THE BIG MAC ATTACK AND PED’s (Jan 13)

January 13, 2010   ·   philliesmania   ·   Jump to comments

 

So Mark McGwire took steroids and HGH? Did he really? Why admit it now? It’s not like anyone was suspicious. 

 

Okay so you got your I’m sorry do you feel better now? The fact is most people don’t really care, we get it. Modern drugs has always been a part of the sign of change. It is the media that needs the juice to feed their ratings. And yes there are some among us that can’t just except that every era is different and somewhat unique. The purists who think life during the Roger Maris era was like Ozzie and Harriet. No one cheated then of course, wink, wink.

 

Think about it what if today’s media was around in 1919 when Babe Ruth led major league baseball with 29 HR’s? Especially when you consider 10 was the next highest! And in 1920 he hit 54 HR’s! Oh and the next highest HR total? 19!

 

So Ruth goes from 11 HR’s in 1918 to 29 in 1919 and then 54 in 1920. Yes he skipped over 30 and 40. Now some of this can be explained by his at bats. But when you compare it to the rest of the league it is very odd.

• 1918 – Ruth tied for league lead with11 HR’s

• 1919 – Ruth led league in HR’s with 29 – 2nd place had 10 HR’s

• 1920 – Ruth led league with 54 HR’s – 2nd place had 19 HR’s

• 1921 – Ruth led the league with 59 HR’s – 2nd place had 24 HR’s

• 1927 – Ruth led the league with 60 HR’s – 2nd place was 47 HR’s, 3rd place was 18 HR’s

 

From 1918 to 1919 he went from 317 at bats to 432 so naturally there was room for improvement. However in 1920 he only had 458 at bats.

• 1918 – 317 AB’sdivided by 11 is 1 HR per every 28.8 at bats

• 1919 – 432 AB’s divided by 29 is 1 HR every 14.9 at bats

• 1920 – 458 AB’s divided by 54 is 1 HR in every 8.5 at bats  (He did play in 12 more games also. 142 games total.)

• 1921 – 540 AB’s divided by 59 is 1 HR in every 9.15 at bats 9 (He played in 152 games)

• Career – 8,399 AB’s divided by 714 is 1 HR for every 11.76 at bat – Hot Dogs or Steroids?

 

During this same time Tilly Walker had a HR chart like this.

• 1918 – 11 – tied with Ruth for league lead

• 1919 – 10

• 1920 – 17 – 149 games

• 1921 – 23 – 142 games

• 1922 – 37 – 153 games

• 1923 – 2 – and he was out of baseball

 

Did anyone questions these baseball anomalies? The Ruth numbers are staggering in other ways. There are seasons where Ruth hit more HR’s than entire teams did!

So did Ruth cheat? Did he do PED’s? Oh yes steroids have been around way longer than you realize. But I doubt he did anything out of the ordinary. That is not the point. But wait there is more.

 

What if today’s media followed Roger Maris?

• 1958 – 19 HR’s

• 1959 – 16 Hr’s

• 1960 – 39 HR’s

• 1961 – 61 HR’s

• 1962 – 33 HR’s

• 1963 – 23 HR’s – (injury plagued year)

• 1964 – 26 HR’s

• 1965 – 1968 – he hit 35 HR’s total and retired

 

Didn’t anyone wonder where this skinny man was getting this sudden Herculean power? And why was his career so short? He only played from 1957 to 1968. Ironically he got treated harshly for besting the Babe and now he is getting pity because cheaters have his record. And yet no one finds it strange that his HR numbers are funny looking.

 

What is lost in all of this is other things that changed along the way. Take Maris for instance. Most of his 275 career homers came as a Yankee. Maris batted left handed and Yankee stadium had a notorious left field porch that was easy for dead pull hitters to reach. He also hit around a guy named Mickey Mantle.

 

And then you have things like ball changes and equipment changes. Dimensions of ball parks that have changed. This hasn’t stopped. The fact is that baseball history is full of unexplainable and logical changes. Why all of the sudden can it only be the drugs that boosted power numbers?

 

As a result when we hear McGwire or Bonds tells us that PED’s didn’t help them hit Home Runs we automatically dismiss their cheating lies. We point to modern day anomalies as proof that it had to help. We assume how couldn’t help? And of course McGwire and the others are a bit incredulous.

