NFL game costs me around $100 for 2 tickets. The NBA is absurdly priced, typically 50% more than that.
bootlegger
@Common Sense: I see. Just that I’ve never spent less than a sawbuck at a game by the time I drive, park, buy a ticket etc. And that isn’t counting the $8 beer.
schooner
@ JMN
Cash is probably a bad example since he was corking his bat that year.
Stuck
@schooner:
This is exactly right and you don’t see it anymore. I don’t know if has to do with training, or pitchers like these just not coming around very often. I watched Seaver pitch for the Reds many times at Riverfront, and was always in awe of his delivery and how he used his legs to generate power. Baseball Ballet.
Zifnab
@J. Michael Neal:
I did not know that about Aaron. So, :-p on me. In that case, I guess it’s no big deal either way.
I’m just not a big fan of steroids on principle. If they fuck you up and screw over your lifespan as bad as I’ve heard, it seems cruel to tell an athlete he’s got to shave off 10 years of his life to get into the Hall of Fame.
Vince
sorry guys. we had a big family and had to drive 3 hours to the nearest ballpark. my folks used to take us to 4 or 5 games per year until the last strike.
i agree with you though – baseball is still the cheapest sport to attend.
cheaper than a happy meal? i don’t know about that. the last game i went to at Pac Bell Park cost my $25 for outfield seats if i remember correctly.
Common Sense
@Zifnab:
Earl Campbell agrees. So does every heavyweight boxer ever.
J. Michael Neal
No one, at least no one sensible, is arguing that home runs didn’t spike in the 1990s. They did. Just like they spiked in the 1920s and the 1950s. Just like pitching dominated in the late 1960s. These sorts of era differences are normal.
Sometimes, we can even trace the cause of the change. Home runs went up in the 1920s because they completely changed the way the ball was made.
With regards to the change in the 1990s, there are a bunch of causes. One is that a whole series of new ballparks were built, and almost all of them more hitter friendly than the one they replaced.* Expansion into Denver, and the thin air, alone accounted for somewhere around 20% of the increase.
It is also true that players got bigger and stronger. How much of it is due to steroids, and how much due to the fact that baseball players finally started serious weight training en masse, quite aside from any chemical enhancement, is hard to guess. My guess is that most of it was just going into the gym in the first place, but that’s just a guess.
There was also a snowball effect. As home runs went up, more and more managers and executives started to appreciate the idea of building their teams around guys who hit lots of home runs. Effect was also part of the cause.
J. Michael Neal
This is a function of the number of home games the owners need to sell tickets for. There is a much greater supply of baseball games, which has the natural tendency to drive down prices.
Brien Jackson
I don’t see how it’s much worse than demanding guys shoot up with cortisone or otherwise play through injuries. Or play NFL football in general.
Dave
@J. Michael Neal:
I would only point out that the spike in the 90s was much higher than those in the 20s and 50s. Between 1993 and 2004, no home run leader in either league had less than 40 homers. Than wasn’t the case in the 50s or the 20s.
Sure, some of it was improved nutrition, expansion and the like. But some of it was the fact that these guys were juicing. And it taints the whole era.
J. Michael Neal
I agree, but the power of this argument is greatly diminished by the fact of athletics themselves. It appears that football, by its very nature, shaves about a decade off the life of the people who play it professionally. It also appears to cause a lot of the players to suffer pretty severe brain damage, though the NFL refuses to cooperate in any study that would help to confirm this. Baseball wrecks the arms of its pitchers, necessitating the transplant of whole new ligaments on a regular basis.
As I said, I think there is a public health issue to steroids. I’m in favor of taking steps* to reduce their usage in sports. I’m just not able to muster any outrage about the players that used them, or any support for the idea that they should be excluded from the Hall of Fame, or the record books. They were, unsurprisingly, behaving like athletes always have.
*Not, however, the sort of unlimited steps the insane fanatics at the WADA are in favor of.
schooner
@ Stuck
I tore more than one pair of running shoes at the schoolyard dragging my foot a la Seaver.
