PED injustice and the Hall

Hall of Fame vote is frustrating. Something is wrong with either the procedure or the people involved in the voting. This became clear when Barry Larkin’s deserving, and late, induction became a second tier story to who did not make it and the ongoing assault about the role of steroids or PEDs*.

* For the remainder, I’ll refer to PEDs to include steroids, HGH, etc.—anything that has been considered Performance Enhancing Drugs. It will also refer only to those performance enhancing drugs that are banned and/or tested for.

The leaking of Ryan Braun’s positive drug test, currently in appeal means at some point we’ll be forced to hear the opinion of members of the Baseball Writesr Association of America (who do the Hall voting) on the validity of numbers, the historical content of PEDs, and the presentation of evidence about PED usage by players. Even if Braun’s appeal is successful, we’ll hear writers’ opinion about what should have been done if Braun was actually suspended.

There has to be more reason for this constant discussion than what is presented on the surface.

There are writers who say using drugs is illegal and people using PEDs* are therefore breaking the law which lacks integrity as well as specific rules of baseball. Despite that writers will vote for players, and support active players, even when they break the rules of baseball or demonstrate a lack of integrity.

* When I use the term “‘using PEDs” or “PED user” i am talking about people who have admitted to using PEDs and those who are simply suspected of using PEDs. It is impossible to tell if the writers are concerned if there is a difference. Given that I’ll group the convicted and suspected together for my discussion about writers.

The Hall of Fame includes admitted spitballer Gaylord Perry. Whitey Ford’s plaque stands in the Hall despite his admission to throwing doctored baseballs, including in the 1962 All-Star game to strike out Willie Mays. Writers use the cheaters excuse inconsistently, so when they do trot it out, safely dismiss it.

A standard is set. Writers often use the statistical standard of the players in the Hall in arguments for or against players. They will use bad behavior only as a reason to not vote for somebody, ignoring substantial information that cheaters and other bad people are already in.

So writers will set various levels of badness to rules, allowing some to be broken without incurring penalty. Given the example of Perry and Ford, I have never heard of a writer who voted them into the Hall advocating allow the spitball to be part of the game. If one argument is that cheaters should not be in the Hall, how can the next argument be that people who didn’t cheat that badly can still be considered. Logically this does not sense.

When Derek Jeter feigned being hit by a pitch, even to the point of allowing the trainer to inspect him for injuries, writers, fans, and even the manager on the opposing team thought it was a good baseball move. Willfully lying to the umpire, a lie that because of the nature of the play could not visually determine if the ball hit Jeter, is good? I wonder if this commercial played during that game. Jeter’s action did the exact opposite of what we teach about integrity. This was not attempting to deceive another player or team but the people you want to make the right call on the field. If this lack of integrity is a good baseball move, then how can you argue that integrity is needed for be eligible for an award or getting into the Hall of Fame. People will point to Jeter’s fake injury as a reason that he deserves to be in the Hall.

Writers’ claims of PED users as cheaters lacking integrity still have not given a reason why they won’t vote for a PED user. They have a different agenda when they ostracize PED users.

Let’s remember PED users took advantage of a tool that allowed them to train better. The increased training made them better athletes, allowing them to improve their baseball skills. They used something that baseball, their own union, and the players themselves did not feel strongly enough about to eliminate by testing the players.

PEDs are no magic pill; you have to work hard to get any advantage from them. A number of players who used PEDs achieved little of note in baseball. At the very least, players who used PEDs and are in consideration of seasonal or lifetime awards worked very hard to get there. The reason they are in consideration is because of the hard work. You may feel the PEDs increased their numbers* but ignoring those numbers is ludicrous.

* This is questioned by many sources. If the effects of PEDs were well known it would be easy to regress players’ numbers. Without solid evidence on the effects of PEDs one can’t unauthenticate the statistics except arbitrarily. But arbitrary denouncements are what we are trying to avoid.

