If Jonathan Swift Ran Baseball, or Another Modest Proposal
Charles Bukowski once said that there was no lower form of writing than sportswriting; on his ladder above them were such practitioners of banalities as advertising copywriters and propagandists. With that little reminder stated at the outset, it's time for a few thoughts on baseball. I grew up a baseball fan and an inveterate baseball card collector, and memorized statistics like a maniac when I was young. Like most observers I became a little suspicious of the inflated homerun numbers of the 1990's, but never ascribed to the relentlessly publicized theory that all of this offensive production was due to illicit chemical help in the form of steroids. And even with all of the recent positive tests, I still do not believe that steroids were primarily responsible for the explosion of offense over the past 15 seasons. As a physical activity, hitting a baseball is a skill that does not necessarily depend on freakish physiques or ox-like strength. In many ways baseball is the least athletic of all the major American sports; hitters' talents are a unique combination of vision, decisivenss, and hand-eye coordination. But since most sportswriters behave like megaphones (preferring the town crier approach to disseminate information rather than attempting to examine issues carefully and rationally), they have not analyzed the statistics or examined the rush to construct new ballparks, or closely studied the effects of expansion on the quality of talent in the major leagues. After all, why analyze when you can sensationalize?
The most serious complaint aimed at the steroid users is that the advantages given to them by their use of performance-enhancing drugs were advantages that baseball players of years past could not have enjoyed, since the technology did not exist until the 1970's or 1980's. This statement is hard to disagree with--one of the major appeals of sports and games is their egalitarianism, where pure athletic talent determines the place that each athlete holds within their sport--and compared to the conventional wisdom on steroid use by athletes, this contention is quite valid, as it calls into question the old Bart Giamatti phrase about "the integrity of baseball". The result of all of this is that many ex-players, announcers, and baseball writers are now proposing that the statistical records of those caught with their hands in the drug jar should be stricken from the baseball record books. Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Sosa and the like would be driven from their current elite statistical positions into some weird villainous limbo, sharing space with Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson and Denny McLain in baseball's hall of shame. In the spirit of Mr. Giamatti's interpretation of actions that jeopardize the integrity of the game, I would like to follow the logic contained within the instrumentalist approach recounted above and strictly apply it to the game of baseball.
If steroids provide an unfair advantage, then all statistics prior to 1947 must be dismissed as having been compiled in an unfair situation. Jackie Robinson's arrival as the first African-American pro baseball player signifies the beginning of true competition in the game, since all black ballplayers were prevented from participating in the major leagues. Included in this ban were Latino ballplayers whose skin tone was too uncomfortably dark for the tastes of the white racists who ran baseball like Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis or NY Yankees' GM/President George Weiss, or racist players like Dixie Walker and Ty Cobb. Every major league player prior to 1947 competed in a league that demonstrably did not field the best possible teams that could be assembled from the existing available talent. Such actions indicate that baseball's executive management tinkered with the integrity of the game for decades.
Another unfair advantage enjoyed by the players of today is medical treatment. Surgical procedures are much less invasive than in the 1950's, and injuries that once ended careers (such as torn rotator cuffs and torn knee or elbow ligaments) are now dealt with arthroscopically; players return quicker than ever from these once-feared operations. Additonally, anti-inflammatory and painkilling medications are much improved since the days of the 1950's; these too represent unfair advantages. I propose that any player with a weight room in his house for offseason training should also be viewed with suspicion, since none of the men from baseball's glory years of the 50's and 60's ever had enough money to afford such physical training advantages. Nutritional supplements also must be counted as offenders against the integrity of the game, since they were never used by the players of the 1950's. They may be more similar to the patent medicines of the 1880's and 1890's, but their prevalence today is clearly unfair to the players of years past. Such advantages translate into expulsion from the record books, as we continue to follow the exclusionists' logic.
It doesn't end there, either--there are obvious advantages in methods of travel compared to 50 years ago. Airplanes have improved and are now used to make even short trips. Needless to say, train travel was not quite as luxurious or speedy--so the player of today gets more rest on the road and consequently may be counted on to perform at a higher level. This extra rest must be seen as an unfair advantage, so any player who flies from New York City to Boston or vice-versa must have their statistics disallowed. Valid statistics after airplane travel would only count after long flights, such as a Los Angeles-to-Washington, DC jaunt.
