Baseball officials claim that they were in the dark about players juicing during the so called “steroid” era, but that’s a load of crap! Take former Baltimore Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson for example. How do you explain a guy never eclipsing more than 24 home runs per season during his first 8 in the big leagues, but during the 1996 season, he sets a team record with 50 homers and goes up in just about every statistical category. He’s never had a season similar to that before 1996 or after that “magical” season. Mind you, Anderson had been a perennial all-star before that.
If you’re in the front office of Major League Baseball and that doesn’t strike you as odd, then you either go about your day with your eyes closed or you don’t care to notice what is going on. Guys like Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr, Frank Thomas, Albert Belle, Tino and Edgar Martinez, Mike Piazza, and Chipper Jones have done it on a constant basis year in and year out since day one. They’ve all been all-stars and came into the Majors crushing fastballs, sliders, and curveballs out of the park! We’ve seen these guys do it year after year without major drop off unless they were injured.
Especially with regards to injuries, Griffey Jr is a topic all on his own. Never an imposing physical figure, “Jr” missed an astonishing 417 games during his brilliant career and still managed to blast 630 home runs! Absolutely amazing! Even during their injury riddled seasons, these guys have yielded better stats than most guys who played an entire season without missing games.
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When you have a Sammy Sosa who totaled 34 home runs from 1989-1992 then comes out of the gate with 33 homers the next season alone, your eyebrow should raise just a little over this gigantic leap! Even if he had not been linked to PEDs, shouldn’t his sudden burst of bat power and explosiveness have you questioning his off season regimen?
Mark McGwire had always been a home run machine since his days in an Oakland Athletics uniform but he’d never weighed more than 230 pounds. Once he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, his body started to transform into this larger than life comic book looking action figure! We all know that with age comes a little more weight than when we were younger but none of us pack on 30 pounds of freakish muscle mass and look like we would be a formidable match for the Incredible Hulk on any day! His home run totals also began to escalate to enormous proportions.
Then there’s the arrogant, narcissist, egomaniac Barry Bonds. Here’s a player who like McGwire had always been a tremendous home run hitter and one of baseball’s best all around players. After his trade to my beloved San Francisco Giants, not only did his home run totals begin to increase to Xbox type levels but so did his normally docile frame. Sure there were others who were increasing their long ball totals like Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, and Ivan Rodriguez. Still none of them captured our attention like Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa had.
Yet MLB brass claim that until the Federal Government got involved, they had no prior knowledge of juicing in baseball. Could it have been the increasingly high number of sellouts at ballparks across the country? Or the rapid rise in baseball memorabilia purchases that had their minds in the clouds? If you ask me I think it was a little bit of both. I’m a firm believer that winners don’t cheat and cheaters don’t win but when corporate dollars are involved, sometimes the ruling authorities tend to see things from a different perspective.
Instead of preserving the integrity of the game, the root of all evil starts to prevail and the wrongs get put on the back burner. There has to be someone who still believes that extra batting practice, shagging fly balls, learning the nuances of the game, weight training, and film study are still the best tools to being successful on the field. Until the corporate sponsors are no longer having their names on stadiums or sneakers companies stop endorsing professional team uniforms, the commercial dollar and its appeal will no doubt continue to overrule the governing body of the sport of baseball.