The underlying issue seems almost personal. That underlying issue is so important that writers, seemingly, want to rewrite history.

So where do we look for an underlying issue.

Easy.

The Twilight Zone.

Based on a 1950 short story by Damon Knight, Rod Serling’s teleplay of To Serve Man described how Michael Chambers happened to be on a spaceship. Told in flashback form, the cryptographer talks about Kanamits’ visit to Earth. To Serve Man models a history of writers and PEDs.

The Kanamits, nine-foot aliens that communicate telepathically, visit the Earth uninvited. They use the United Nations to assure that they come with good intentions. To prove this the Kanamits help end world hunger, provide a cheap energy source, render nuclear weapons harmless, help cure diseases, and help to bring world peace.

The Kanamits* did leave a book at the U.N., but given the difference in languages, only the title had been determined, To Serve Man. Despite government and military insistence to decrypt the entire book to find out the true intention of the aliens, many people including Chambers assume that Kanamits have the best moral intentions and soon start signing up to visit the Kanamits’ home planet, touted as a paradise. People assumed that To Serve Man was a message about how they wished to serve mankind.

* Fun note: Richard Kiel played the Kanamit. Also Jaws in several James Bond films.

Only, when Chambers is boarding the spaceship to travel to the Kanamits’ home planet is it revealed that To Serve Man is a cookbook. By then, it is too late for Chambers, and he is soon forced to accept his fate of becoming an alien dinner.

Many quality points to learn from the story. I am going to focus on Chambers as today’s baseball writers who were writing during the PEDs era of baseball. Kanamits are home runs and fans are the masses of people either traveling unknowingly to become a Kanamitian dinner or left to face the future on Earth.

Michael Chambers had a simple, yet important job; using his cryptology skill to decipher To Serve Man. However, failing to question the actions of the Kanamits, he assumed their motives were good. They must be moral and humane, they want to serve mankind. Those who did question their motives were trivialized. Chambers went along for the ride. In the end his lack of critical thinking and questioning the motives affected not only him but all of mankind.

This is the situation with PEDs. We expected the writers to turn their critical eye to the game of baseball. The home runs were the Kanamits. We, as fans, expected the writers to let us know if something was wrong. If the reporters, in the clubhouse, were not questioning things, why should we? Writers treated the offensive explosion just as Chambers viewed his encrypted cookbook, with complacency.

{exp:list_maker}It is easy, in retrospect, to see the questions Chambers should have asked himself to motive himself to crack the book.
How can we put human values on aliens, including ones that communicate in a completely different way then we do?
The Kanamits went to great lengths to make sure that mankind was fed, healthy, and not killing each other. Why did we just assume that they had our best interest when they clearly went out of their way to visit us?
Why in the heck were they so concerned about the weight of people when they were loading the spaceship? Given the advanced language and technology they surely did not need this information for a technical reason.
{/exp:list_maker}

Clearly Chambers fell down on his job. When we comeback from the flashback we see the Kanamits encouraging him to eat, so we doesn’t lose weight, and Chambers slowly is resigned to his fate and eats.

Baseball writers, as the offense numbers started to rise, stopped critical thinking and went along for the ride. They lost the ability or desire to look for the reason behind the increase in offensive numbers. They were, quite simply, acting like Michael Chambers looking forward to a pleasant trip with the Kanamits to the benefit of themselves. They were not thinking that they were being misled when their job is, specifically, is not to be misled. The fans were falling in love with the home run and they went along with the ride.

It didn’t end until Jose Canseco starting running around saying, ‘To Serve Man’ is a cookbook.

The writers are now Chambers sitting on a spaceship left to think about their own inaction each time a vote comes around. Instead of accepting their fate, as Chambers does when he starts to eat, they are insisting on blaming others. They blame the home runs and the players who hit them.