I remember reading an article in SI predicting that Doc Gooden wouldn’t last because he was all arm and it specifically compared him to Ryan and Seaver. I guees that scout had it right.
Common Sense
@J. Michael Neal:
Partially. The NBA’s price structure is largely determined by the fact that the stadiums are 1/3 the size, as well as the relative lack of TV revenue compared to the other two.
I don’t have a major problem with the NFL’s costs (though I refuse to go to NBA games, this is probably more due to the fact that the games annoy the hell out of me more than the cost). I get supply and demand — when 70,000 people are willing to pay that much for a ticket, that is what they will cost. It’s simply to point out that baseball is not overpriced. It is by far the best value of any major sport.
J. Michael Neal
Bullshit. Compare the number of home runs hit in the 1920s to the number hit in the 1910s. The disparity was much greater then. Here are the total number of home runs hit by National League team from 1910-1919:
214 316 287 310 267 225 239 202 139 207
From 1920-1929:
261 460 530 538 499 636 439 483 610 754
Every year after 1921 had more home runs than any year prior. The increase is somewhere between 2x and 3x. The difference in the AL is even greater. The explosion in the 1990s wasn’t anything close to that.
Now, as I said, we know why the home run numbers went up: the baseball changed. Of course, as I also said, we know why they went up in the 1990s, too, and you can explain most of the effect without referencing steroids.
headpan
OT, but Tweety says Obama speaking in an hour.
binzinerator
Bullshit. It cheapens every achievement and records set by players of the years before the juicing, the guys who hit their homers and pitched their no-hitters without ‘roids.
Baseball became so much WWF wrestling to me after the ’90s. Cartoonish. A put-on. Every pumped up one of these baseball biffsters, every juicer is a freakshow of humanity.
After 100 years you don’t just change the game. You don’t just get to allow corked bat and everyone pretends they’re not and then whoop it up when the homers break records. The steroid thing was no different from a corked bat. It was a huge advantage, a big change in how the game was played for years and years. Dumbasses like yourself simper "it wasn’t against the rules" and that’s so lame. That’s a rationalization cause everyone knows it changed the game, made it different, made the baseball and the records and hits different because what the equipment they brought to the game was radically different. They brought steroids, and because no one in years past thought such a thing would exist they never wrote a rule against it. But you can bet they would’ve because they are pretty adamant against trick bats and greased balls.
I didn’t leave baseball, it left me. Good freakin’ riddance, eh? Well you got the freak part right.
J. Michael Neal
He was right, but it was an easy guess. Not because Gooden’s motion was particularly violent. It’s an easy guess because you should always put your money on a particular pitcher breaking down. That’s what they do.
It isn’t a recent phenomenon. Guys like Seaver and Ryan have always been the exception. It’s just that we remember the exceptions, particularly to the upside, a lot more than we do the average.
Andre
I have virtually nothing constructive to add here, so I’ll just go ahead and tell a funny A-Rod related story.
I read an article on the supposed relationship between A-Rod and Madonna a month or two ago, where the "evidence" of a fling came from his former personal trainer. The guy’s proof? "A-Rod was working out to some of Madonna’s songs, and seemed to be really getting into them."
Now, I don’t know about you, but if one of my friends was listening to Madonna with obvious enjoyment, my first reaction would not be, "Gee, I bet he’s having an affair with Madonna!"
It would be more along the lines of, "I wonder how long he’s known he was gay…"
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Common Sense
Comparing the winning percentages of MLB, the NFL and the NBA and drawing a conclusion about relative competitiveness is faulty. The NFL plays a 16 game season. MLB is 162. Taking a good MLB winning % (say .600) and comparing that to an NFL winning % is silly.
The absence of a cap makes baseball harder to be
consistently competitive. There are also fewer playoff spots as a percentage of total teams. 4 out of 14 in the AL and 4 out of 16 in the NL
I bet if you look at the teams that reach the post-season from year to year in baseball you would find a high degree on concentration among 6-10 franchises. Cards, Braves, Red Sox, Yankees, Cleveland and a few others.
