It’s been a busy few weeks in Mike Piazza land.
First, he played in the Taco Bell All Star Legends and Celebrities Softball Game, then it was announced he would be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame on September 29th.
With Piazza being thrust back into the national/local spotlight, the question of whether or not he did steroids and how that affects his hall of fame candidacy has been reinserted into peoples’ discussions.
Founded on nothing more than the fact that he played in the 90’s and Murray Chass’ strange obsession with backne, there is almost no concrete evidence of any PED usage by the greatest hitting catcher of all time.
But even if there was, why does that even matter?
Isn’t it true that not one steroid user pre-2003 (when testing was implemented) was doing something against the rules?[1]
Didn’t Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron all use amphetamines before they were banned? Should we keep them out of the hall of fame too? Are they cheaters? What makes their performance enhancing drug use any different that steroid users of the 90’s?
Why is it that guys like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens get blasted by the media for their alleged PED use, but Andy Pettitte gets a free pass?
Could it be that perhaps they PED users who are vilified were not well liked by the sports media to begin with, and guys who were well liked get treated less harshly?
Why is it that when the Mitchell Report was released, there were more Randy Velardes, Armando Rioses, and Todd Pratts on the list than Miguel Tejadas and Barry Bondses?
Is it at all possible that PEDs aren’t what made those great players great? Could it possibly be that they were great players to begin with?
More importantly, could it be that any vigilante journalists out to preserve the “purity of the game” are nothing more than self-righteous hypocrites, who, if they were given an easy way to make themselves a little better at their career and give their families a little more financial security, would take it in a second?
It’s time to see the Steroid Era for what it was: just another era in baseball’s illustrious history.
We don’t punish pitchers from the dead-ball era because it was harder to hit, so why punish hitters in an era when there was abundant offense?
Joe Vasile is a play-by-play announcer and radio host. Follow him on twitter and visit his website.
I do.
Wow. I’m practically breathless that you would question whether cheating is somehow something that is ok, then compare personal choice cheating, like taking PEDs, with the dead ball era which everyone played under the same conditions. Not all players cheated, so giving passes to anyone who did is outrageous. If something wasn’t banned at the time (any time) then taking it would not constitute cheating. I think the differential effects of different substances requires assessment too: not all doping products have the same general capacity to produce change, so the idea of comparing testosterone and EPO to “greenies” or what have you is a reduction of an argument to ridiculous. Maybe because coffee is loaded with caffeine, which is a stimulant, it should be considered the same as taking a powerful steroid. That’s simply preposterous.
The list of reasons to scorn, punish, and even completely ban cheaters is lengthy on many grounds. Here’s a couple.
1. Willful cheating is morally wrong and makes an unfair competition. It particularly negatively effects those athletes who willfully choose to play the game right. It has the direct cause to make a non cheater get smaller salary but performing less well.
2. Most modern day advanced doping happens with controlled substances and so requires proper need for that therapy. Testosterone is a Schedule III controlled substance and cannot be dispensed without a prescription. Taking it on the sly requires breaking laws. Not only is it cheating, but there as potentially legal ramifications.
3. Accepting cheating and doping tells our children that it is ok to do so, whether it be in an exam or on the file.d of play. For controlled substances, do you want your kids taking powerful drugs? Remember we make million dollar contracts to teenagers. If a 13 yo realizes that dominating high school could lead to millions just by rubbing some cream on, no matter how illegal or wrong, not to mention interference with physiological development, wouldn’t that be too much to ask for a child whose sense of right and wrong is developing and for which the lomg-term health consequences would not be known?
4. Receiving controlled substances without a proper medical need or physician prescription necessitates doing business with extremely dodgy characters who can access and dispense drugs not through medically approved channels. It brings mlb in contact with ruthless individuals and severely tarnishes the reputation of the sport and all individuals.
