Via The Book Blog, Rob Neyer puts cheating with steroids and cheating with amphetamines on the same moral footing:

If the Hall of Fame voters’ arguments against the steroids users were performance-based, it would make sense to engage in detailed analyses of the relative effects of amphetamines and steroids. But that’s not the argument. You’ll rarely see a writer discuss Rafael Palmeiro’s performance, for the simple reason that there’s not much evidence to suggest that Palmeiro owes much of his Hall of Fame-worthy performance to steroids. Rather, writers simply label Palmeiro a cheater and move along to the next crusade. The argument as explicitly made is not about performance, but rather morality. The guy cheated.

But here’s a stone-cold fact: The non-prescription use of prescription drugs — amphetamines, anabolic steroids, you name it — has been a violation of Major League Baseball’s drug policy since 1971. Every player who ingested a single molecule of amphetamines without a prescription since 1971 was, technically speaking, breaking the rules. And if they were doing it with the intent of playing better, they were cheating.

When it comes to morality, the only thing that matters is intent. When Hall of Fame voters penalize players from the (so-called) Steroid Era while giving a free pass to every player who ever cheated with amphetamines, they’re drawing a line that — and yes, I’m going to say this once more — is intellectually indefensible.

Tom Tango at The Book Blog applauds this argument, and I agree it is a good one. However, I don’t think voters opposed to steroids are purely making a moral argument. There is certainly an element of, “we don’t know how to rate this player due to his steroid use.” Would Mark McGwire be a Hall of Fame candidate without steroids? We don’t know. We don’t know how many hits, or homers or walks they added to his offensive totals.

Greenies were more about lifestyle. Yes, the season is a grind, but a lot of ballplayers like to party hard. Uppers allowed them to both party hard and play the game. Without speed, most players would have realized that partying put an early end to a career and let up so they were able to play awake. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that an amphetamine enhanced career wouldn’t be very different from his career if he went back back to his hotel room after a game and got a good night’s sleep.

It could also be that a weight-training player without steroids gets most of the way to where he would be with steroids (which is the Jeff Bagwell argument, that he didn’t need them). Of course, if that’s true, Rob’s argument has even more validity. Again, we don’t know. That’s why voters feel differently about steroids and amphetamines. A greenie user could easily be a Hall of Fame without the drugs. That may not be true for a steroid user.