In the AL for example, there have been 56 playoff spots since 1995. 38 of those spots have gone to just 5 teams. 7 franchises have gotten only 10 of those spots.
The playoff structure and the absence of a cap make it much harder to be regular title contender.
Chup
McGwire was a complete fraud — take a look at his numbers in the early 90s and then what happens when his buddy, Jose, helped him out. As a baseball purist, (yes, I am one) I’m thrilled that these folks are getting caught. I hate the "long ball" kind of game, and wish McGwire and Sosa’s seasons never happened. Bring back well-pitched games, the SB, and the doubles and triples hitters.
JPK
Things never change. In the ’80s (1880s, that is), the curveball was highly controversial and considered outright cheating by many.
Dave
@J. Michael Neal:
Jesus, read why don’t you. I was talking about home run leaders, not total homers. And since there wasn’t a major structural difference in the game (like changing the ball or, oh, admitting African-Americans into the MLB), you’d have to be denying reality by saying it was simply expansion and training that accounts for the ridiculous HR totals we’ve seen in the past 15 years.
Common Sense
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
Compare it to an NBA winning percentage then. The best teams in the NBA win 65+ games. You can count the number of teams in MLB to win 75% of their games on one hand in the history of the sport.
I agree that the scarcity of playoff spots in MLB make it less likely for an individual team to go, which means that the NFL is even less competitive, since you have a greater chance of making the playoffs (12/32 vs 8/30). Yet 2/3 of the teams in the NL have made the World Series in the last decade. That doesn’t put a slight dent in your "only a few teams can compete" thesis?
In the AL, these teams haven’t made the playoffs since the WC:
Orioles
Royals
Blue Jays (won consecutive WS the 2 years prior to the WC being instituted)
IOW despite fewer spots being available, you have a better chance of making the playoffs in baseball than football.
J. Michael Neal
Baseball actually has more competitive balance than any of the other sports, using the measures you lay out. Lakers? Patriots? Steelers? Red Wings? There are dynasties everywhere.
Further, there is zero evidence that a salary cap enhances competitive balance. None. All of the vaunted competitive balance in the NFL existed before the cap was in place. A while back, I did a study of the last ten years before the cap and the first ten years after it. (Conveniently, this was about 11 years after the cap came in place.) I try to come up with as many different ways to measure it as I could: number of different Super Bowl champions; number of different Super Bowl participants; number of teams that made the playoffs at least once; number of repeat division winners; number of repeat playoff appearances; difference in winning percentage of first and second place team in each division; difference in winning percentage between first and last place teams in every division; standard deviation of league wide winning percentages; average difference in division finish in successive years; average margin of victory in every game. There were others, but I don’t remember what they were. Of all of those measures, the only one that showed greater competitive balance was that there were slightly more different Super Bowl champions after the cap. Every other measure was either the same, or tilted slightly, and probably insignificantly, in the other direction.
The NFL’s institution of a salary cap had no effect on competitive balance. I don’t think we even need to discuss the NBA, given what happened after they put one in place. A salary cap is about one thing, and one thing only: controlling labor costs. That’s it. Everything else you hear about it is wrong.
I really wish that study had been on a disk drive I saved, rather than disappearing when I junked that computer.
Redshirt
@J. Michael Neal
You make some great points in a convincing manner. If you’ve got a newsletter, sign me up!
Regardless, for me the issue with steroids is the competitive imbalance, not the player’s health or even the stats. It’s the honor of it. Forget whether steroids were allowed or not by baseball. They were, in most cases, an illegal drug by Federal standards. Thus, any use of steroids for competitive advantage is a crime. Now, as you say, any athlete will (should) seek to gain an advantage over their competition — but common sense would dictate breaking the law is crossing a line — too far.
So, you’re a player in the 90’s, hitting the gym just like most players are doing now (definite change from history — Dimaggio hit the bars), and you know others are taking drugs which allow their training to be much more effective: it’s your choice to take them or not, but is that a fair choice? For a game that cherishes its rules?
Some people gaining a competitive advantage over others by breaking the law is the very definition of unfair. Thus, my objection.