5. The lopsided effects of players secretly cheating and players not cheating makes it impossible to compare performances on human achievement alone. In short, modern day cheating through steroids for building muscle mass, or EPO for red blood cell manufacturing and recovery, make human-robot hybrids. The effects of taking such substances can result in major performance changes, and thus alter the record books. Comparing the steroid era with the deadball era is completely erroneous. Deadball era issues equally effected every player. When throwing the spit ball was legal, every pitcher had the equally opportunity to use it. Would you condone Wheeler heading to the mound seeing a rosin bag and a jar of Vaseline on the back of the hill? Record books are destroyed by cheating. I will never think of Bonds as the HR leader.
We’re some of the cheaters HoF caliber without doping? Absolutely, and that makes my stomach wretch even more.
6. Instant reply and umpiring has gotten a lot of attention recently. People complain about how 1 call can change the outcome of a game. However, I would offer that the mlb record books have not been made by umpires calling games, typically with 99% accuracy. However, we have seen two of the most cherished records fall because of filthy rotten dopers.
7. Players don’t want it. Even as doping is bigger than we believe (I think the good comparison is like seeing a cockroach…you might see 1, but in the shadows there are many), I still think there is a strong plurality of players who rightly abhor cheating and doping. Why punish the good guys?
Chris, thanks for saving me an hour of typing. Masterful response. Joe, I care also.
I also don’t believe there is any indication of Piazza using PED’s but if he if it was found out that he did then he too would have to face the consequences and obstacles of getting into the HOF.
Agreed 100%.
Steevy,
Have you given up on firing TC?
6. Taking such medications without an underlying medical need may carry significant long term health risks.
It just isn’t fair to those who worked just as hard and did not get in without the advantage of steroids. Just because a large number of people do illegal things doesn’t make it okay. I am as a devout Piazza fan and I would not like to see him inducted if he knowingly took steroids and told reporters off the record he was a user. It doesn’t diminish what he did after 9/11 with his emotional home run. Only his credibility and reputation.
chris f – spot on response.
joe vasile – shame on you for an article like this.
I don’t see what I should be ashamed of.
Any notion of condoning cheating is reprehensible, and cheating by doping is as evil as it gets.
i’ve read some of your articles joe, and not only are they well written, but well thought out as well. i say you should be ashamed because it’s obvious to me that you are a very intelligent person. to even attempt to defend steroid use in sports is like having someone tell me the sky’s not blue & water isn’t wet. when a ballplayer suddenly puts on 80 lbs of muscle and hits 40+ more home runs than he has in any previous season because of pills he’s ingesting, then yeah, i call that cheating. have you ever met the before & after of someone on steroids?? i have, and it’s not pretty. if a 180 lb 28 yr old who can bench press 200lbs takes a bunch of pills, gains 60 lbs of muscle in a few months and can now lift 500lbs, you’re telling me he’s on a level playing field with everyone else because a couple of them are doing it too??? there’s no spin anyone can put on that that makes it legit in my book. i’ll say again how much i enjoy your articles, but we’re on two different worlds regarding PED’S.
Steroids and PED are emotional issues and unfortunately we do not have any concrete evidence to validate one side or the other. But here are some thoughts I have:
1. It’s not like you take PEDs, wait and accrue benefits. You still have to do the workouts. Greenies, on the other hand, all you had to do was ingest them. I wish MLB had officially banned these two substances at different times so we could see which one had more (if any) of an effect.
2. We have absolutely no idea how much, if any, PEDs help performance. If the Mitchell Report had been conducted as a true fact-finding mission, rather than as a peace offering towards Congress and as a PR move for the general public, perhaps we could have taken a step or two down that path. It’s erroneous to attribute all of the increases in offense to PED usage without examining other outside causes, including, but not limited to: changes in ball parks, changes in manufacturing of the baseballs, changes in offensive philosophies, changes in weather, changes in training methods and others that I’m sure I’m omitting. Plus, it’s not like pitchers didn’t take PEDs. One of many possible outcomes is that PEDs helped pitchers more than hitters (at one point more pitchers had failed drug tests, although I’m not sure if that’s still true) and that PEDs actually limited scoring during the so-called “Steroid Era.” I don’t personally believe this theory but I’m not ready to reject it out of hand, either.
