This decade started with the New York Yankees hoisting the World Series Trophy and ended the same way. In between, 7 different teams won the World Series, showing a display of parity which other sports claim to have. While the teams that make the playoffs have looked similar throughout the decade, those playing for the sport’s highest championship have varied greatly. In all, 14 different teams, nearly half the league’s teams have played for the World Series Title.
This decade has seen a team tie the record for most wins in a season (116 by the 2001 Mariners) and it’s also seen a team nearly tie the record for losses in a season (119 by the 2003 Tigers). It has seen the single season home run record fall (73 by Barry Bonds in 2001) as well as the all-time home run record (762, also by Barry Bonds). This decade saw 4 players win their 300th game (Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson) as well as 7 players who have hit their 500th career home run in this decade (Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, and Gary Sheffield).
Since that last list involves goading the elephant over there in the corner of the room, I’m just going to get this over with and discuss the single overriding thing that I’ll take away from this decade, for better or worse.
STEROIDS
Steroids. I hate talking about it and perpetuating the story but you can’t discuss this decade of Major League Baseball without talking about it. The problem is that baseball, until recently, hasn’t had much of a substance abuse policy. Amphetamines ran rampant back in the 80’s and a number of the games brightest stars were known cocaine users. Tim Raines, one of the best base-stealers in the game’s history, was once quoted as saying the reason that he always dove into bases head first was so he wouldn’t break the vials of cocaine that he had in his back pocket.
First, I must digress. Baseball is not necessarily a sport where being the strongest player also means you’re the best player. It is also the only sport where practices, between the months of April and October, are virtually non-existent. All you do is play games. In the NFL, you can afford to feel terribly on Tuesday and Wednesday if you’re fully recovered by the time Sunday rolls around. In baseball, the odds are very good that you have games on Sunday, as well as Tuesday and Wednesday. Players want to play at 100% so that they can put up better numbers and either A) help their team win, B) pad their individual stats, or C) both. It is a fact that steroids quicken your body’s ability to repair itself, so they would be ideal for a sport that can be so detrimental to particular body parts (like a pitcher’s arm).
My problem with the steroid era is that it went from “acceptable”, in the sense that people knew it was going on and allowed it to keep going, to completely taboo. There is a lot of potential truth to the sentiment that the head honchos of baseball allowed things like this to go on to attempt to repair baseball after the 1994 strike.
There are many reasons why home run totals have gradually gone up and up to the point where they are now and honestly, only one of those reasons is steroids. For instance, when baseball was played in the Polo Grounds in New York, while the distances down the right and left field lines were ridiculously short, it was over 500 feet to straight away center field. Conditioning programs are better, the players are stronger, and the pitchers throw harder (making it much easier to hit the ball 400 feet, all else being equal). Lastly, assuming 14 players and 11 pitchers on every roster, when Babe Ruth set the single season home run records in 1927 there were only 16 teams in the league, meaning Ruth could have faced as many as 77 different pitchers in that season. Over the course of his career, Babe Ruth hit home runs against 216 different pitchers. To contrast, Barry Bonds could have conceivably faced as many as 320 pitchers during his 2001 season in which he hit 73 home runs and over the course of his career, he hit home runs against 449 different pitchers. The obvious question is what does that mean? If we were to assume that there are, say 200 good or great pitchers in the world, then in 1927, every pitcher Ruth faced would have fit into that category. On the flip side, if we make that same assumption, in 2001 there were 200 good or great pitchers and due to expansion, there were 120 other that might have been average or worse.
This is a very crude model but it has definitely contributed to the increase in home runs. Has steroids had an effect on baseball? Absolutely. I can’t speak for the pitchers that have faced Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds or who have had to face Roger Clemens, but I’d much rather face those guys when they’re a touch off or are nursing a tweaked muscle rather than when they’re at 100%.
Lastly, on this note. Do I believe that the sole purpose of taking steroids as a baseball player is to increase strength? No. Do I think that all those who took steroids welcomed the added strength in addition to the added resiliency? Absolutely.
2003 VOLUNTARY DRUG TESTS
So, I lied about the “lastly” note. One more issue I would like to address is the list of 104 players that was obtained and is leaking name by name over the course of the last 6 years. All I will say is this is nothing short of ridiculous. The players that took part in that survey did so on the condition of anonymity and personally, I’ve done my best to not hold it against anybody whose name appeared on that list because that information should never have been made public.
I also think it’s somewhat despicable that whoever has the list is leaking one name at a time when it would be the most embarrassing for players in baseball. If there’s one thing I want to forget about the most from this past decade, it’s the handling of that list.
Ok, enough about steroids…
NEW YORK YANKEES
When I sat down and tabulated my top memories from this decade, I found that many of them concerned Major League Baseball’s standard bearing franchise so I decided to dedicate an entire section to them.
First of all, the last decade ended with the Yankees winning three of the last four World Series titles (in 1996, 1998, and 1999) and then they won another one in 2000 against the New York Mets. In October of 2001, on the heels of the devastating World Trade Center attacks, the Yankees made it to the World Series again against the Arizona Diamondbacks and they were carrying the hearts and minds of New Yorkers after September 11th.