The Kanamits didn’t do anything but benefit from Chambers, and others, basically assuming that the Kanamits wanted to server mankind. PED users got by only because the writers lacked common sense. The Kanamits provided things which we can compare to the statistics generated during the PED era. Eliminating them is an attempt to retroactively change history to an image we desire.

The reporters need to follow Chambers’ lead and resign themselves to a history they enabled. Not taking into account the relative value of the players in relation to the era they played in continues to harm the history of the game. This point is curiously ironic. Reporters will argue that Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame since we was the best pitcher in the ’80s. His numbers are lacking compared to pitchers who have been elected but he is worthy despite, well, being worthy.

If Jack Morris can be worthy despite his lack of credentials, how can other players with credentials be seen as unworthy because somebody cheated when they played*.

* Which should not be referred to as “The Jeff Bagwell” voter effect.

Most importantly, the writers will continue to discredit players like Barry Larkin by relegating their stories behind the controversy. That is just another shame they need to learn to deal with and correct.


16 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Derek Ambrosino
12 years ago

I’m something of a steroid apologist, but despite the entertaining Twilight Zone analogy, I think the logic of comparing the sptiball with HGH is flawed. I also have a few other problems with the arguments presented here.

One inconsistency steroid apologists often fall victim to is claiming that the PED issue isn’t as simple as the staunch “moralists” claim (I agree), but then making their own equally naive blanket statement that nuance and context, that statement being – “cheating is cheating.” The difference between PED usage and doctoring the ball or feigning a HBP is that the latter examples take place on the field – “hidden in plain sight” as some say. It is incumbent on the umpires to be on the look out for this kind of behavior – it’s a challenge to the umpires to do their job. If the umpires don’t notice and get duped, that’s their problem. …Arguing that Perry shouldn’t be in the HOF because he cheated would be like arguing that Patrick Ewing shouldn’t be in the basketball HOF because – despite the fact that the refs never called it – his signature drop-step move that enabled him to score literally thousands of points was, by the definitions in the rule book – traveling, and therefore Ewing cheated throughout his entire career.

The defining aspect of PED cheating is that it takes place behind the scenes and therefore those in charge of maintaining the spirit of fair play are powerless to observe, and therefore curtail it.

In regard to the idea that PED use is commendable because, after all, the players are simply taking the extra step to become better performers is problematic as well. See, I’d buy this argument if/when it becomes established that (some) PEDs pose no additional health risks as compared to training “naturally.” If PED use is a considerable risk to player health, then their use basically mandates those who want to be pro ballplayers choose between their health and their career. That is not a choice a civilized society can force people to make. Surely, there are careers that are dangerous by nature, but to contrive additional health risk to a job simply to enable greater performance is just an undue requirement. And, make no mistake, if PED use becomes a player’s individual choice then it will become a de facto requirement. …This dynamic is the reason bodybuilding separates those who choose to go natural and those who choose to go chemical, because they know that if you make it “personal choice” and force everybody to compete on the same playing field, there would be no “natural division.”

Finally, I’m not sure how to define or measure the appropriate onus of skepticism a writer should have displayed/held during the meteoric rise of offense. I’m not sure we can retroactively define what appropriate writer behavior should have been at the time.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

Derek, how about if PEDS appear to have no beneficial effect to the user?  Except perhaps as a placebo effect?

Eric Walker, of The Sinister Firstbaseman and A’s operational handbook, persuasively reports on the offensively era being more that of juiced balls than juiced humans:  http://highboskage.com/juiced-ball.shtml

He also researched steroids and PEDs and concluded that they don’t help any players:  http://steroids-and-baseball.com/

In any case, cheating is cheating, even if it is done on the field, whether spitball, corked bat, or what have you.  So Perry gets a pass because he was so good at hiding it that no umpire could figure it out?  Cheating is embedded in the nature of baseball since the very beginnings, from Ty Cobb’s sharpened spikes raised to maim on slides, to spitballs, to corked bats, to emory boards, to amphetamines, to steroids.  I would argue that amphetamines had probably a greater effect on records than steroids have. 

