There's an old French saying, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," which--freely translated-- means the more things change, the more they stay the same. People often like to say that baseball games are one of the few events that a time-traveler from, say, 1910, would find had changed the least. Baseball fans tend to be purists (except when it suits them not to be), and are resistant to change. While I am hardly a fan of the designated hitter rule (although, as a Yankee fan, it has served me and my team very well), it is absurd to have the two leagues play by such different rules.
In viewing baseball statistics with a telescope, it will be pretty easy to measure the height of the steroid era by the number of players who had career-high home run years. Amazing as the Maris-Mantle 61 and 54 home runs were in that asterisk year of 1961, the McGwire/Sosa experience of 70 and 66 was positively astonishing, only to be soon eclipsed by Barry Bonds's 73 in 2001 (the year Sammy Sosa hit 66!). What in the world, we wondered, was going on? All too soon alas, we knew. Steroids, which had seemed to be (medical uses apart) the sacred precinct of grotesquely developed bodybuilders, was apparently the drug of choice of many of our favorite ballplayers.
When I was a kid in the early 50's, the only active-duty players who had ever hit over 50 home runs in a single season were Pittsburgh slugger Ralph Kiner, and the New York Giants' Johnny Mize. The others were an incredibly small circle of greats: Babe Ruth (four times), Jimmie Foxx (twice), and Hank Greenberg and Hack Wilson once each. That was it until a couple of New York boys named Mantle and Mays joined the club, followed by Roger Maris's finally breaking the Babe's record. From 1961 until 1990, only a single player had joined the elite 50+ club, and that was Cincinnati stalwart, George Foster in 1977.
Since 1990, it has been done no fewer than twenty-five times, with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire leading the pack with four 50+ seasons each (50, 63, 64, and 66 for Sammy, and 52, 58, 65 and 70 for Mark, respectively), and Alex Rodriguez three times (52, 54, and 57). Interestingly, Bonds's record-breaking 73 home runs in 2001 was the only time he ever hit more than 49 in a single season. While we will never know how many of these homers would have been hit had these men not been "under the influence," their records will be forever tainted. What seemed too good to be true, as with most things in that category, turned out to be just that, at least in the sense of being unaided. One thing which is ironic (and a bit sad) is that Alex Rodriguez (like Bonds, a great player with or without steroids) has almost certainly fared as well without steroids as he did with them.
Whatever your (or my) opinion on whether or not these "steroid era" achievements should eliminate any (known) players from Hall of Fame contention, it certainly has had an effect on McGwire and Sosa, and will doubtless be a major issue with the recently (and barely) convicted Barry Bonds. One of the things that prompted this blog was an article in the April 15th edition of the New York Times, in which sportswriter William Rhoden raised the "era" issue, in (somewhat) equating the record-distorting effect of steroids giving players an advantage analogous to hitters who didn't have to face black pitchers (in the pre-Jackie Robinson days), and that this advantage somehow inflated their batting achievements due to the presumed lessened competition. While there is no question that integration has greatly increased the talent pool in major league baseball (much as its absence constituted a moral outrage that outraged all too few until Branch Rickey, as it were, stepped up to the plate), we have to be careful not to let all sports records be rationalized in the name of "moral equivalence."
Baseball has been a game of many changes, some large, some small. While many people remember the advent of the designated hitter rule (extending the life of many an aging slugger no longer able to play the field--hell, Babe Ruth could still be playing if the DH rule applied in the mid-30's), few recall the 1969 decision to lower the pitcher's mound from fifteen to ten inches--a clear concession to struggling batsmen. The increase (by eight games) from a 154-game season to the current 162 caused quite a stir when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's then record of 60 home runs in a single season. Many demanded that an asterisk be placed next to Maris's accomplishment, lest anyone think that he had beaten the Babe fair and square. One thing, however, that is rarely discussed in comparing statistics from one era to another is, what, in my view is the single most distorting "innovation" on baseball history.
