Baseball's Drug Problem
"We went through a real difficult time in 1994, with the strike," Towers told ESPN. "Then some amazing things happened. Home runs were up. Fans were flocking to ballparks, lining up to watch batting practice. But we all realized that there were things going on within the game that were affecting the integrity of the game. I think we all knew it, but we didn't say anything about it."
"I hate to be the one voice for the other 29 GMs, but I'd have to imagine that all of them, at one point or other, had reason to think that a player on their ballclub was probably using, based on body changes and things that happened over the winter."
-Padres General Manager Kevin Towers
No one seriously condones the use of performance enhancers of any kind in professional sports. The whole point of the thing is to see who is better that day, based on practice, dedication, teamwork, luck, and the other fundamentals that go into a game. The reasons for this are quite intriguing. The main reason of course, is to have something to bet on. No one wants to lose money on a bet that turned out to be crooked. Besides, people get personally attached to that kind of theater we call sport. They root for their home teams or their favorite players. The relationship is, strangely, often a very strong one.
So players have used steroids. can anyone deny it? And baseball's hands are dirty. Didn't know? Between 1901 and 1997, players hit sixty home runs in a season exactly twice. Ruth and Maris. From 1998 to 2007, it happened eight times, and one player - Sosa - did it three times. Players hit 50 or more home runs 23 times between 1901 and 1997; from 1998 to 2007, they did it 18 times. Players have been quoted saying that parks are smaller and the ball is harder. You could also say that the strike zone was squeezed, so hitter saw many more fat pitches than before, as pitchers were forced to groove pitches to get strikes. so, maybe steroids were just one of several factors in the homer boom.
At his point, baseball's official reaction has been a lot of handwringing, scapegoating, and hoping- it'll - go - away. Bonds and Palmiero and Clemens, among many others, are blamed. We watch as their stories fall apart and it's bad because baseball is about character. It couldn't be about anything else and be so resilient. So when players lie to reporters, they are lying to us, as well.
Where does it all come from? Is it just a bunch of players who want to get rich and get famous? Of course not. The truth is, as Kevin Towers says, management and administration knew about the problem. The truth is, baseball owners have always manipulated the game to make more money. In this case, a players' strike had caused a dip in attendance. The solution? More home runs. And steroids were part of that strategy.
It had happened before. After the famous scandal when the White Sox threw the 1919 World Series, owners went to the homerun for salvation. They outlawed the spitball and other variations - the "shine"ball, the emery ball, and all the rest, and they provided for clean balls to be regularly introduced into the game - all to cut down on the advantages that pitchers enjoyed. It happened again in 1968, when dominant pitchers like Bob Gibson and Denny McLain shattered records, Yastrezmski won the batting title with .301, and the collective ERA in both leagues was below 3. At that point, the owners lowered the mound and squeezed the strike zone, as they did in '98, to the point where, as one pundit observed, the strike zone is "from a point just above the belt to a point just below the belt."
There are other examples as well: keeping black and Latin players out of baseball (when 3/4 of active players indicated that they had no objection); rigging the salary schedule and blackballing activist ballplayers; colluding in the 80s to prevent expensive bidding wars, etc. The game and its structure have always been manipulated by and for the owners, and the recent steroids scandal is no exception. Baseball's favorite drug is not steroids, or cocaine, or even liquor - it is money.