I think effect should have a greater standing on how to view the offenses, particularly since the spitball is very effective when used against hitters, whereas one can argue (as Walker ably does), that the main PEDS that people get outraged over did not help the players at all and that there is no evidence of steroids fueled offensive improvement, based on overall scoring stats.

Just because they used the snake oil doesn’t mean that they should be punished for it, particularly if there is some strong evidence that the snake oil didn’t help anyone in particular.

Mat Kovach
12 years ago

Some many good comments. I love THT readers.

DA: What Jeter did by feigning his HBP is something that would make me question his HOF status. Stealing signs, the hidden ball trick, etc. (acts where a player or team deceives his opponent) are part of the game. On field actions that deceive the umpire show a clear lack of respect for the game.

But you do raise a fair point about cheating. I consider cheating breaking an established rule. Simplistic but easy for me to be consistent.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

Mat, I too enjoyed the Twilight Zone analogy.  I agree that the media is acting like the angry parents, mad that they were hookwinked, but perhaps madder at themselves for allowing that to happen, by turning a blind eye, so post-violation, they bring out the 40 lashes to use on the alleged perpetrators as penance for their own shortcomings, to show how pious they really are, deepdown, that they didn’t do that bad a job as the media police (when they were asleep on the job;  really, nobody followed up on McGwire after the locker incident?  Whereas, same period, someone followed Gary Hart to his love boat).

(OT: do you or anyone else remember a show along the lines of aliens creating life on Earth, coming back and noting Earthling’s “small propensity for violence”, mark the Earth for destruction.  The world rallies to find World Peace so that they don’t get destroyed, only to find out that the aliens were hoping for warriors, disdaining the relatively peaceful earthlings, destroying the world.  I’ve checked Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and other similar sci-fi anthology shows but could never find an episode like that.)

Nice job!

Derek Ambrosino
12 years ago

OGC,

I, too, think the effects of so-called PEDs are overstated.

I honestly don’t know enough about the health benefits or detriments of the most commonly used PEDs to confidently state an opinion on the matter beyond articulating the standards I would use to reach said opinion when/if I get that info. That disclaimer state, any “performance enhancing” substance for which the preponderance of scientific evidence establishes long term safety should be taken off the banned list, IMO. The technological advancements of yesteryear seemed simpler but also had profound effects on the game itself – better gloves, improved transportation, advanced tools for player analysis, etc. The “chemical” revolution is really just a the modern phase of the spirit of innovation that has been omnipresent throughout the evolution of the sport and society itself. So, I’m not really against any of it provided engaging in such activity doesn’t result in undue risk to the players.

On the cheating is cheating thing, I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye there. First, I do think the forms of “cheating” in question are distinct in nature. Second, I think effect or outcome is one of the worst standards one could choose in an attempt to objectively assess the severity of “cheating.” What matters is not the outcome, but the intent to deceive. …By the standard of outcome, any spitter hit for a home run is ostensibly less of an act of cheating than one hit for a GDP. The deeper the intent to deceive (the more hidden and less “human” the attempt, the more heinous). That’s why sign stealing is considered part of the game when done by an opponent on the field but totally out of bounds when using external parties and technology. …But, as I said before heinousness isn’t the degree with which I am most concerned, or what makes “PED cheating” distinct from the spitter – the crux is whether the nature of the cheating allows the powers charged with maintaining a fair playing field a chance to stop it.