Most of today's fans are (understandably) too young to remember the days two leagues with eight teams each. With twenty-five man rosters, the major leagues were limited to (hopefully) the best 400 players in professional baseball, with the rest relegated to the minors, where they would strive, with some degree of success, to make it to the Show. Some genius (or geniuses) decided that baseball would be twice as popular and twice as much fun (not to mention twice as profitable) if they doubled the number of teams. We now have an American League of fourteen teams, and a National League of sixteen teams (Why fourteen and sixteen?, I hear you ask. It's a good question. Apparently, an odd number of teams in each league--say, 15 each--would have caused scheduling problems. Bud Selig solved this problem by volunteering that his Milwaukee Brewers move from the A.L. to the N.L. Odd as the 14/16 split may appear, a different number of even teams is less odd than the same number of odd teams. )
When you virtually double the number of major league baseball players (from 400 to 775), where do these new players come from? Either from washed up major-leaguers no one else would sign on waivers--think the '62 Mets--or from the minor leagues. One does not have to be a sabermetrician to measure the likely diminution in the talent pool when you double the number of players. The math is simple--approximately half of the hitters will be facing pitchers (half of whom) they will not be able to hit at the "major league" level, and, correspondingly, half the pitchers will not be up to the task of getting out half the batters they face with the degree of ability and consistency now required of them. But hey, it sold tickets. Obviously, this is ancient history, and perhaps the combination of lesser batters and lesser pitchers facing better pitchers and better batters (or some combination thereof ) cancel each other out and the record books don't change all that much. (And, in fairness, the records didn't change that much until the steroid era. True, we haven't seen any .400 hitters since 1941 or 30 game winners since Denny McClain, but maybe night baseball and five-pitcher rotations have made such records unbreakable.)
That said, I submit that the increase in roster size was a change in kind (and not simply in degree), and this has altered the equation in ways that are hard to measure. What is clear, is that many people wearing major league uniforms would not have made those same teams forty years ago. As a result, good pitchers will, by and large, have an easier go of it than did their predecessors, and good hitters will similarly do better against a lesser universe of pitchers.
I'd be especially interested in hearing from retired ball-players (or coaches) who have been able to judge the changes in the talent pool on a first-hand basis. Until then, I rest my case. And, oh yeah, play ball!
In viewing baseball statistics with a telescope, it will be pretty easy to measure the height of the steroid era by the number of players who had career-high home run years. Amazing as the Maris-Mantle 61 and 54 home runs were in that asterisk year of 1961, the McGwire/Sosa experience of 70 and 66 was positively astonishing, only to be soon eclipsed by Barry Bonds's 73 in 2001 (the year Sammy Sosa hit 66!). What in the world, we wondered, was going on? All too soon alas, we knew. Steroids, which had seemed to be (medical uses apart) the sacred precinct of grotesquely developed bodybuilders, was apparently the drug of choice of many of our favorite ballplayers.
When I was a kid in the early 50's, the only active-duty players who had ever hit over 50 home runs in a single season were Pittsburgh slugger Ralph Kiner, and the New York Giants' Johnny Mize. The others were an incredibly small circle of greats: Babe Ruth (four times), Jimmie Foxx (twice), and Hank Greenberg and Hack Wilson once each. That was it until a couple of New York boys named Mantle and Mays joined the club, followed by Roger Maris's finally breaking the Babe's record. From 1961 until 1990, only a single player had joined the elite 50+ club, and that was Cincinnati stalwart, George Foster in 1977.
Since 1990, it has been done no fewer than twenty-five times, with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire leading the pack with four 50+ seasons each (50, 63, 64, and 66 for Sammy, and 52, 58, 65 and 70 for Mark, respectively), and Alex Rodriguez three times (52, 54, and 57). Interestingly, Bonds's record-breaking 73 home runs in 2001 was the only time he ever hit more than 49 in a single season. While we will never know how many of these homers would have been hit had these men not been "under the influence," their records will be forever tainted. What seemed too good to be true, as with most things in that category, turned out to be just that, at least in the sense of being unaided. One thing which is ironic (and a bit sad) is that Alex Rodriguez (like Bonds, a great player with or without steroids) has almost certainly fared as well without steroids as he did with them.
