Baseball Engineer takes up the steroid versus amphetamines argument:
First, amphetamines have been ingrained in the game for a long time, maybe as far back as the end of WWII. I’d argue that their use is something of a common denominator in the game and its performances over that time. If this were just an amphetamines/HOF discussion, well, there really wouldn’t be anything to discuss. I don’t think there’s ever been a HOF candidate scrutinized for amphetamine use, nor has there ever been a statistical deviation linked to amphetamines. This brings up my second reason: Amphetamines can’t turn warning-track power into tape-measure moon shots.
I tried to make a similar point Wednesday.
Interesting, so where are the studies about “moon shots” and “moon shots” that only seemed to affect a some players (you know, the “bad” ones we love to place at the center of “cheating”). This argument is disingenuous.
Maybe Baseball Engineer would like to enlighten us all about the percentage change in “moon shots” over time? If Baseball Engineer’s able, please demonstrate for the rest of us the effect of other factors as well (e.g. increased professionalization, better diet, shorter travel, better training methods that go all year, more players playing, lighter bats, some small stadiums, etc.)
Thanks for all of your blogging. You have a great site.
As you say, Neyer has an argument, but in my view he presents it in such an over-the-top fashion as to lose my respect on this issue (and I do respect much of his analysis). Both your post and the one to which you linked make defensible distinctions between the two substances.
I would go farther than the Baseball Engineer and say that the cultural issues are integral to the discussion. It means something that players used greenies out in the open, that they kept them in open containers in clubhouses and that there was very little stigma attached to usage. Despite Neyer and Co. continually pointing out that MLB “looked the other way” and “had no enforcement mechanism,” they never seem to mention the obvious: that the players knew that steroids were different; that they didn’t talk about them in the open; that they didn’t use them in the open; that they associated with shady characters to obtain them; and that during that period there was a clear anti-steroids sentiment in the public. Heck, I wrote an article in the mid 80s (for a college journalism class) on steroids and sports. There was no lack of source material at the time. Just read SI articles from the 80s and early 90s. All of this strongly suggests that the players knew what they were getting into.
And the notion that we “really can’t know” whether steroids materially affected performance (and that it might have been the baseball or the new parks or better conditioning) again misses the point. Steroids allowed a small country to utterly dominate women’s swimming for more than a decade, by providing a small margin in strength and speed. We know this. Small margins among top athletes mean everything. This doesn’t mean that some of the steroid users in baseball weren’t among the greatest players of their time. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I wouldn’t vote some of them into the Hall if I had a vote (McGuire’s case is tougher than Bond’s). But please, Rob Neyer, don’t accuse those who disagree with your position of “self-righteousness.” And don’t pretend that these issues are so easy to grasp and resolve.
Thank you again, David, for your writings and links.