Steroids in Baseball

One out, top of the 7th inning, runners on 1st and 3rd, and you are protecting a 6-4 lead with the lead-off hitter batting. How would you approach the at-bat as the reliever?

Much of this approach depends on the rest of the line-up and how confident you feel in the next two innings. If your bullpen is a good one, I would try to pitch to a ground ball to see if I could get a double play. However, with the leadoff hitter batting, a double play is far from assured. I still wouldn’t change that approach with a good bullpen because even if you can’t get a double play, you now have a 6-5 lead with two outs and a runner at 1st. On the flipside of that coin, if you don’t have confidence in the rest of your bullpen, you have to try to not allow another run. Therefore, you pitch to fly balls. There aren’t many leadoff men with an overabundance of power so pitching to fly balls has a lower risk of turning into a disaster.

Having said that, the best strategy is to pitch to a fly ball or strike out, so hard stuff up in the zone. Strike outs and fly balls are the surest way to get an out without allowing another run to score.


Espn.com recently released a list of notable baseball players that are either currently playing or have recently retired that have been linked to steroids by testimony, published books, the Mitchell Report, or drug tests (for the full article, click here). The list reads like a who’s-who of recent baseball at every position and I’m here to say this; enough already.

These are the players highlighted in that article: Barry Bonds, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Lenny Dykstra, Chuck Finley, Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Juan Gonzalez, Wally Joyner, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Mark McGwire, Magglio Ordonez, David Ortiz, Rafael Palmeiro, Any Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, Brian Roberts, Alex Rodriguez, Ivan Rodriguez, Benito Santiago, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn, and Matt Williams.

Those players were revealed to be steroid users or were implicated as steroid users by a number of different media; some were named in Jose Canseco’s autobiography, some in the Mitchell Report, some in testimony before a grand jury, and some tested positive. A number of them were also involved in the voluntary survey in 2003 to see how many major league players were using performance enhancing drugs, the results of which were supposed to be anonymous.

This is obviously a very problematic situation. Not only do those 25 position players represent over 9,000 home runs and those 5 pitchers over 1,000 wins, but also 20 MVP awards, 8 Cy Young awards, 178 all-star game appearances, and perhaps the most disturbing number of all, a total of 23 World Series rings.

Also included on that list are 7 players with 500 career home runs and another 3 with 400 or more, a 300-win pitcher and three others with 200 or more, and the players who hold the top 6 home runs seasons of all time.

The first casualty of the “steroid era” as it is widely called, was innocence. It was put on life support in the summer of 1998, when Mark McGwire was repeatedly asked, not about Roger Maris’ home run record for a single season, but about androstene dione. He answered the questions very diplomatically, saying it was a workout supplement and also pointing out time and time again that it was not illegal in Major League Baseball.

Now, the list of players that were among the best of their generation and some of whom were among the best ever who will not be enshrined at Cooperstown is getting longer and longer. But that’s not the real problem. The fact that we don’t believe players when they say they’ve always been clean isn’t the problem.

The problem is that Americans fell in love with the home run and they fell hard. Commissioner Bud Selig has turned Major League Baseball into an organization whose revenue streams rival those of the NFL, arguably one of their biggest rivals for fans and dollars. He let the steroid issue go for many years because home run totals were starting to spiral up and up and it was bringing people back to the ballpark after a work stoppage (1994) that could have crippled the sport for decades. When public sentiment turned against performing enhancing drugs (and with congressional hearing looming), he helped institute baseball’s first drug testing policy.
America’s obsession with the home run runs so deep that I do not blame any of the thirty names on the aforementioned list for using steroids. In the case of some of them, I do blame them for lying about it and I hate hearing the excuses they’ve come up with for why they did. To the ones who say they never “knowingly” took steroids, if you don’t know what is in a supplement, you’re either stupid, or you don’t want to know for exactly this reason and either way, you shouldn’t get off the hook easily.

Another issue I’d like to address is the survey in 2003 in which over 100 players tested positive for performing enhancing drugs. The fact that the media and the fans are vilifying these players whose names become public is nothing short of despicable. The test was voluntary and people gave samples on the condition of anonymity. It was a bold gesture by the player’s union and the owners to say that if a problem was not present, drug testing isn’t needed at this point, but if a certain percentage of players are using, drug testing should be instituted.

In the court of public opinion, these players were forced to give evidence against themselves because the list fell into the wrong hands, something that if it happened in a real courtroom, would be banned by the 5th amendment to the constitution. The problem is the media and the fans don’t care about that because in their professions, they are protected by the actual 5th amendment and wouldn’t be required to take a drug test without proper cause. In that court of public opinion, these players were given a fifteen minute trial and then the maximum sentence was handed out. From now on, Barry Bonds, arguably one of the greatest all-around players to play the game, will forever be associated with the word “cheater”. Roger Clemens retired with 354 wins, 4,672 strike outs and 7 Cy Young awards, which ranked 8th, 2nd, and 1st all-time at the time (since, Greg Maddux has passed him in wins and Randy Johnson in strikeouts). Nobody cares anymore. He was juicing.

I’ll sum this up with one of the most difficult questions of this entire era of Major League Baseball; is it cheating if there is no rule against it? Morally there is the higher standard that we all like to think people strive for and try to adhere to, but in the real world, is that the case? My answer is no.

Here’s one more little tidbit before I sign off. The spitball has been banned for a very long time in baseball because it actually is in the rule book. You’re not allowed to put foreign substances (including spit) on the baseball. If you go back far enough, a batter was actually killed by a spitball. Gaylord Perry was one of the biggest offenders of that rule and everyone knew about it. Sometimes the opposing manager would say something and sometimes, he would get thrown out of the game. But Perry stayed in enough games and pitched well enough to win 314 games over his career. What’s the point of this? Gaylord Perry was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1991.


Two outs, bottom of the 8th inning, bases loaded, facing the #8 hitter in the opposing lineup and you are nursing a 7-5 lead.