J. Michael Neal
I agree with you on the aesthetics, but your facts are not only wrong, but easily disprovable. Mark McGwire’s 49 home runs in 1987 is still the record for a rookie. He always had power. He also spent the early 1990s very injury prone.
The Grand Panjandrum
No one could have known. Jeez … I know I’ve heard that before. Can someone refresh my memory.
I personally don’t give a shit about athletes and drugs. Love gambling on the games but I really don’t give a shit about the rest. I look at them the same way I look at a horse or a dog at the track. My assumption is that they will do anything to gain an edge because of the money involved. (OK I actually care about the dogs and horses because they don’t have a choice.)
Ash Wing League
This should be mentioned any time someone feigns outrage over steroids destroying the purity of baseball.
Martin
Fuck em.
My local college team plays a great game, and for $6 I can sit right behind home plate. When they win, they’re thrilled because they won and not because they get a quarter mil bonus for reaching the playoffs or a deodorant deal.
MLB, like the other pro sports are monopolies. They constrain supply to wring money out of fans and the drug use and other stupid shit are the cost. We’d never put up with that crap from other industries, but we routinely do for sports. Meanwhile the local teams could use the meager revenue support – the pros sure as hell don’t need it.
/rant over
spot check billy
@67: The Orioles made the playoffs in ’96 and ’97. Hard to believe, but true.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Orioles made the post-wildcard twice, both in the mid 1990’s
In the NL, 7 teams accounted for only 11 of 56 spots. Similarly, the top 5 grabbed 37 out of 56 spots.
15 teams in MLB – half the league – had three playoff spots or less since 1995 for a total of 21 spots. If half the league’s franchises are getting only less than the fifth of the playoff spots over a 13 year period, I would argue this is not a picture of parity.
I would be curious to see if playoff appearances are as scarce for half the league in the NFL.
I agree that parity is a myth in the NFL by the way – Easterbrook broke this down pretty nicely in his TMQ column this year.
J. Michael Neal
Fine. Here are the NL home run leaders from 1910-1929:
10 21 14 19 19 24 12 12 8 12 15 23 42 41 27 39 21 30 31 43
That’s a bigger difference than 1980-1999:
48 31 37 40 36 37 37 49 39 47 40 38 35 46 43 40 47 49 70 65
The lowest total in the latter grouping was 31 in 1981, but that was a strike year; Schmidt did that in 107 games. The next lowest was 36 in 1984. That’s more than half the number hit by McGwire in 1998. It’s a smaller difference than in the 1920s. You are simply wrong.
Yes, there was a major structural change to the game. The parks in the 1990s were noticeably smaller than they were in the 1980s. They added teams in Denver and Phoenix, with thin air. You simply do not need to invoke steroids to understand the increase in home runs. They might have had an effect. I suspect they did. It just wasn’t that big.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pens
Ironically the same guys that ‘saved’ baseball by taking steroids were the same guys that ruined baseball by going on strike.
KeithW
J Michael Neal’s point is even starker if you look at the AL. From Ned Williamson’s flukey 27 over a short porch, the Babe more than doubled the single-season record.
However, it wasn’t so much that the baseballs were made differently – it was that after Ray Chapman was killed, they began to use more of them. No longer were they trying to hit mis-shapen, tobacco-and-dirt stained balls all game long; they had fresh white ones to see and hit.
(Babe Ruth, of course, was a frequent abuser of an illegal drug)
Ash Can
I’m fairly anal-retentive about baseball myself (dump the DH; no artificial surfaces; indoors as an absolute last resort, and for God’s sake make the roof retractable), but I can’t get too worked up about the steroid thing either. I regret that it happened, and I hope it never does again, for the sake of both the players and the game. But the excitement of those years in the 90s really did bring fans back to the game after the strike. And it wasn’t just MLB that benefitted, the lower-level (and arguably more deserving) leagues benefitted too. The inflated stats are water over the dam, and the game should move on.
gogiggs
I’m not sure about 1 and 2, but I’m positive #4 is Wade Boggs year-by-year HR totals with the spike in 1987 and I’m pretty sure #3 is Davey Johnson, with the spike somewhere in the ’70s.
gogiggs
Ok, so Jay Bell and Lonnie Smith are the other two with the peaks in 1999 and 1989, respectively, but I actually had to look those up. 3 and 4 I just knew because they are fairly famous seasons, at least among baseball fans.