3. There is no point in time when the record book was pure. Many people are upset that Bonds is the HR king because he used PEDs. Are you upset that Aaron was the record holder and he took Greenies? Are you upset that Ruth was the record holder and he never played against blacks? How would you feel about Ruth if you found out that he used PEDs? Well, he did. He injected himself with extract from sheep testicles – looking for more power.
Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote five years ago on the subject:
Hall of Famer Cy Young pitched in 125 games before they moved the pitching mound back to 60 feet, 6 inches. How can we take his stats seriously?
Hall of Famer Babe Ruth only played against white Americans, how seriously should we take his stats when he never had to bat against anyone who looked like Pedro Martinez or beat out anyone who looked like Hank Aaron for the home run title?
Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes was legally allowed to throw a spit ball after the pitch had been banned by MLB, yet we are supposed to take his stats as pure?
Hall of Famer Stan Musial put up outstanding numbers in the years 1942-1944 while most of the top players in this country were serving in the armed forces and fighting in World War II. How can we take those stats seriously?
Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle used greenies, which MLB now tests for and is against the rules. Do we discount his entries in the record book?
Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Juan Marichal pitched off mounds that were, well mounds. If you get a chance, look at the pitching mound that Marichal threw from in those old black and white clips. You almost needed a ladder to climb those things. Yet we don’t discount their records.
Since 1973, many Hall of Famers had their careers extended, and their stats padded, with the introduction of the designated hitter. Should we complain that all of the stats achieved by a player when he was the DH cheapen the record book? By extension, should the rule itself be thrown out? Do those players get the same “asterisk” that people want to put on those suspected of using steroids?
Clearly, the record book is not pure and players from different eras competed under unequal conditions. One of the joys of baseball is learning about the game’s history and understanding the conditions of the game during different times in the past.
Im sorry Brian, but with all due respect, the notion if PEDs help in performance or whether there is medical proof of that is absolute hogwash. There are tons of purely anecdotal accounts of athletes who have shared what doping did for them. Furthermore, the evidence for increased muscle mass, or elevated hematocrit is easily documented in the scientific literature. Pretending this has something to do with validating one side or the other dismisses the legality and health risks of taking powerful medications without a medical need for that therapy. This isnt some kind of: “on one hand, and other the other hand” story. Doping is cheating and requires an illicit exchange of money for a product to make happen. Period.
A lot of people are under the misguided belief that MLB has some sort of superior drug-testing system…the best of all sports, and defer to policy and commentary from it. THe plain truth is that sports like Athletics and Cycling have far more strict testing policies becuase they more fully understand the effects. In cycling, almost in every doping circumstance, the initial infraction gets a 2 year ban. Accounts of the positive performance effects of steroids, HGH, EPO, Cera are plentiful by those athletes. It would behoove MLB to look beyond its walls to see what real testing may bring to a sport, as well as the negative effects of illicit drug use to both the user and the sport.
Doping alone cannot make an athlete. But athletes who do dope get an advantage. For certain the type of double blind testing you might wish to demonstrate how a doping agent makes a person better will be hard to come by as it requires a group of elite athletes facing elite competition—essentially sanctioned events, for which doping is illegal. Anecdotal evidence is plentiful as is medical evidence among non-elite-athlete individuals.
As for you list of things you worte about. In none of those circumstances were the things you wrote about illegal. Do they confound comparisons across generations? Certainly, as it should be for any sport with the rich history of baseball. In cycling, for example, bicycles have dropped in weight by 50% since the 1960s, and individual day races like in the Tour de France have dropped half the distance…comparing feats across generations is something we want our historians to try to do…or to talk about around a bucket of beers. Records set for when all athletes had the same advantage/disadvantage make comparisons within era possible. If Marichal pitched off a mound 2x the height of the remainder of his competitors, that would be like what doping is in comparison to non dopers. Everyone plays by the SAME rules.
