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| This man is clean. We think.
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The Mariners were in Jason Whitlock's town last night, and he talked to Ken Griffey, Jr. about the Manny Ramirez business:
Voting for Griffey and sending him to Cooperstown with a Ronald Reaganlike voting mandate might be a way for baseball writers to voice their opinion about the steroids era. Wednesday I asked Griffey why he never got involved with steroids, why he never felt pressure to compete with the pumped-up lesser talents who stole some of his glory. He credited his father, Ken Griffey Sr. . . .
. . . Being a Barry Bonds apologist doesn't make me incapable of appreciating Griffey Jr.'s integrity and class. Griffey Jr. took the long, slow route to immortality. Many of his peers took shortcuts. It's the old story of the tortoise and the hare. Griffey is going to beat all of his peers to Cooperstown.
OK, I'll go there: how do we know that Griffey never used?
Before you start attacking me for daring to suggest such a thing, let me say that I personally don't suspect he did. Indeed, if you held a gun to my head and demanded that I voice my opinion on the matter one way or the other, I'd say he didn't. There certainly have never been any allegations -- let alone credible ones -- that he did.
But we've said that about others before too. Alex Rodriguez and even Manny Ramirez went years as putative poster children for clean baseball living, and see where that got us.
My point here, however, isn't to go after Griffey. Rather, it's to note the problem we now have and will continue to have for some time when it comes to assessing our era and its players. Many of these guys used. Many will never be caught. The problem is, posterity demands that we do something with this era. There will be Hall of Fame votes to consider. There will be histories written. Unless we plan to simply abandon baseball -- and if you're reading this you obviously still care about baseball to some degree -- some sort of context must be imposed on the past decade or two. In order to do that, we have some choices to make.
1. We can assume that only those named in the Mitchell Report, those who fail tests now, and wild cards like Alex Rodriguez used. Of course, that would be terribly naive, wouldn't it? Because really, you can't plausibly say that only those who we've so far caught used. Yes, it's unfair to assume the guilt of anyone, but when you're making historical judgments about an era, isn't it also unfair to assume the innocence of everyone? Until yesterday morning, Manny Ramirez was considered clean, and if a Hall of Fame vote had been taken, he would have entered Cooperstown with room to spare. We feel differently about that today, and we have to assume other guys fit the same pattern.
2. We can assume that everyone used and wash our hands of the whole era, barring the Hall of Fame's doors shut to Bonds, Clemens, Ramirez, and anyone else from this era and turning them into villains in the history books yet to be written. That's ridiculous in my opinion, and if you feel that way you're better off just abandoning baseball altogether.
3. We can assume that many players used -- including many we'll never be able to identify -- punish those who are caught and, on the whole, downgrade statistical achievements the way we do with hitters' stats from the early 1930s and pitchers' stats in the 1960s. We can suspect that maybe these guys weren't quite as good as the stats indicate, and adjust a bit for context. Maybe change our assessment of the value of 500 home runs into what we used to think of 400 home runs. Acknowledge that someone who hit .340 may not have done that had things been a little different. In short, grade on a curve and refrain from throwing the baby (i.e. a decade and a half of some very enjoyable baseball) out with the bath water.
Though I choose to go with option number three, I realize none of those options are perfect. If you have another option, I'm all ears.
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I'm with you on #3, Craig. We can do the mental gymnastics and just recognize that the era's stats were inflated and while that really stinks, it happened. Just like segregation and a dead ball and a higher pitchers mound (no, not saying they are equal!)
Look no matter how many steroids were used it still does not make the bat hit a 93mph curve ball 500 feet. take most guys off the street and they won't even get the bat off their shoulder let alone stay in the box. I say put an asterisks next to the names of everyone it the era. you will never know all that used but we do know that it was both pitchers and hitters so in that aspect the competition is fair. the asterisks should read "steroid era". If Roger Clemons is juiced and so is Barry Bonds, then Bonds takes Clemons deep how can we say that it would not have happen with out steroids when they are both on them. the public loves the long ball so just enjoy the show and the game and lets move on with a stricter testing policy and from here on out if you test positive you are done for good!
You make a good point about hitting a 93mph curve ball. However steroids does make a player a better hitter in may ways. For one instead of hitting the curve ball 400 feet you hit the ball 500 feet. Also with steroids the player can then swing the bat faster. If they can swing the bat faster they can wait a split second longer and watch the curve on the ball and either wait or swing. And a split second on reaction time can be a big factor in hitting a bomb. Take Barry Bonds. He was walked a lot not just because no one would throw at hm but because he would not swing at bad pitches. So when he did make contact, you have the monster home runs that he hit. Bonds was always a great hitter. But giving a great hitter those advantages and you have 73 dings after only hitting over 40 homers only 4 times in a 15 year period. Just food for thought.