J. Michael Neal
You have them all correct. The Davey Johnson peak was in 1973.
Ram111
Time for performance-impairing drugs in baseball: Michael Phelps-Sized Bong Hits for all.
Wrap thy lips round that, suckas.
ChrisB
@J. Michael Neal: Sorry I missed this thread, enjoyed reading your comments (and many others). Allow me to add:
1. I joined a rotisserie baseball league in 1989 and picked up Lonnie Smith as my last outfielder (and Tom Glavine as my last pitcher). Consider me a dweeb but man was it a fun season. I knew it was too much, however, when I found myself up at 1:15 in the morning watching an absolutely meaningless Braves-Padres game in late August and saying to myself, "OK, just one more inning, Lonnie may get up in the top off the 9th."
2. Tom Seaver = drop and drive.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
ChrisB – I was in a league in 89 as well through the strike season. And then again from 98 to 2007. Baseball kind of lost me a bit with the steroids and the labor situation and the ridiculous money spending by certain teams. Granted it has not benefited all of the teams that overspent, but the Yankees and Red Sox have been successful in large part to their power of the purse.
I would like to see a regression analysis of total salary and playoff appearances. I bet it favors the "rich" teams.
phil
Yes, but we’re talking about this particular Brady Anderson.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Seen Tim Lincecum’s delivery?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Brady Anderson was the first guy where the red flags went up for me.
Tim Lincecum frigging rules. Small guy to throw that hard, leg strength or not. Kazmir too. I worry about the mileage building up over time with those guys.
Comrade Desert Hussein Rat
Brady Anderson.
He’s always the example I use when I point out that since the early 1990’s, just about everybody has been juiced.
Not coincidentally, that’s also about the last time I gave a shit about baseball.
J. Michael Neal
Baseball lost me during the strike, too. That’s because they weren’t playing. As soon as they solved that problem, I started watching again. I don’t really grasp the mentality of people who gave up following baseball because of the strike. I don’t mean that they’re wrong. I just don’t get it.
I like watching baseball. I’ll like watching baseball no matter what drugs they’re taking, or what labor relations are like. I don’t see a reason to deprive myself of that enjoyment because of what someone else is doing, or is like.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
I remember going to a Yankees game in the bleacher seats one time against the visiting Orioles on Father’s Day. The O’s had Anderson in center and Bobby Bonilla in right. The chant of "Bobby blows Brady, dun dun dun-dun-dun, Brady blows Bobby, dun dun dun-dun-dun…" went on for half the game…
Mos Eisley would compare favorably with the bleacher section at Yankee stadium.
schooner
I’m very interested in Lincecum’s progress. Pedro strung together some all time great seasons with that skinny frame and Lincecum looks like he might do the same. I love strikeout pitchers (and Bert should be in the HOF). On a separate note, I don’t think McGwire gets near his numbers without roids which makes me doubt his HOF credentials. Bonds on the other hand was in anyway. Its his own selfish fault if they hold him out.
ChrisB
That’s a helluva picture of Brady Anderson.
For me it was Jose Oquendo and Eric Gagne. My 11 year old daughter could have beaten up Oquendo when he played for the Mets and then he showed up one spring near the end of his career with 30 more pounds of muscle. Still couldn’t hit, though. Gagne had the entire steroid package down to the acne. To me it was so obvious even though people weren’t accusing pitchers at the time.
Stuck
@J. Michael Neal:
Second that. I can’t imagine a world without baseball, or at least an America without it. Losing it would almost be like losing my soul. Not to get maudlin about it, but from all the crazy shit that happened in my childhood, baseball was a constant comfort and I still remember as a kid at old Crosley Field, standing behind the foul screen, watching Willie Mays hit a home run with graceful ease.
