For at least one player "made" during the "steroid era," hypocritical baseball is willing to forgive and forget

I admit that Alex Rodriguez comes across as smug and devious, but I doubt he would be the object of so much vilification if he wasn’t making so much money. Of course if he invested his money wisely, what would he care what people say about him? Even though Rodriguez has never “officially” tested positive for performance enhancement drug use, he is in baseball’s crosshairs once again, facing a suspension or banning from baseball because his name showed-up on a document related to the “anti-aging” company Biogenesis, now defunct. It is interesting to note that the names associated with the company are top-heavy with Latino players, probably because the company was situated in south Florida and not, say, Iowa.  Biogenesis was only in “business” for less than a year, and no one would have known of its existence had not a “disgruntled” ex-employee—unhappy over lack of pay—turned over documents to a Miami alternative weekly, which was only too happy to circulate the story in order to increase its revenue from strip club, “escort” service and lingerie advertisements. 

One may ask why baseball players have persisted in using PEDs, despite the ban. There is certainly pressure on players not just to “perform” in a dog-eat-dog world, but to avoid being marginalized by injury; not all teams are like the Seattle Mariners, which has for the past decade placed its hopes largely on “prospects” who prove year-after-year that they can’t hit a damn. Of course people lionize Ken Griffey, Jr. who is believed to be one of the few examples of a player to have been “clean”—or at least we  hope that his sudden power surge from 1996-1999  wasn’t PED-fueled. But the fact is that his career tailed-off dramatically after he left Seattle for Cincinnati, and we can see that if he in fact did not use “unnatural” means to recover from his constant injuries—the most-oft quoted reason for using steroids—then it turned him into a virtual irrelevancy on the field, his reputation in name only.

Meanwhile, many a Milwaukee Brewers fan thanked the heavens when it appeared that a true “franchise” player had fallen into their lap when Ryan Braun signed a long-term deal with the team.  But since then some fans have become disillusioned now that Braun has been suspended for the rest of the season because of his connection with Biogenesis. They may have good reason for this; Braun’s  injury situation this season suggests that he has been “clean” since that previous drug test “mix-up,” and one has cause to wonder if his previous productivity was a fraud. Only the future can tell.

There is no doubt about it—baseball since the steroid “era” supposedly ended has been one dull proposition. When I was a kid I loved baseball, but now it is just an annoyance that gets in the way of the football season. It is interesting to note that seven of the top 14 all-time home run hitters were at least “suspected” of steroid use. That is not to say that “old school” hitters were “clean”; no doubt some of them used some form of performance “enhancements,” like amphetamines. 

But then again, baseball’s hypocrisy has a distinct “after the fact” quality. There are a lot of players in the Hall of Fame whose principle claim to fame is a catchy nickname and mythologizing. Sandy Koufax’s first six seasons suggested at best mediocrity, and there has been numerous rationalizations to explain his sudden “transformation” into the greatest pitcher alive for five seasons. But like many fireballers, his time in the sun had a short window and he retired before his arm gave completely out. In the interim, he resorted to a variety of drugs and painkillers, even during games. Some of these drugs—like Capsolin—had no medical benefit save being a powerful anti-irritant. Some people might suggest that these painkillers are not just another form of PEDs, but potentially even more dangerous, since they can lead to permanent limb damage. Koufax retired at his peak, winning a total of 165 games; but he wouldn’t have been the only player to have a brief run of great seasons only to end his career in obscurity. 

Of course in the ”Steroid Era” very much the opposite occurred for many players. Take for instance the player who probably was baseball’s most successful abuser of PEDs—Mark McGwire. McGwire managed to avoid drug tests and was never suspended for his use of PEDs, even when the drugs were in plain sight in his locker. Baseball just didn’t want to know about it; after a strike season that alienated many fans, nothing could have been more welcome than the surprising surge in power productivity. Yet there was no two ways about it—the impossible had occurred: A modern-day Lazarus who had played a total of 74 games and hit 18 home runs the previous two season had lifted himself out of his wheelchair and put-up power numbers no one had ever witnessed before.

To put things in perspective, here are the pertinent statistics from McGwire’s first nine years in the league:

Games: 990

At-Bats: 3342

Hits: 834

Home runs: 238

Total Bases: 1695

Slugging Percentage: .507

If he had played a complete 162-game schedule during this period, McGwire would have averaged 39 home runs per season, with 28.5 percent of his hits being home runs, and one home run every 14.04 official at-bats. Now take his next seven seasons, the period in which he tearfully pleaded the Fifth before Congress. 

Games:  884

At-Bats: 2845

Hits:  792

Home runs: 345

Total Bases: 1944

Slugging Percentage: .683

To give a better indication of McGwire’s sudden power surge, if he had played a complete 162-game schedule during those years, he would have averaged more than 63 homeruns per season, 43.6 percent of his hits would have been home runs, and he would have hit one home run every 8.24 official at-bats. He ended his career hitting 583 home runs on a paltry 1626 hits. Even Harmon Killebrew—a notorious fence-swinger—had 2086 hits to go with his 573 home runs. 

The only “punishment” that McGwire ever faced was one of a public relations nature, and by Hall of Fame voters. But from baseball itself, it is forgive and forget. McGwire is currently  employed as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ hitting coach—although one wonders what he has to teach, since he was never a “pure” hitter, and his only claim to fame was muscling a ball—whether by natural or unnatural means—out of a ballpark. McGwire retired just in time for many people to forget just how deeply he was involved in PEDs; his “successors” are the ones who are paying the price for the “example” he set.