<<Just like segregation and a dead ball and a higher pitchers mound>>
Segregation, the dead ball and higher pitchers' mounds were beyond the control of the individual ball players. We all have to play the cards we are dealt. Juicing, however, is CHEATING . . . and no one is forced to cheat. The most instructive thing I've hear recently was A-Rod's tipping pitches to opponents as a quid pro quo for other players tipping him. He sacrificed his teammates AND the integrity of the game to pad his own stats. What a Loser. None of these bastards should make it into the HoF.
I actually think that to some degree this was all beyond the control of the players, just as much as the higher pitching mound, dead ball era, etc. Those who make the rules for the game set up a culture where taking steroids was at best ignored, if not encouraged, and so these players really weren't in a position to say that they would put themselves at a disadvantage to the rest of the sport any more than pitchers could pitch from off the mound to make it more fair to the hitters.
There's no dispute that the steroid era is a huge disgrace for baseball. What I don't understands is why Bud Selig hasn't been fired or forced to resign. Either he's an incompetent fool or, more likely, he knew about the PED's and turned a blind eye amid all the record smashing and soaring attendance. He makes me sick with his phoney indignation like the corupt inspector in the classic film Casablanca who was "SHOCKED" that gambling was going on at Rick's establishment. Baseball's clean-up won't be complete until he's gone.
Steverino -- Bud Selig hasn't been fired or forced to resign because his job -- contrary to popular opinion -- is to represent the owners' interests and to make sure baseball makes money. He has been wildly successful at that, and as such, the only people who have the power to fire him -- the owners -- have no desire to do so whatsoever.
I understand that Selig is a puppet of the owners, who also deserve a share of the blame for the steroid fiasco. That doesn't change my opinion that Selig has to go for closure to occur. Perhaps, and I know this is controversial, Congress should intervene and install a REAL baseball commish since nobody in the game seems capable or willing to do the right thing.
Just curious, Steverino, but do you think Roger Goodell should be fired for not cleaning up the NFL? Do you even watch the NFL or do you not care that 99% of the players are cheaters?
What context? If ANYONE is caught up in the steroid/PED scandal, then they should be banned from ever entering the HOF. Personally, if I was the commissioner of baseball, their entire records would be expunged from the books. MVP and Cy Young awards, along with batting titles, Golden Glove awards, etc., would be withdrawn and given to the next highest vote getters who were deemed "clean". Cheating because "Everyone else was doing it" is what a child says when caught by a parent or responsible adult. There is no law saying that the Hall of Fame needs to have entrants every year. THAT --- is why it is the Hall of "FAME". Cheaters --- all of them --- should be cast aside and forgotten, their very existence in MLB erased. They sure didn't care about the integrity of the game. Why should baseball, or its' fans care about them? Kennesaw Mountain Landis, where art thou?
Wow. Do you also want to go through the HOF and kick out anyone who scuffed balls, threw an illegal spitter, or took amphetamines?
Apples and oranges Jacob
"Kennesaw Mountain Landis, where art thou?"
He's somewhere in the afterlife trying to keep racial minorities out of heaven, just like he did with baseball in life. Got any other great moral arbiters you'd like to invoke?
Wouldn't it be great if there were one obvious right answer...
The idea of adjusting our assessment of HOF benchmarks is appealing, but then what do we do with pitching? We know that there are pitchers who juiced, and we know that at least one notable example had ridiculously good ERAs long after most normal humans would have been chased from the game by diminishing skills. So do we suspect low ERAs of the era and adjust upward, or do we assume that hitters had more proportional success and adjust them downward?
Right now, I lean more toward Hawk's suggestion. Elect the guys who would have been elected anyway, and have some kind of indicator of the context - an asterisk, a separate room, a giant plaque, whatever - to acknowledge the conditions under which these players played. Any other solution seems to create an endless string of further judgments.
Just like the day the Rangers took on the Giants to inaugurate interleague play, the baseball books as we know them have been changed forever. Although sad, it is something we will now have to live with.
Al Capone was a gangster in 1920's Chicago. He owned every illicit business going on in the second city, centered around bootleg whiskey. Try as they did, the Feds couldn't make any of the mob charges stick to him, and finally had to settle for busting him on tax evasion charges. He was sentenced to prison and now, nearly 100 years later we all think of him as an all around bad guy.
At about the same time, Mr. Capone had a counterpart in Boston by the name of Joseph Kennedy. Allegedly involved in many of the same illegal activities as Mr. Capone, he was able to completely evade the long arm of the law, and had a bunch of kids that got Ivy League educations and went on to change America. We have sort of come to think of him in a patriarchal way, to be admired for spawning such impressive offspring.
The point is, there will always be those that we suspected, but never caught. If their performance warrants it, we will consider them the heros of the era. Those that are caught, however, belong in the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Fame, and if they are still active in the game should be removed from it in perpetuity.