And if Cole would put up more baseball threads for the coming season, I could write more sappy nonsense like this. I won’t hold my breath, I guess until the Pirates get their shit together, which could well be never.
joe from Lowell
Yay Jim Rice made the Hall!
About time.
4jkb4ia
This is simply for the sake of $.02 because John wrote about baseball(!!)
The Olympics have also lost a great deal of their idealism not so much because you know that these folks are also competing for money, but because you don’t know who is staying ahead of the drug testers. Everybody is a suspect. If Albert Pujols was found to have ever used anything, I would be entirely crushed and not say, "They all did it". If they all did it, or anyone who had any achievements did it, baseball would move closer on the continuum towards professional wrestling. Baseball fans could not delude themselves that they were celebrating the values of sport. I think also that OBS and similar statistics have wrenched the game back into shape from the mindless pursuit of home runs.
(Yes, baseball games are not actually fixed)
(The use of steroids is not "Intrinsic to the act of playing" as Bart Giamatti once put it. The use of steroids is disrespectful to the game and the tradition of players before you who achieved timeless greatness without any chemical aids)
Bob In Pacifica
I miss the home runs.
They should either lower the mound or juice up the ball.
I need something to keep me entertained until football season.
4jkb4ia
@Bob In Pacifica:
Fa-la! ‘Tis almost here! The lusty month of March!
J. Michael Neal
Blech. An incomplete list of outfielders who should be in the Hall of Fame ahead of Jim Rice:
Tim Raines
Andre Dawson
Dale Murphy
Dwight Evans
Dick Allen (mostly a first baseman)
Roy White
Ellis Burks
Brian Downing (gets credit for catching, too)
Cesar Cedeno (Astrodome killed stats)
Fred Lynn
Rocky Colavito
George Foster
Not all of these guys should be in. Other than Raines, none of them should be a shoo-in, and there are only 2-3 others I’d even bother making an argument for. They were all better than Jim Rice.
Rice’s stats are enormously inflated by Fenway. He had zero defensive value. As for the argument that he brought teh fear, he was hardly ever finished in the top ten in intentional walks, which is about the only way I can think of that you could measure fear.
J. Michael Neal
Great. Find me an era that had neither performance enhancing chemicals, nor segregation. There might be a 3-4 year period between Jackie Robinson showing up, and the explosion of amphetamine use. That’s really about it. Steroids may not be intrinsic to the act of playing baseball, but doing whatever it takes to get ahead is pretty much integral to the athletic psyche.
terry chay
@John Cole:
A lot of what you know is because you’re from Pittsburgh. Anyone who rooted for the Pirates in the 90’s by definition knows what the strike meant because it occurred right after the All Star Game in Pittsburgh and the loss of Bonds and Bonilla. Most other people weren’t aware of baseball’s precipitous fall due to the strike.
(Another thing is you actually saw Bonds pre-juicing. Anyone who watched Pirates games as religiously as us knew what was going on.)
The biggest problem I have is that we’re focusing on the players when we know the problem, like Abu Ghraib, is systemic.
A larger issue is the fact that this is baseball. Baseball is supposed to be wholesome and “all-american.” So the abuse by baseball of encouraging these people to juice for short term gain was stupid and shortsighted. The game would have recovered from this, but this event will tarnish the sport as much as the Black Sox did.
schooner
@JMN. I don’t think Rice belongs either but White? Burks??? I think that may be stretching it. I’d love to see Dick Allen get in since he was much better than Rice but it aint gonna happen. Most HOF voters should lose their ballot when they try to get guys like Jack Morris in. Stieb was a much better pitcher in the 80s and never got a sniff.
Tax Analyst
Whether one believes steroid-use by baseball players is bad or good, can someone explain Why The F*ck Congress got involved? What, everything else for so hunky-fucking dory good, so they figured it was time to weigh in? Were they fascinated at the prospect of all those buff ballplayers laying out urine samples for testing? Was it just another outgrowth that spurted forth out of the double-wet suit/dildo fetishist crowd?