tc
12 years ago

Following a recent article in THBT of possible HOF choices the PED issue was discussed extensively. Those that were against admitted or even suspected PED users gaining entrance to the HOF roughly fell along the line of cheaters should be excluded because they had an unfair advantage over the other players of their era. It was and is my view that baseball had long tolerated performance enhancing drugs, that “greenies” had long been an open part of virtually every clubhouse in baseball and that when steroids came along nary an eyebrow was raised by anyone in authority. There is no logical way you can blame players for something that was essentially accepted from the league office on down. But barring that bit of logic there is, I think, a simpler point. A Commissioner of baseball banned both Joe Jackson and Pete Rose and therefore it is a simple affair for HOF voters to not vote them into the HOF. But there has been no similar banning from baseball of any player for PED use prior to the policy that finally banned steroid use. HOF voters do not have the authority or the right to ban a player from anything and should be judging players on the legal record. Only. Otherwise it turns into a witch hunt. Too many great players could be tossed out of the HOF for their use of amphetamines. You want Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle tossed out? What happened happened and the results become part of baseball history. Everything else is teeth gnashing and hair pulling signifying nothing. In other words, it’s time to move on.
And to Obsessive, I have always maintained that MLB juiced the ball after the infamous strike to get the fans back, just like after the Black Sox scandal. Whatever caused the surge in home runs though, the PED issue remains the same. If we are going to have HOF voters making moral judgements on their own we are in trouble. If we asked a jury of men today to decide if Ty Cobb was morally worthy of the HOF who could vote for him? Any HOF voter who does not vote strictly on the merits of a player should lose his right to vote.

John C. Fain
12 years ago

Just nit-picking but the title of Damon Knight’s short story is “To Serve Man.”  The title of the book in question is “How to Serve Man” which should have been more suggestive.

doug ross
12 years ago

It bothers me that all the players that took amphetamines are treated as not using anything. Amphetamines make a hitter react quicker, and when he use of amphetamines goes all the way back to the late 60s yet none of this means anything to the writers, not to mention corked bats,spitballs, and pitching in front of the rubber. Peds make a player stronger which makes him perform better, but amphetamines made AAA players major leaguers and .260 hitters .290 hitters. I feel that amphetamines had a greater impact than PEDs, and at least half the HOFers since 1966 were on them.

Derek Ambrosino
12 years ago

Mat,

I don’t mean to pull a sports switcharoo here, but would you apply the same standard to basketball, or soccer? What Derek Jeter did can best be described, in sports terms, as “flopping.” It’s annoying as all hell, but if he held it against players across sports that would really change the complexion of the HOFs. …And where do we draw the deceiving umpires line? What about catchers framing pitches? Runningbacks fake “spotting” the ball two yards ahead after being tackled.

I actually think something like what Jeter did is yet another category of behavior – distinct both from the PED cheating category and the spitball, The PED category basically includes high-tech cheating outside the field of play (I guess Spy Gate would probably fit here). The spitter cheating basically the classic, wrestling foreign-object-in-the-tights type cheating. The breaking of a rule being attempted behind the ref’s/ump’s back.

Then you have flopping and the like. And, to be honest, I’m not really sure I’d consider this “cheating.” I’d go with something like a euphemism fit to make George Carlin spin in his grave – unsportsmanlike gamesmanship.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

Derek, yes, we’ll agree to disagree.

Per your heinousness of hiding the crime, then pretty much all the records after WW II is tainted because amphetamine use was rampant in baseball, due to the Army routinely supplying it to their soldiers.  I would be greatly surprised if Ted Williams didn’t use, he served in both WW II and Korean War.  And a player has said that Willie Mays was passing out some red stuff that was speed as well. 

I believe that net effect should be a factor in how the crime is treated.  Per the research that Eric Walker did, the use of steroids provides no benefit to the user. 

To me, that is the net effect of someone walking on the grass when the sign clearly says “Don’t walk on the grass”.  Whether that person did it while a cop was watching or if no one is watching, makes no difference to me.

Sure, they were hiding it because it is illegal substance.  And they were cheating in order to improve themselves.  But if the existing actual evidence is that steroids provide no benefit to the user, I feel sorry for the individual, taking a risk that provided no benefit to them, but I wouldn’t throw the book at them either.

Mat Kovach
12 years ago

Derek,

You are right flopping is in the same area as what Jeter did. While not against the rules—and therefore not cheating, ok I assuming flopping is not against the rules, it deceiving (or attempting to) the umpires.