I think these are three false choices. There is a version where you can EITHER:
1. Assume everyone is using, so these enhanced hitters HAVE to be better to hit off these enhanced pitchers (let's call it the Bonds vs. Clemens theory)
2. Understand that despite the political levels of rhetoric coming out of sportswriters' mouths, NO ONE knows how much steroids helped ANY individual player, or if they did at all.
Thus, everything's a wash and the stats stand.
We downgraded (mentally) hitters in the 30s and pitchers in the 60s because things were lopsided. Here, you can't prove that at all.
You're usually one of the better ones, Craig, don't give in to the dark side and keep up the critical thinking.
As long as there are 103 names that continue to go undisclosed then there is nobody who avoids suspicion.
I could give you two thousand words on the MLB Hall of Fame's role as a museum and a protector of the history of the game and the morals clause controversy that first came up with McGwire, then Bonds/Clemens, then A-Rod, and now currently Manny, but I'll try to keep it simple. The Hall of Fame's goal is (and should be) to accurately represent and report the history of the game and its greatest players. There should be no attempts made to whitewash unfavorable or negative aspects of that history. Any Hall of Fame without Clemens, McGqwire, Bonds, Palmeiro, Rodriguez, Manny, and several more who are likely to turn up in the next few years (Thome? Thomas? Griffey?) is not a Hall of Fame worth keeping.
You have players who've abused drugs who are in (Paul Molitor, Ferguson Jenkins), you have players who have cheated the game who are in (Sutton, Perry, a widely purported preponderance of greenies)... There is simply no precedent to exclude great players (save for gambling allegations, like Jackson and Rose), nor should we create such precedent. The steroid connections of the modern ballplayers should not be ignored but should be added to their plaque plain to see, but they should be enshrined nonetheless.
Dan,
Other than the immediate finacial return, what is the difference between what Joe Jackson was wrongfully accused of and what A-Rod allegedly did with regard to pitch-tipping? The basic accusation in both cases is that Each of them gave an advantage to their opponents. The difference between the two is that there is statistical evidence that Shoeless Joe didn't do it.
Hi Craig. I, too, would vote for option 3. The Palmiero and Rodriguez posturing prior to exposure kind of ruins it for Larkin, Frank Thomas, et.al, to take a never used stand. We'll never know unless "the list" of 100+ is leaked.
My intention was not to ignore and apologize. The NBC article is fuller and explains your stand to me in a way I can agree with. Adjustments to eras are for for comparison, have been for years. As these adjustments are intended, they allow us to more accurately compare eras since 1901.
Dykstra and Brady Anderson can now be seen as more than likely to have juiced early in era, the prototype benefactors of the wonder of PEDs. What do we do with Canseco and McGuire? Those guys may have more than likely been juicing before entry into professional ball.
Abandon baseball? Never. Abandon MLB? It would be difficult.
The kids have been great today.
Richard-- I just finished the Roberts book. There is zero evidence that he tipped pitches either. Sure, she insists it happened, but it is not backed up at all. There is just as much evidence in the world that Babe Ruth once killed a hobo for walking too close to him. Why? Because I just said it.
I strongly suspect Ken Griffey, Jr. of performance-enhancing drugs, primariily because he hit 56 home runs in back-to-back seasons. Most ballplayers with multiple seasons of 50 home runs after 1989 have become major suspects of cheating. Using baseball-almanac.com home runs statistics, recent steroid suspects include Mark McGuire (70 and 65, and 52), Sammy Sosa (66, 64, 63, and 50), and Alex Rodriguez (57, 54, and 52).
Prior to the steroid era, only a select few had multiple 50 home run seasons. The immortal Babe Ruth did it in 4 different seasons. Jimmie Foxx, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle each did it twice. Consider those who never hit 50 home runs in one season. Those with over 500 career home runs include home run leader Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Willie McCovey, Ted Williams, Eddie Matthews, and Mel Ott.
Hitting 50 home runs used to be a hallowed accomplishment, in which many greats fell short. Lou Gehrig and Harmon Killebrew were consistent long-ball hitters but each hit 49 home runs twice.
Although I route for the Phillies, Ryan Howard is also a suspect. After hitting 58 home runs in his first full season, he came close with 47 homers the next year, despite missing 18 games due to injury. I don't believe anyone has ever hit 50-home runs so early in their career. And he could have had back-to-back 50 home runs if not for his injury in 2007.
GriffeyisGuilty2-
You are ignoring a huge number of other factors with your example. Ballparks post-camden Yards have gotten smaller and smaller with less foul territory playable and short porches in certain areas. Jimmie Fox never got to hit in Coors field pre-humidor or in Citizen Bank or Great American. Steroids have played a part in the higher home run totals, especially in those names most associated with the problem, but using home run totals as evidence of PED use is horribly simplitic if not totally misinformed.
