At the start of the 1997 baseball season Syracuse University held a panel to discuss the state of baseball. On this panel were Murray Chass of the New York Times and Pete Thamel then of The Daily Orange, now of the New York Times and other people I don't remember.
After the panel discussion I went up to Murray Chass, and I swear this is true, and asked him about steroids in baseball. He looked at me like I was crazy. He trotted out the now trite apologists' argument "steroids don't help you hit a baseball."
I brought up Kevin Elster who basically took four years off, then came back and hit 24 homers in 1996.
The point is not that I was right, because that happens so often it's no longer worth pointing out, the point is that the establishment (players, managers, executives, writers) willingly ignored the signs of steroid use, that observant people should have noticed.
One writer who was on the ball was Bob Nightengale (now with USA Today) who on July 15, 1995 wrote an article for the LA Times titled "Steroids Become an Issue: Many Fear Performing Enhancing Drug is Becoming Prevalent and Believe Something Must Be Done."
But pretty much everybody else ignored it, including Bud Selig who said he knew nothing about the problem until Mark McGwire's use of andro was reported in 1998.
Looking back I think McGwire purposely planted andro in his locker to throw suspicion off him as a steroid user. It seemed a little too obvious that McGwire had the bottle so clearly displayed in his locker. He probably never used andro, just thought it would give him plausible deniablity when people started questioning him about steroid use.
I hope the steroid era is now over and a new breed of juice free sluggers like A-Rod, The Magnificent Pooh Holes, Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn will come along and wipe the cheaters out of the books.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
But how can you be sure guys like A-Rod are in fact clean? I know the testing policy now has more teeth, but is it really fool proof?
I can't help but notice that the only guys getting caught are the Motas and Juan Rincon's of the world, whereas superstars seem untouchable. If Bonds has enough money to pay his trainer to sit in federal prison, who's to say what type of exemption A-Rod could buy?
You can't be 100% certain that A-Rod is not juiced but you have a lot less reason to be suspicious. A-Rod never had the following things:
1) a noticeable change in physical appearance
2) a noticeable change in performance, particularly a nearly 100% increase in home run % (at bats per home run)
3) a best friend and trainer in prison for steroids
4) a grand jury admission to taking steroids
5) an ex-girlfriend claiming he took steroids
And to answer your other question, I believe I know the reason why most of the players who got caught were low-level major leaguers from Central & South American countries. In some of those countries, certain types of steroids are legal and I think players juice in the offseason and think it will be out of their system by the time the season starts. The rich American players hire the best chemists to give them stuff that will help them beat the tests.
That makes alot of sense. I actually don't think A-Rod is on the juice. I just think he's an a-hole and that no major leaguer today is completely beyond suspicion.
In a way, that's the greatest sin Bonds and others have committed - they've caused the average fan to question what's real in baseball.
Post a Comment