So for floppers, etc. I would consider their continued usage of such techniques as a con when addressing their HOF or award worthiness.

Will it be enough to keep them out? Don’t know. But I would consider it fair to use the Hall of Fame of the respective sport to determine if that type of behavior has a history in the Hall (or for awards in general).

This is an another area when the writers are missing the point. Along with statistical standards there is a standard of behavior that is currently in the HOF. Much of that can be attributed, to some degree, to the era that a player played in.

There were players, Tris Speaker, of example that were friendly towards and in the KKK. They are in the HOF despite that. It *is* reasonable to assume that their participation in the group, a group that may of been very different in that era, was a sign of the time.

Unless some writers are willing to start discussion which players, because of some social ill behavior, should be removed from the Hall; their instance for keeping people out because suspicion of bad behavior is false.

obsessivegiantscompulsive:

I agree with you. Walking on the grass despite the sign is wrong. If your are caught or now. Cheating is cheating.

Where I see the falsehood is saying we are going to keep people out NOW for cheating when previous cheaters were okay. Look at the Hall. Cheaters, if they were great players, are in their.

Since we can establish that great players that cheated are in the HOF. The problems is not in them cheating. The problem lies with the writers make decisions.

And yes, there is plenty of evidence that demonstrate the steroid usage had little effect. That simply disputes the writers claims of in-authenticate numbers.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

Mat, I’m totally with you regarding the HOF, if they let in other cheaters then why be exclusionary now? 

Or if they agree that they all should be excluded, kick out the ones who no longer fits the standards (but I know there is no way in a million years that would ever happen, too much of an uproar; and personally, it is like the whole “Is Pluto a planet?” controversy, I think it would have been better to keep it as a planet but then introduce other planets).

I see Derek’s point about intent, but I disagree.  Flopping is an act of cheating in my eyes, I don’t care if that’s in the rules or not, they are trying to deceive the umpire.  One could say the same about catcher’s framing the pitch with their glove positioning.  Or a batter feigning like he’s been hit by a pitch when he wasn’t.  Or even fielder’s faux-touching of 2B in a DP pivot.

Cheating is cheating, I don’t care if you do it in front of everyone or if they do it in the shadows. 

And I don’t see the difference between cheating on the field in front of everyone vs. cheating in the clubhouse.  Corking a bat, even on the field, is still cheating.

And technically, corking a bat involves doing that in the shadows of the clubhouse, away from the field, they just use it on the field.  Who knows how many batters successfully use cork bats vs. the ones exposed by a broken bat? 

Cheating is the part of the game, of all sports really.  We probably don’t even know the level of cheating that has gone on behind the scenes throughout history, we’ve probably only seen the tip of the iceberg.  To stand in judgement of these players, particularly given that the vast majority of the writers gave all the players a pass when they had a chance to nail them in the 90’s, seems the height of hypocrisy.

Really, not one reporter thought of investigating McGwire when he was found with the creatine in his locker?  Especially after Gary Hart was caught cheating on his wive in that time frame?  The writers are in the same glass house the players are in, retro-anger is not really a productive behavior.

And a lot of them claim to know how good ballplayers are.  Prove it.  Most admit that Bonds would have made the HOF without usage, are they that incapable of nuance thinking and analysis? 

Or is it simply, “you use, you lose?”  That’s more the jilted lover type of behavior, not the supposedly objective viewpoint that journalists are suppose to bring to their job.

doug ross
12 years ago

Great point OBGC, the writers have missed the boat on this issue. It is time to get it right and let the best players of this time in the H
OF. The players that were singled out were just the tip of the iceberg, and if you add amphetamines it could be 98% of players as users.