First depending on where the ball is hit, a home run might not be hit as far as a double. A double to dead center might need to go 400+ feet, whereas many fields have at least one line that is less than 350' to the fence nowadays. Baseball is a business and home runs are very markatable for it. Beyond steroids, efforts have been made to increase HR's.
Second, steroids are highly customizable. Players using PED's are looking to improve THEIR game. Not every hitter is Mark McGuire. If the news suddenly broke that Ricky Henderson had been using steroids most of his career, wouldn't we have to rethink the SB record? If Nolan Ryan was revealed as a user, wouldn't K's be suspect.
In the end, we can blacklist those who are caught cheating if we so choose. We cannot however, just pretend that a so-called 'steroid era' existed from 1983- 2004 and write off those players. We also cannot assume that players who have not been caught deserve some special reward consideration for cleanliness. Steroids are not going away, they are going underground. Cheating now has consequences, but the cheaters are always one step ahead of the testers. We will never know definatively how a player accomplish what the did ever again.
In that respect, it seems most reasonable to consider cheaters on a case by case basis and to judge those who have not been caught by their merits alone. We can no longer take iconic understanding or greatness from numbers such as 500HR or 3000 hits, but that was probably a stupid bit of shortcutting anyway.
Just wait 25-30 years and we'll be arguing about the latest genetic engineering scandel.
Michael #1 and Dan Whitney have the best take on the situation as far as I'm concerned.
If you start to think, as I do, that Jose Canseco's statement about the percentage of users is probably accurate or at least close, then M#1 is correct in saying it's a wash.
DW's idea that the HOF without the 10 or so certain HOF'ers that wenow feel are tainted would be a strange homage to greatness. If you took 10% off the career #'s of these men most, if not all, would still be serious contenders for HOF induction.
We need to accept the fact that medical science and technology have begun to allow us to 'create' modified athletes with enhanced physical skills and that they will be able to perform at abnormal and abnormallysustained levels.
Many players that played prior to 1900 probably had their careers shortened by injuries that could have corrected in the '20's and '30's.
Players in the '20's and '30's ended their careers with injuries that would have been repairable in the '50's and 60's.
I'm sure you can see where I'm heading. The best, most well known example is Mickey Mantle. His knee injury in '51 forced him to play his whole career at no better than 70 - 75% of the physical skills he truly possessed. With modern medicine, his injury could have been repaired costing him to miss at most 1 season and when he returned he would have been @ 90% or better. Imagine the kinds of career numbers he could have had if he been playing @ 90+% instead of 70-75%.
Accept the fact that athletes always seek an edge and with smarmy owners waving rediculous amounts of money at them for "numbers", you can't blame them for trying to get that edge to get that huge contract.
Look at it this way, if you're working at your regular job making $15/hr and your boss comes in and offers you $ just because you've demonstrated a set of special skills, would you turn him/her down; and remember this is just for doing what you've been doing all along.
I DON"T THINK YOU WOULD! I WOULDN'T.
Also, a shout out to Mr. C., Craig Calcaterra. Keep up the good work.
Griffey has suffered as many classic steroid associated injuries as Nomar. Could be pure coincidence, if you believe in coincidence.
Mr. Antonielli is right when he suggests that medical technology has contributed to the creation of his so called modified athletes. I am definitely not a proponent of PEDs and don't believe that they have any place in the game, but what constitutes a PED? If an athlete gets hurt and has surgey to correct the condition, nobody complains but if he needs medication to aid in his rehab, isn't that a form of PED? Hitters can benefit from lasik surgey improving their vision beyond our definition of perfect. Is that fair to the pitchers even though no drugs are involved? What makes an enhancement legal? Is it a doctor's prescription or the impact the enhancement could have on the game? Is it whether or not the activity is legal by baseball rules? During what portion of the steroid era were PEDs actually banned by baseball?
If we blindly accuse all players from the steroid era, we are doing an injustice to the players who followed the rules. If we only asterisk the players who were caught, then all of the historical testing results must come out for review.
d-mart & Antonielli are stretching it with bad examples. You can't compare someone rehabbing back from an injury as any type of PED. The point is that perfectly healthy and uninjured players secretly took steroids to get bigger and stronger than anyone else to give them an unfair advantage in the game compared to players that played by the rules. The same rules have applied in the Olympic games. If you get caught juicing, the athlete has to turn their metals in becasue they didn't earn them fair and square. That's why Bonds ought to turn in his all time HR trophy back to Henry because Bonds didn't earn it like your supposed to. He knows it, Henry knows it and the fans know it.
It's just to bad that all those guys had to juice an screw up everything just because they realized that they just did't have the raw talent that the real greats did so they tried to take a short cut. The cheating did seem to expose how great the past clean players really were. Can you imagine the numbers that the old guys would have put up if they had a little HGH? The modern juicers ought to be thankful.