Anecdotal evidence is not the same thing as proof. There’s anecdotal evidence that putting cork in your bat makes a hit ball travel further. The truth is something else entirely. They even did a Mythbusters show about corking bats.
I”m sure PEDs aid in developing muscle mass. Arnold Schwarzenegger had tremendous muscle mass but couldn’t really hit a pitched ball.
I have no problems with someone being against steroids due to legality and health risks. Both are legitimate reasons to oppose them. It still does nothing to determine if and how much they are performance enhancing.
As for the list, none of those things were illegal — at the time. Segregation is now against the law. So, do we retroactively go back and punish all those who benefited from playing in pre-1947 MLB? So, why should we do that to pre-2004 players with PEDs? And as for post-2004 players, there is a punishment in place for them and plenty of people have paid that punishment. Why should we continue to punish those that have paid for their crimes? Are we supposed to be against Marlon Byrd for the rest of his life because he failed a drug test in 2012?
Anecdotal proof occurs in such abundance through sport that its beyond comment. Yes, Id love to see a double blind study too, but it wont happen. However, there biological evidence on how doping products increase a number of body functions, power, VO2max etc that the benefits clearly are linked to performance. The cycling world is full of such studies.
I never said doing steroids will make anyone a power hitter, but take a power hitter and given them more power, well, you may be alone in being unable to connect the dots. Im not for advocating punishment of Bonds from a baseball standpoint (money return etc).
When things were not illegal, they were not illegal. I said that in my original post. However, the HoF for example, is not governed by the MLB. It has every right to do as it sees fit. Do not expect a steroid user to ever be put in the hall. Evidence for use occurs beyond testing positive. Furthermore, having just done jury duty, I can relate in a court of law, circumstantial evidence carries as much weight as direct evidence in deliberating guilt or innocence. The pile of circumstantial evidence against filthy cheats like those that we well know is high.
Beautifully said, Brian. Exactly what I was trying to say.
The good news is that filthy cretin Braun has now admitted what a cheater he is. Unfortunately he only gets the rest of the year. Its cleat biogenesis will blow the walls down, and in my opinion, not fast enough.
Doping is performance enhancing and cheating. It is wrong at every level. The faster it is dealt with in very aggressive means the better.
I hope Braun is sued by the FedEx guy who lost his job. I would would sue him for every dollar Braun makes. What a rotten maggot Braun is.
The PED issue crossed the line beyond the sport’s rules about CHEATING. It was and is illegal to use these “drugs” in they way they have been used….. without Prescription and medical Oversight and/or with “phoney’d up” Prescriptions from Docs operating outside the law and their own professional Ethics.
These are FEDERAL OFFENSES. The idea that “Baseball” hadn’t banned these substances at the time……that applies only to a narrow band of substances. Most of the abused substances were well known and defined with very well understood issues about the LEGALITY surrounding use. The “satellite substances” have been defined further for Clarity.
I don’t believe that you would really require that every illegal act be specifically defined as “banned by Baseball”—- we can agree that it goes without saying….and it’s broadly captured within the “main laws” of the league.
No one cares. The only people that do are the holier-than-thou people that are the world’s biggest hypocrites. There are much much much bigger issues in this world than steroid use. Yet, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent the use of steroids or prosecute those that use them. Hundreds of millions of dollars can feed a lot of people or start a lot of businesses. Our country is literally falling apart around us and our government spent over 100 million dollars on prosecuting Lance Armstrong for goodness sake. This simply does not make sense.
I hate hypocrisy. Nothing in sports is fair. Never has been and never will be. Yet, we cherry pick what to be self-righteous about. Anyone who has ever been any kind of athlete knows this. Heck, half the professionals that make it were put in specialized sports programs that the average person does not have access too or can’t afford. Most athletes were passed through school without doing the work that others were doing. Most athletes have access to jobs and tutors the average student can not get.
Do I wish everything was fair? Yes. Will it ever be fair? No. Can any of this really be stopped? No. Are there much bigger issues than this in the world? Yes.
That is all you need to know on this subject.