In my view there is no greater advantage enjoyed by the modern baseball player than their money. Such economic security allows the 21st-century ballplayer to take the winter off, which never occurred before the onset of the free agency period. Players from the 1950's and 1960's had to get jobs in the offseason and therefore could not devote the time to keep themselves in peak physical condition like many do today. With less money in their pockets, the players also were subject to such unusual conditions as stress from poor financial situations. They were working stiffs, comparatively--and this must obviously be viewed as an unfair advantage. There is no such fear in the mind of the modern baseball player, as guaranteed contracts ensure financial prosperity even in the case of physical ruin. All statistics compiled by players making more than 300% of the national average workers' salary must also be dismissed, since they were compiled in conditions of unfair advantage.
So after the strict application of exclusionary logic we are left with the following result: there are no valid statistics in baseball. No Babe Ruth, no Hank Aaron, no Pete Rose, no Joe Carter. Not even wins and losses, or championships either. All that's left are a bunch of people paying a lot of money to go see events that might be construed to have the same competitive validity as professional wrestling. Is that what the alleged purists wish for?
Since 1985 there have been 21 new ballparks added to the rolls in major league baseball. With the exception of Seattle, Florida, San Diego, Arizona, and Detroit every single one of these new stadiums have been hitters' ballparks. Add in the fact that such pitcher-friendly parks as the Houston Astrodome and Comiskey Park vanished in favor of sluggers' havens and it is easy to see where the offensive explosion came from. As these smaller ballparks began to spring up, MLB decided to help the hitters even more by adding four new teams--which in turn allowed 40-44 pitchers who weren't big league quality to become big leaguers. It is a simple explanation but a correct one, which is why the national sports media prefers to focus on the more sensational topic of drug use. Steroids help these players recover faster from the grind of a 162-game season, but in my mind that's the most help that they offer. The skills required to hit and pitch in the major leagues must already be there for a player to prosper; they cannot be purchased in pill or liquid form.
So now that I've dabbled in the lowest form of writing, I need to take a shower. I feel unclean.
The most serious complaint aimed at the steroid users is that the advantages given to them by their use of performance-enhancing drugs were advantages that baseball players of years past could not have enjoyed, since the technology did not exist until the 1970's or 1980's. This statement is hard to disagree with--one of the major appeals of sports and games is their egalitarianism, where pure athletic talent determines the place that each athlete holds within their sport--and compared to the conventional wisdom on steroid use by athletes, this contention is quite valid, as it calls into question the old Bart Giamatti phrase about "the integrity of baseball". The result of all of this is that many ex-players, announcers, and baseball writers are now proposing that the statistical records of those caught with their hands in the drug jar should be stricken from the baseball record books. Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Sosa and the like would be driven from their current elite statistical positions into some weird villainous limbo, sharing space with Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson and Denny McLain in baseball's hall of shame. In the spirit of Mr. Giamatti's interpretation of actions that jeopardize the integrity of the game, I would like to follow the logic contained within the instrumentalist approach recounted above and strictly apply it to the game of baseball.
If steroids provide an unfair advantage, then all statistics prior to 1947 must be dismissed as having been compiled in an unfair situation. Jackie Robinson's arrival as the first African-American pro baseball player signifies the beginning of true competition in the game, since all black ballplayers were prevented from participating in the major leagues. Included in this ban were Latino ballplayers whose skin tone was too uncomfortably dark for the tastes of the white racists who ran baseball like Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis or NY Yankees' GM/President George Weiss, or racist players like Dixie Walker and Ty Cobb. Every major league player prior to 1947 competed in a league that demonstrably did not field the best possible teams that could be assembled from the existing available talent. Such actions indicate that baseball's executive management tinkered with the integrity of the game for decades.
Another unfair advantage enjoyed by the players of today is medical treatment. Surgical procedures are much less invasive than in the 1950's, and injuries that once ended careers (such as torn rotator cuffs and torn knee or elbow ligaments) are now dealt with arthroscopically; players return quicker than ever from these once-feared operations. Additonally, anti-inflammatory and painkilling medications are much improved since the days of the 1950's; these too represent unfair advantages. I propose that any player with a weight room in his house for offseason training should also be viewed with suspicion, since none of the men from baseball's glory years of the 50's and 60's ever had enough money to afford such physical training advantages. Nutritional supplements also must be counted as offenders against the integrity of the game, since they were never used by the players of the 1950's. They may be more similar to the patent medicines of the 1880's and 1890's, but their prevalence today is clearly unfair to the players of years past. Such advantages translate into expulsion from the record books, as we continue to follow the exclusionists' logic.