In their 5 World Series appearance between 1996 and 2001, the only time that they faced a stiffer test would have been their first one when they were facing the defending champion Atlanta Braves with the three-headed monster at the top of their rotation with Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz. In 2001, they faced a Diamondbacks team littered with veterans and again, a dynamite combination at the top of their rotation with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.
In the first two games in Arizona, Johnson and Schilling held serve and won both games. After stealing Game 3 at home, the Yankees then won Game 4 and 5 on the strength of walkoff home runs by Derek Jeter and then Scott Brosius. After that, it appeared that they were headed for their 5th championship in six years. Randy Johnson pitched the Diamondbacks to a 15-2 win in game six which evened the series at 3 games apiece. Then in Game 7, Curt Schilling was pulled in the 8th inning after allowing a second run that allowed the Yankees to take a 2-1 lead. After Miguel Batista got one out, Randy Johnson came into the game in relief and got all four batters out.
In the bottom of the 9th, the unthinkable happened. Against Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in baseball history, Mark Grace led off with a single. Then the wheels really came off. Damian Miller bunted the ball back to Rivera and in an attempt to get pinch runner David Delucci, Rivera threw the ball away, allowing both runners to advance safely. Jay Bell then bunted again and again it was Rivera that fielded the ball. Unlike the first time, he made the play and got the lead runner at third base.
The killing blow really came on the next batter, although it wasn’t the winning play. Tony Womack got a cutter up and in and laced the ball down the right field line, scoring one run and putting runners on second and third with only one out. After hitting Craig Counsell, Luis Gonzalez made a very ill-conceived swing at another cutter up and in but fortunately the infield was drawn in for a play at the plate and it got over the infield’s head and barely onto the outfield grass.
That night was really the night that the Yankees dynasty came to an end. Since that run in which they won 5 American League Pennants and 4 Worlds Series over the course of 6 years, they have won the AL East 7 times in 8 years but despite that, they have only been to the World Series twice and won it once, this past year. It’s difficult to say that they haven’t been successful with the games they’ve won but they still haven’t been able to replicate the success they experienced in the late 1990’s. However, this certainly hasn’t stopped them from trying, which brings us to our second Yankees point…
PAYROLL
The New York Yankees have spent over $1.5 billion on payroll alone. There are 22 individual seasons in which a player was paid more than $20 million in salary. 14 of those paychecks were paid by the New York Yankees (although in fairness, it should be noted that 9 of those paychecks were given out to Alex Rodriguez).
Many people would say that this wild spending is bad for baseball and a salary cap should be put in place. I, however, disagree. Of the four major North American sports, no league has had as many different teams win the league’s championship in the past decade as in Major League Baseball (8) and only the NFL has had as many different teams in the championship game as in baseball (14) and, you must remember, the NFL has 32 teams while Major League Baseball only has 30. Dynasties come and go and right now, there isn’t one at the highest level of baseball.
The only thing the Yankees have proven is that you can buy a division championship but you can’t buy a World Series and that is why baseball doesn’t need a salary cap.
2001 SEATTLE MARINERS MATCH A 95 YEAR OLD RECORD
In the summer of 2001, the Seattle Mariners won in every way possible. It started with a 20-5 record in April and they never looked back, going 20-7 in May, 18-9 in June and July, 20-9 in August, and 15-6 in September, and 5-1 in October for a total record of 116-46, matching the 1906 Cubs for the most wins in a single season in Major League history.
They scored 927 runs over the course of the regular season and much more amazingly, they only allowed 627 runs, fewer than 4 per game. For comparison, the 1998 Yankees team that went 114-48 and won the World Series scored 965 runs and allowed 656. While the lineup wasn’t the most feared in the league, they were one of the more efficient due to a ton of veterans that fit together perfectly. With the emphasis on getting on base and driving players in, they succeeded. They had 6 players with an on-base percentage over .350 and four of those were over .380. The true testament to this team was their pitching staff.
Of their regular starting pitchers, John Halama had the highest ERA at 4.73 and only 17 of his 31 appearances were starts. Their top three starting pitchers (Freddy Garcia, Aaron Sele, and Jamie Moyer) benefitted from their efficient offense and good defense and put forth excellent numbers, combining to go 53-17 with a 3.35.
As a team, they finished first in the league in runs, second in batting average, first in on-base percentage, fourth in OPS, and first in OPS+. Their pitchers finished first in ERA, fourth in ERA+, first in WHIP, and they were the only team in the league to allow fewer than 8 hits per 9 innings.
The thing I remember about this team wasn’t the overwhelming power of either their lineup or their pitching staff because, frankly, it wasn’t there. They finished 18th in home runs and 20th in strikeouts that season. What I do remember is they did all the little things correctly that help you win baseball games. They hit their cutoff men, preventing their opponents from taking the extra base and on the other side, they took the extra base whenever the opportunity presented itself, putting pressure on their opponents and forcing them into mistakes.
If you were going to compile an instructional video for how to play the game of baseball at its most fundamental level and you were only allowed to use footage of one team, this would be a very good one to use and perhaps the best. I know, go ahead and say it, I’m a homer… I already acknowledged this and of all the teams I’ve watched and followed, this was one of my all time favorites.
Those are the things I remember the most from the past decade in baseball and I can’t possibly express how much I look forward to the next one… until next time…
ROCK ‘N’ FIRE!!!
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