True that. One of the most interesting things about this year's steroids revelations is that every passing day makes accused liar Jose Canseco seem more and more candid. The guy now seems like the George Washington of baseball. Like Jim Bouton before him, Canseco actually pissed off baseball insiders not by telling lies, but by telling the truth.Ortiz's records always seemed suspicious to me. His last two years with the Twins, he hit .234 and .272 with 18 and 20 homers, and on-base percentages below .340. He then went to the Red Sox in 2003 and in each of the next five years he placed in the top five in the MVP balloting. Do you find it surprising that he was found to be juiced in 2003. If so, I have a large and famous bridge I'd like to sell you.
Were any of the era's greats free from the juice? It seems to me that Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux probably were, given that steroids build muscle mass and those guys never appeared to have any muscles. As for the big hitters, maybe Ken Griffey was clean. I've never heard anything to implicate him.
Friday, July 31, 2009
"David Ortiz looks like one of the television evangelists who gets caught in a seedy motel with a hooker."
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Griffey was probably clean. I shudder to think what he could have done 'roided up.
ReplyDeleteRecently on XM's baseball channel, a former MLBer (I forget who, I want to say Carl Everett) hypothesized that Bonds got on the juice in response to the Sosa-McGwire home run chase in '98. His thought was that Bonds, knowing he was the best player in the game at the time, felt shown up by the juicers and knew he'd blow up the record book if he got on the stuff, too. So he did, essentially deciding, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
I haven't seen any before-and-after photos of him to suggest steroid use, but you have to wonder how long it is before whispers start about Mike Piazza, who went from being signed to a contract only as a personal favor to arguably the best-hitting catcher in the history of the game.
In the end, if steroid use was as widespread as it seems to have been, it created an even playing field within that time. Historical perspective is what will forever be called into question.