 

And if by help you mean that if PED’s help recovery and stamina then that allows you to have morea at bats thus hit more HR’s, I would agree with that. But you can also assume that if guys didn’t get cortisone shots or pain killers to play those numbers wouldn’t be there either. Although those things are not banned.

 

And let me state clearly banned PED’s is cheating. At least in the sense that it is against the rules. But the numbers?

 

I am not willing to take the leap of the so called obvious. It totally disregards other variables like new balls, new parks, and new bats. It doesn’t factor in the pitchers taking HGH and steroids either. Does anyone not think Mike Schmidt or Reggie Jackson wouldn’t hit more HR’s in today’s parks? They do, in fact they have said it many times.

 

The fact is also we have clean players that also have put up some eye popping numbers during the same era and into the present. Not too mention that even with the overall baseball numbers leveling off you still have guys like Pujols and Howard hitting 40+ like it’s 25. Ryan Howard has hit 58 in a season. Ryan Howard has never hit less than 45 HR’s in seasons where he played all year! You even have scrawny guys like Utley hitting in the 30′s.

 

The fact is I believe baseball likely changed the balls in recent years to cut down some of the numbers because suspicion was getting ridiculous. You also have some new parks trying to expand a little. Take Citi Bank(NY Mets) or Petco(San Diego). But you still have your bandboxes like Citizen’s Bank Park and new Yankee stadium. And the numbers support that.

 

So somebody tell me than how many HR’s does a steroid or HGH cycle get you? 30 a year? 10 a year? The fact is no one knowsif it helps at all or if it makes all the difference in the world. Or somewhere in between. To me it is somewhat negligible. When you factor in all of the stat anomalies through baseball history, a couple of which I provided, and the evolution of balls, bats, and parks it is impossible to point to one thing and say that was the difference.

 

And to re-emphasize the big picture, what about the pitchers and others who were doing the same thing? In fact what about the hundreds of players who did it and there numbers didn’t change at all or there power numbers went down? You are a fool if you don’t know they exist. Remember the infamous list? Yeah we only heard of a couple names out of the hundred or so listed. Yeah there are legal battles over it but somehow Alex Rodriguez got outed didn’t he? Because no one cares if David Bell or Paul Bako was on steroids.

 

Now don’t read this and think I am saying that PED’s don’t help you at all. What I am saying is I am disgusted with the broad sweeping conclusions that are thrown out there based on logic alone. It is true that if PED’s simply are a recovery enhancer and make you sustain longevity or helps you play more, than that is a boost that the others not using them are not getting. But to say that it makes a ball go farther is a little presumptuous. It seems obvious and yet again what about the hundreds of people who have done it and aren’t hitting more HR’s? In an empirical manner they have to be included in our analysis.

 

And was Mark McGwire the first to hit moon shots? Not even close to the truth. I saw Mantle shots that would make a grown man cry. And if a scrawny skinny bumpkin like Maris can hit 61 is it so hard to believe that someone 37 years later could hit 9 more HR’s with the help of high tech balls and shorter fences? In some cases are the balls going farther or are the fences closer? Be honest.

 

And at the end of the day is it so hard to separate the eras? I mean Tiger Woods has many items that Jack Nicklaus didn’t. Michelle Wie can out-drive the pros of earlier eras for crying out loud. Is she on ‘roids? No it’s called modern equipment. And don’t for a minute think that baseball equipment hasn’t changed any.

 

At the end of the day I don’t compare Bonds or McGwire to Ruth. And I don’t compare Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle to Ruth either. As I don’t compare Ted Williams and DiMaggio to Tony Gwynn or Albet Pujols. Willie Mays will always be Willie Mays to me as A-Rod will always be A-Rod. Ken Griffey and Ryan Howard are what they areand so on. Stats should be examined by era.

 

Why is any of this so hard to understand? It isn’t. However, the bulk of the media doesn’t want to let go of the juicy story. That doesn’t mean they are evil, that just means they are interested in business. And we should talk about it. I do fault the media for being lazy though. Why isn’t anyway raising the other points? Why is it simply about a handful of players during an era when hundreds of them are guilty? Including pitchers.

 

I just covered the surface in this article. There are many more examples we could discuss. And there are many other facets of this that need to be viewed. But this will do for now………………….