Derek Ambrosino
12 years ago

Hank Aaron also admits to experimenting with amphetamines in his bio, “I Had a Hammer” though he claims he stopped using them shortly after trying them because he didn’t think they were having any effect. …Which offers its own question of nuanced morality, because he didn’t say he stopped because he had a moral awakening and was opposed to cheating. He simply said he stopped because he didn’t see them as effective. In many ways that the apotheosis of the test case for one of the dichotomies being discussed here. Assume they didn’t work. Do we hold this against Aaron? Yes, because he intended to cheat/deceive. No, because it had no effect.

The other point not being raised about the amphetamine-using HOFers is the other half of the PED self-righteousness argument, which is that PED use created an imbalanced playing field. If there were bowls of greenies in every clubhouse, those using them weren’t gaining a competitive advantage over their opponents because they were freely available to all and everybody has full knowledge of the situation and their use. …I’m not saying this is the definitive point in the question of past amphetamine use. In fact, as I said, while we have some philosophical differences, I think if we were both voters we’d probably behave in the same way. But, if you’re attacking the current voters’ logic, this is one of the pillars of their view, and it must be addressed as well in a refutation thereof.

…Frankly, if PED use was as widespread as some claim it was, then the unfair advantage argument loses a lot of steam too, as they just become greenies 2.0 in that sense as well.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

Derek, enjoying our discussion.  I agree that we probably would vote similarly.

Did not know about Hammering Hank.  He did try to cheat, and didn’t stop for moral reasons but efficacy, good to know that. 

Again, I think effect has to be accounted for (and I know we agreed to disagree :^).  This is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Morally Correct Individuals.  If the cheating had no effect, or very minimal effect, I don’t see how that should affect a player’s stature in the game. 

The fallacy of the everyone has access line of thinking is that we do know that not everyone can recover as well as anyone else or has as much stamina.  Maybe a superstar really loses it greatly in the latter parts of the season and he’s ordinary, whereas this other guy is good plus able for any reason to keep that going into late in the season.  The greenies would help the superstar maintain his advantage over the good player, whereas perhaps if both were not using, the good player would be better than the superstar by the end of the season.

Hypothetical, but I recall seeing on a Stan Lee series on Superhumans, there is this guy whose body, I can’t recall exactly, but that substance that accumulates in the body while exercising that causes cramps for everyone and forces you to stop, well, his body processes it with no problem, so he can jog all day and all night without any problem.  If he were a baseball player, he would have an advantage over other players over a full season (assuming everything else equal), but greenies would even the field, he would not benefit from the widespread usage of greenies.

Also, even if steroids were effective at what has been claimed, I think it still falls fall under greenies as an illegal substance because all you need to get an advantage with greenies is to take them, whereas steroids still requires you to work hard in the gym in order to take advantage of the benefit.  It is no free walk, you still need to work extremely hard to get your advantage, what it reputedly can do is help you go beyond your normal limits. 

Still, I should note again that reading Eric Walker’s treatise on steroids plus his research on the 1993-2008 era of juiced balls (his conclusion looking at the pattern of offensive improvement: it was not a gradual jump which one would assume would occur as usage goes up the S-curve of usage, it essentially happened over a two season period, suggesting that the ball was juiced) makes me think that PEDs usage, especially steroids, is much ado about nothing.

Sure, morally wrong, no doubt about that, but assuming this research is correct, I feel sorry for the players risking their bodies for a non-existent advantage, but they are human, and again, HOF, not Hall of Morals.  I still think the greenies have had the greater effect on baseball records during the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, heck to now, than steroids have ever had.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
12 years ago

I should probably note that I’m all for Pete Rose in the HOF, he was a HOFer, I knew it by seeing him play, and if they want to give him a plaque with a huge asterisk about why ballplayers should not gamble on games, whatever, it is not really a HOF to me until he’s in.  Maybe they are waiting for him to die first, as punishment, but that’s the way I see it.

And while it’s nice that Ron Santo finally got in, it just angers me that they waited until he passed to do it.  If you are that close to doing it, just do it while he’s around to enjoy the immensity of the moment.