Whatever your (or my) opinion on whether or not these "steroid era" achievements should eliminate any (known) players from Hall of Fame contention, it certainly has had an effect on McGwire and Sosa, and will doubtless be a major issue with the recently (and barely) convicted Barry Bonds. One of the things that prompted this blog was an article in the April 15th edition of the New York Times, in which sportswriter William Rhoden raised the "era" issue, in (somewhat) equating the record-distorting effect of steroids giving players an advantage analogous to hitters who didn't have to face black pitchers (in the pre-Jackie Robinson days), and that this advantage somehow inflated their batting achievements due to the presumed lessened competition. While there is no question that integration has greatly increased the talent pool in major league baseball (much as its absence constituted a moral outrage that outraged all too few until Branch Rickey, as it were, stepped up to the plate), we have to be careful not to let all sports records be rationalized in the name of "moral equivalence."
Baseball has been a game of many changes, some large, some small. While many people remember the advent of the designated hitter rule (extending the life of many an aging slugger no longer able to play the field--hell, Babe Ruth could still be playing if the DH rule applied in the mid-30's), few recall the 1969 decision to lower the pitcher's mound from fifteen to ten inches--a clear concession to struggling batsmen. The increase (by eight games) from a 154-game season to the current 162 caused quite a stir when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's then record of 60 home runs in a single season. Many demanded that an asterisk be placed next to Maris's accomplishment, lest anyone think that he had beaten the Babe fair and square. One thing, however, that is rarely discussed in comparing statistics from one era to another is, what, in my view is the single most distorting "innovation" on baseball history.
Most of today's fans are (understandably) too young to remember the days two leagues with eight teams each. With twenty-five man rosters, the major leagues were limited to (hopefully) the best 400 players in professional baseball, with the rest relegated to the minors, where they would strive, with some degree of success, to make it to the Show. Some genius (or geniuses) decided that baseball would be twice as popular and twice as much fun (not to mention twice as profitable) if they doubled the number of teams. We now have an American League of fourteen teams, and a National League of sixteen teams (Why fourteen and sixteen?, I hear you ask. It's a good question. Apparently, an odd number of teams in each league--say, 15 each--would have caused scheduling problems. Bud Selig solved this problem by volunteering that his Milwaukee Brewers move from the A.L. to the N.L. Odd as the 14/16 split may appear, a different number of even teams is less odd than the same number of odd teams. )
When you virtually double the number of major league baseball players (from 400 to 775), where do these new players come from? Either from washed up major-leaguers no one else would sign on waivers--think the '62 Mets--or from the minor leagues. One does not have to be a sabermetrician to measure the likely diminution in the talent pool when you double the number of players. The math is simple--approximately half of the hitters will be facing pitchers (half of whom) they will not be able to hit at the "major league" level, and, correspondingly, half the pitchers will not be up to the task of getting out half the batters they face with the degree of ability and consistency now required of them. But hey, it sold tickets. Obviously, this is ancient history, and perhaps the combination of lesser batters and lesser pitchers facing better pitchers and better batters (or some combination thereof ) cancel each other out and the record books don't change all that much. (And, in fairness, the records didn't change that much until the steroid era. True, we haven't seen any .400 hitters since 1941 or 30 game winners since Denny McClain, but maybe night baseball and five-pitcher rotations have made such records unbreakable.)
That said, I submit that the increase in roster size was a change in kind (and not simply in degree), and this has altered the equation in ways that are hard to measure. What is clear, is that many people wearing major league uniforms would not have made those same teams forty years ago. As a result, good pitchers will, by and large, have an easier go of it than did their predecessors, and good hitters will similarly do better against a lesser universe of pitchers.
I'd be especially interested in hearing from retired ball-players (or coaches) who have been able to judge the changes in the talent pool on a first-hand basis. Until then, I rest my case. And, oh yeah, play ball!