It doesn't end there, either--there are obvious advantages in methods of travel compared to 50 years ago. Airplanes have improved and are now used to make even short trips. Needless to say, train travel was not quite as luxurious or speedy--so the player of today gets more rest on the road and consequently may be counted on to perform at a higher level. This extra rest must be seen as an unfair advantage, so any player who flies from New York City to Boston or vice-versa must have their statistics disallowed. Valid statistics after airplane travel would only count after long flights, such as a Los Angeles-to-Washington, DC jaunt.
In my view there is no greater advantage enjoyed by the modern baseball player than their money. Such economic security allows the 21st-century ballplayer to take the winter off, which never occurred before the onset of the free agency period. Players from the 1950's and 1960's had to get jobs in the offseason and therefore could not devote the time to keep themselves in peak physical condition like many do today. With less money in their pockets, the players also were subject to such unusual conditions as stress from poor financial situations. They were working stiffs, comparatively--and this must obviously be viewed as an unfair advantage. There is no such fear in the mind of the modern baseball player, as guaranteed contracts ensure financial prosperity even in the case of physical ruin. All statistics compiled by players making more than 300% of the national average workers' salary must also be dismissed, since they were compiled in conditions of unfair advantage.
So after the strict application of exclusionary logic we are left with the following result: there are no valid statistics in baseball. No Babe Ruth, no Hank Aaron, no Pete Rose, no Joe Carter. Not even wins and losses, or championships either. All that's left are a bunch of people paying a lot of money to go see events that might be construed to have the same competitive validity as professional wrestling. Is that what the alleged purists wish for?
Since 1985 there have been 21 new ballparks added to the rolls in major league baseball. With the exception of Seattle, Florida, San Diego, Arizona, and Detroit every single one of these new stadiums have been hitters' ballparks. Add in the fact that such pitcher-friendly parks as the Houston Astrodome and Comiskey Park vanished in favor of sluggers' havens and it is easy to see where the offensive explosion came from. As these smaller ballparks began to spring up, MLB decided to help the hitters even more by adding four new teams--which in turn allowed 40-44 pitchers who weren't big league quality to become big leaguers. It is a simple explanation but a correct one, which is why the national sports media prefers to focus on the more sensational topic of drug use. Steroids help these players recover faster from the grind of a 162-game season, but in my mind that's the most help that they offer. The skills required to hit and pitch in the major leagues must already be there for a player to prosper; they cannot be purchased in pill or liquid form.
So now that I've dabbled in the lowest form of writing, I need to take a shower. I feel unclean.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 7:36 PM
5 Comments:
Mostly valid and fair points, but your defense of steroid use is odd coming from such a seeming purist (I think you know who this is).
"Steroids help these players recover faster from the grind of a 162-game season, but in my mind that's the most help that they offer." I don't think faster recovery time is all that Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafi Palmeiro, et al had in mind when they shot themselves in the ass with synthetically derived compounds that confer undeniable physical advantages to the user in the form of increased muscle mass and endurance.
Steroid use probably does not improve eye-hand coordination (unless the quickness of a swing can somehow be improved), but please don't try to tell me that Mark McGwire at 160 lbs. could hit the ball as far as he could at 235 lbs.
dear Anon: Mark McGwire holds the major league record for homeruns by a rookie--49, accomplished in 1987. In a six-year period between 1987-1992 he hit 217 homeruns for a 36 HR per-year average. Before you sneer at these numbers, remember that they were compiled before the last period of expansion. In addition, he played 81 games a year at the cavernous Oakland Coliseum, which has never been mistaken for a hitter's paradise. Again, the numbers that he put up are consistent with my hypothesis--it was expansion and the ballpark building rush that caused the great offensive explosions of the 1990's, not widespread steroid use.
He never weighed as little as 160 lbs., either--he came into the big leagues over 200 lbs. He began to take steroids after two lost seasons due to recurrent stress fractures in his feet (1993 and 1994). My contention has always been with McGwire that steroids allowed him to save his career, but not in the way most people envision--the steroids helped prevent further injuries to his feet and therefore kept him in the lineup often enough to do the damage he ultimately did.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/mcgwima01.shtml
Many big leaguers of our era came in skinny and left the game hulking--does Derek Jeter look the same in 2005 as he did in 1996? Did Roger Clemens keep the same dimensions in his physique between 1986 and 2000? Even guys in the 1980's began to bulk up, and this type of weight training usually occurred only after the athlete had established himself at the major league level.