And what HAS the American taxpayer gotten out of all that Congressional pearl-clutching concern? Pointless and costly Grand Jury probes and indictments…for lying to Congress. LYING TO CONGRESS??? Jesus Christ in the on-deck circle, the only difference between Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and George freaking Bush is that they were stupid enough to do it after putting their hand on a Bible. Well, that, and as far as I know, none of the aforementioned alleged juicers has caused anywhere near 100,000+ deaths.
Priorities…sometimes they matter.
J. Michael Neal
Jim Rice played in 2089 games with 8225 ABs. 2452 hits. 373 doubles. 382 HRs. RBIs aren’t really about clutch hitting; they’re about having Wade Boggs batting ahead you. I don’t count them. His lifetime OPS+ was 128. Avg/OBP/Slg of .298/.352/.502.
Translate those numbers into a neutral park and setting, and you get a line of .290/.343/.489, 8384 ABs, 2435 Hits, 371 doubles, 378 HRs.
He had zero defensive value.
That’s the guy we’re looking to beat.
Roy White played in 1881 games with 6650 ABs. 1803 hits. 300 doubles. 150 HRs. His lifetime OPS+ was 121. Avg/OBP/Slg of .271/.360/.404.
Translate those numbers into a neutral park and setting, and you get a line of .297/.390/.441, 6929 ABs, 2057 Hits, 340 doubles, 182 HRs.
White was a very good left fielder. Does that make up for what’s left of the offensive difference? Maybe not, but you can have a decent argument as to which was the better player once you know the context for the raw stats.
Ellis Burks played in 2000 games with 7232 ABs. 2107 hits. 402 doubles. 352 HRs. His lifetime OPS+ was 126. Avg/OBP/Slg of .291/.363/.510.
Translate those numbers into a neutral park and setting, and you get a line of .283/.355/.496, 7243 ABs, 2053 Hits, 390 doubles, 341 HRs.
Burks started out as a good, but not great, centerfielder, and was useful in the field well into his 30s. The question is whether that defensive value is greater than the value Rice got from a slightly longer career. Their rate stats are almost identical. I think it is, and Burks was the better overall player.
Let’s take Cesar Cedeno, because it’s entertaining. He played in 2006 games with 7310 ABs. 2087 hits. 436 doubles. 199 HRs. His lifetime OPS+ was 123. Avg/OBP/Slg of .285/.347/.443. Throw on 550 stolen bases at better than a 75% success rate.
Translate those numbers into a neutral park and setting, and you get a line of .302/.365/.468, 7665 ABs, 2317 Hits, 481 doubles, 220 HRs. The Astrodome just killed offense.
He had zero defensive value. The translated rate stats have Cedeno almost as valuable as Rice. Rice lasted longer, since Cedeno was almost done at 31, so he has more career value. On the other hand, Cedeno was a brilliant center fielder. Of the two, I’d rather have Cedeno.
gogiggs
People talk about steroids tainting modern numbers compared to the historical records, but the truth is, we really have no idea when players started using PEDs and which they were. Yeah, it’s almost certainly more prevalent now, but the first steroids were invented in the ’30s and they were being used by Olympic weightlifters in the ’50s, for sure. We know for sure that members of the SD Chargers were given them in the ’60s. I think it’s incredibly naive to think that no baseball player tried them before Canseco in the ’80s
We’ve been hearing for years about how in 1961 Roger Maris was so stressed out by coverage of his run at Babe Ruth’s single-season HR record that he broke out in rashes and his hair started falling out. Can you think of anything else that might cause a guy to break out, lose hair and suddenly hit a lot more home runs? Late in that same season Mickey Mantle, who was neck-and-neck with Maris most of the way was hospitalized with an infected injection site on his hip from what was said to be a vitamin shot. And maybe it was. And maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know and you don’t know either.
The thing is, I don’t see anything at all to be gained from worrying about it. I like baseball and I have no illusions that the men who play it are saints. There’s no real way I’m ever going to know exactly who did what when and I really don’t care. I just don’t think about it and enjoy the games.
