I'm Glad Baseball Became The Poster Child For Steroids In Sports
Ok, maybe I'm not exactly "glad" baseball is the poster child for steroids in sports, but I do find some beauty in the fact that it became the poster child.
During the mid-90s baseball fans were treated to league-wide record home run totals. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's race to 61 had the baseball world enthralled. Chicks dig the long ball and baseball was revived as a result. However, there was always this nagging feeling in the back of most baseball fans' minds that this wasn't normal. Then Barry Bonds started doing his thing and people really started to pay attention. How could someone be so super-human? Questions were asked, congress got involved and the crackdown on performance enhancing drugs had begun.
Baseball wasn't the only sport that was doping. It was widespread in cycling, track and field, heck, there was probably a table tennis player somewhere that was juicing. But baseball got the most scrutiny. Mainly because of the attention it received due to home run records falling left and right. Bigger, stronger men can hit balls further, therefore they're likely on roids. But any sport could have been caught. And this is where I find it kind of poetic that baseball was the first sport to fully expose its athletes.
Baseball had gone 100 years without ever seeing this sort of production. Part of the beauty of baseball is the consistency of its statistics. 40 goals in hockey today is not the same as 40 goals in the 80s. 4000 passing yards is the norm today in football, but it would have been unheard of in the 50s. Throughout most of baseball history the numbers stayed the same. 40 home runs in 1985 was basically the equivalent of 40 home runs in 1945.
This is why I find it so amazing that baseball became the poster child for steroid use. It wasn't a drug test that caught the athletes. It wasn't a crafty reporter who exposed the cheaters. It wasn't a disgruntled player who exposed his peers. It was the game itself. Before the Mitchell report, before Jose Canseco, the game alerted the fans that something was up because the numbers simply didn't add up.
Now, there are theories that it was a juiced ball that led to the increase in home runs, not steroids. I believe there is some validity to this theory, especially now that we're seeing another home run renaissance that seems to be blamed on a juiced ball. However, we know that players were on steroids during the 90s. We have the failed drug tests to prove it, we have the admissions from players. We also know what steroids can do to a person's ability to perform athletically. To deny that steroids would have helped players to hit more home runs is to deny everything we know about biology. It's very possible a juiced ball worked in conjunction with juiced players, but we can't deny that steroids played a role.
It's a shame that the many clean players of the steroid era were overshadowed. Many seem to be guilty by association. Nobody accuses Ken Griffey Jr of being Ken Griffey Juicer, but Jeff Bagwell sure seemed to suffer some negative halo effect. Even Pedro Martinez has his accusers. Pedro Martinez!!! The guy was a toothpick. Do these people even know what steroids do? The clean players of that era deserve better. Today's stars deserve better as well. Bring up Jose Bautista in any baseball forum and it seems to be only a matter of time before some bitter fan brings up steroids. Mike Trout, same. Albert Pujols, same. The game tests its players vigorously now. Yes, there may be players who are able to game the system, but, on the whole, the game is cleaner than it used to be.
It's a black mark on baseball's history and a point of shame for many around the sport. Personally, I'm not a fan of what happened to the integrity of the sport I love, but I also choose to see the bright side of it. The game is so pure that it can't be cheated. 90 feet to first base is the perfect distance. The way the game has been played is so unchanged over the past 100+ years that the numbers have mostly stayed the same. Steroids remind me of that. And for that, I'm thankful.