Players commonly develop more strength as they grow older and their bodies fill out, and the timeworn phrase of "a player in his prime" was never used to describe twig-like rookies--it was used to describe veterans whose games had risen to higher levels of performance as their savvy and physicality began to mesh with each other.
Most drug consumers are not the smartest people out there. Any evening spent watching drug commercials on television will back that up, as the lists of monstrous side effects tbat tumble from the mouths of the voiceovers for over-the-counter ulcer and cholesterol remedies effectively demonstrate. Athletes are people too--wrapped up in the same bullshit peer pressures and status games as everyday people. Trends are trends, whether they involve performance-enhancing drugs or HumVees or new age mythology. Even a baseball warhorse like Mike Schmidt recently admitted on the Costas show on HBO that he would have taken steroids if they'd been available when he played. It's only the typical American weirdness on the issue of drug use that has even made steroids an issue--why don't they test for amphetamines? Oh that's right--because everybody takes them in the big leagues.
And yes, McGwire in 1987 could hit the ball as far as he could in 1996. I saw him hit a homer off of Dave Righetti in 1987 that traveled between 470-480 feet over the left-center bullpen in Yankee Stadium. I saw him hit one off Andy Pettite in 1996 that went almost all the way up the bleachers in right-center field. Both homers were identical except for the area in which they landed; majestic would be the only word that comes to mind to describe the flight of the baseball in each case.
What do you think Jim Rice and Reggie Jackson would've done to a league that added 25 new pitching jobs? How about Mike Schmidt?
McGwire got off to a great start to be certain. But the statistical evidence indicates that his home run production was substantially skewed to the back end of his career, a phenomenon not evident in previous generations of power sluggers. Mantle, Mays and Ruth peaked in their home run production over extended periods(home rund per 550 at-bats) during their mid-20's. McGwire averaged 36 a year through age 30, and suddenly zoomed to 68 per 550 starting at age 31.
When McGwire came out of USC he was relatively thin for a guy who stands 6'5". The "Big Mac" moniker came with the addition of 50-75 pounds more of extra muscle mass/bulk. A great player to be sure, but Maris still holds the record in my book.
Finally, the fact that Mike Schmidt (who was the greatest player to ever wear a Phillies uniform) admits that he'd succumb to temptation in no way serves to legitizmize the use of steroids in MLB. He was just being honest.
Back to the stadium issue: in the years since the new Yankee Stadium was built, no Yankee has hit more than 44 homers in one season (Tino Martinez, 1997). Only 3 have ever topped 40, actually--Reggie Jackson, Tino, and Jason Giambi--and this in a ballpark that was considered a lefty hitter's paradise upon its inception. Even Alex Rodriguez has been slowed down in terms of HR production. After AVERAGING 52 homers a year in that joke of a ballpark down in Texas, he hit a mere 36 last year. Barring injury he will pass that barrier this season (he has 36 jacks as I type this), but I don't think he'll get to the magic 50 mark.
I say this only to underscore my point--the grossly inflated HR numbers posted by such immortals as Brady Anderson (50 dingers in 1996) or Albert Belle (98 homers over the years 1995-6) are more attributable to tiny ballparks and a preponderance of shitty pitching than anything else.
There are also many players who find their power stroke later in their careers. Graig Nettles of the Yanks is a good example of that, as is Jeff Kent. Baseball is a difficult game, and not everyone comes into the league like Mac did. I think the most important thing to remember with McGwire is that his late-career power surge is concurrent with both expansion and the new ballpark frenzy; while this two-pronged assault against the quality of the game was going on, McGwire was becoming a better hitter who walked more than he did as a youngster. Even Reggie Jackson became a better hitter for average later in his career, and it makes sense that a guy like McGwire improved his power numbers when he began to improve upon the amount of contact he made at the plate.
There are no cheesier ballparks out there today than Camden Yards in Baltimore, the former Enron Field in Houston, Jacobs Field in Cleveland, and that fucking monstrosity in Cincinnati. Somebody should holler about what these glorified high-school ballfields have done to the power numbers of the last few years.
Absolutely no disagreement here on the impact of league expansion and the construction of home run-friendly parks. I do contend, however, that there is more fan appreciation of the game itself than is evident in, say, the NBA (where laser shows and jumbotron dance contests seem to often take precedence over what is taking place on the court).
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