Thlayli
If you look at Dick Allen’s numbers, divorced from the career as a whole, you can make a case. What gets left out is Allen is a strong contender for the title of Worst Teammate Evar. You’re all familiar with Terrell Owens, right? Dick Allen was Terrell Owens playing the race card.
John Cole
And Drabek and Smiley. But you are right, I did not realize my perspective might be different.
@J. Michael Neal: Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson. No idea why they are not in.
And does anyone have a good discussion of why Tommy John is not in the HoF?
Redshirt
Given that the science of cheating will apparently always be one step ahead of the science of detection, perhaps all sports should simply say "Whatever goes". This way, the "Market" can decide what substances and programs these athletes engage.
ChrisB
@J. Michael Neal: You didn’t mention Roy White’s sacrifice flies, the stat he’s probably best known for (that and his unique low-handed stance while batting lefty, a stance I adopted whenever I had to hit lefty while playing stickball as a kid).
John and Terry Chay: As a Mets fan, I appreciated those early 90’s Pirate teams, they were good. As an aside, I consider Francisco Cabrera singling home Sid Bream in the 1992 playoffs to be the most perfect baseball play I’ve ever seen.
Dr. Squid
I don’t know about McGwire being a fraud – he dids hit 49 early, and the Jose allegations seemed more like someone telling homoerotic stories to get attention. Two guys going into a stall to drop their pants and have a poke? Come on, now.
terry chay
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
The problem is that even with a salary cap and/or revenue share, economic models predict that big market teams should still have a disproportionate share of the top playoff spots (or wins or whatever metric you are using to rate success). The reason is that being in a larger market, they simply make more revenue than smaller markets when their team succeeds. That’s why J. Michael Neal is pointing out that the primary purpose of such structures is to hold down players salaries—and that is why the players striked in 1994.
This is salient. It’s the primary purpose of salary cap and/or revenue share to hold down players salaries. In light of that fact, we can now talk about secondary effects…
I don’t doubt that. But I will point out some statistical problems with modeling the effects of salary caps or revenue shares. The fact is there isn’t much statistical data to go on. Sports are different so there is no point in comparing between sports so the modelling has to be done in the same sport. The size of these professional leagues is very small (few dozen) and the number of playoff spots and time spent is small (a decade on each side). The sport changes and rule changes occur on the same time scale as well as systemic dynastic effects. Most effects would look like noise.
Another issue as that the playoff spots from year to year is more or less constant so one expects that the number of teams making the playoffs should be similarly restricted. The argument "pro" the salary caps is that they make small market teams potentially competitive. I’m not going to say that’s going to be easy to argue one way or another statistically. We do have some anecdotal evidence that this may be the case: 1) Many owners don’t always act for sole profit motive (Debartolo, Steinbrenner, Jerry Jones, even the Rooneys) on which the models are based, 2) Anecotally we can bring up examples (Arizona Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates) but this is overwhelmed by statistics.
The question is if there the correlation between market size and success metric (season records, playoff appearances, championships) is as strong pre and post cap. I’d think that it gets a little weaker but I won’t take that bet because I bet I’m almost as likely to be wrong as right. (Even interesting examples I can come up with like the Steelers, are actually a very large market team. They had their successes right when the Pittsburgh diaspora occurred which makes fans across the nation in a way that rivals the “America’s Team.” One wonders whether the Rooney consistency is an artifact of that or vice versa).
In any case, my main point isn’t whether or not steroid use made it a homerun derby. Just that it was shortsighted for baseball to look the other way and basically, through a crime of omission, encourage juicing. Baseball is marketed differently than football and this crime will have a longer and lasting effect.
Or, put another way, you can argue statistically that Shoeless Joe Jackson played his best during the Black Sox year, but it doesn’t stop people from feeling cheated about that Series. That his entire career suffered a similar indelible black mark, whether deserved or not, still comes as a natural consequence.
MH
The debate about whether steroids saved baseball in the 90s, overlooks the fact that the game of baseball DESERVED/DESERVES to die. What an unholy boring sport, utterly infested with whining millionaires, and presided over by worthless incompetents.
Little wonder George W. Bush wanted to be commissioner.