With the San Francisco Giants slugger now only two homers away from Hank Aaron's career record of 755, much to the embarrassment of Major League Baseball, it's worth reviewing a few points:
- Bonds didn't start baseball's steroid problem. We now know from inside sources that Bonds did not use steroids for his first 13 years in the league, 1986 through 1998.
- Bonds was clearly the greatest player of the 1990s, despite being clean for all but 1999. From 1990 through 1998, he led the National League in park-adjusted OPS+ four times, was second three times, and third twice. That's slightly better than his godfather Willie Mays' best nine year stretch.
- Bonds started taking steroids in 1999 because he was jealous of the credulous admiration paid to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for hitting all those homers in 1998. You kept hearing silly stuff like "McGwire and Sosa have returned the innocence to the game!" McGwire was caught with a steroid precursor in his locker in late 1998 and it still didn't instill many doubts. This drove Bonds crazy.
- Once Bonds got good at cheating with drugs in 2001, hitting a record 73 homers in 2001, he put up three seasons better than Babe Ruth's best (as measured by park-adjusted OPS+) at the ridiculously old ages of 36, 37, and 39.
- The reason Bonds was so much better than the other cheaters was because he'd been the best player in the game when he was clean. Bonds' normal talent + steroids = ludicrous ability.
- It was obvious that Bonds was cheating from 2001-2004. Nobody puts up those kinds of numbers at those ages. From 1986-1998, his career followed a normal arc (just at a much higher level than normal), with a peak at 27-28.
- Baseball stat guru Bill James was shamefully quiet during the many years while the steroid scourge distorted individual statistics, and he's not doing his reputation any favors by digging himself a deeper hole by still talking about Bonds' new wonder bat and other rationalizations.
- Bonds' late father Bobby was an extraordinary athlete who put up numbers that deserve Hall of Fame consideration, but teams had a hard time figuring out what to with him. And he smoked and drank heavily, which shortened his career to 15 years. Barry carefully avoided every mistake his father made.
- Barry was a nasty piece of work before he started on steroids, and they didn't improve his disposition.
- One reason steroid users tend to self-righteously deny accusations of steroid use is because they feel justified in their advantages because of all the weightlifting work they did. Steroids help your body recover from weightlifting faster, so users can work out a lot more.
- Steroid use in football appears to go back to the 1960s (quarterback John Hadl says his San Diego Charger teammates were popping steroids in 1966), but we don't have much evidence of it in baseball (a more lackadaisical game) before Jose Canseco arrived in 1986. (Here's my AmCon article on the history of steroids in baseball.)
- President Bush says he signed off on all Texas Rangers trades, which means he approved the 1992 trade that brought from the Oakland As to the Rangers Canseco, who had been accused of steroid use by Tom Boswell in the Washington Post back in 1988. Canseco's major accomplishment as a Ranger was having a fly ball bounce off his increasingly block-like head and over the fence for a homer.
- In general, I believe, California, perhaps because of the local Muscle Beach weightlifting culture, tended to be where steroids first had an impact on the various big-time sports.
- The popular governor of Bonds' state of California is muscle man Arnold Schwarzenegger, who began using steroids in Austria at around age 17 in 1964. I would imagine that Schwarzenegger used muscle-building drugs to get in shape for his comeback role in Terminator 3 in 2003, which helped launch his gubernatorial campaign.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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30 comments:
We now know from inside sources that Bonds did not use steroids for his first 13 years in the league, 1986 through 1998.
What "inside sources"? The link is to an article by you which makes this claim but offers no evidence for it.
McGwire was caught with a steroid precursor in his locker in late 1998 and it still didn't instill many doubts. This drove Bonds crazy.
A perfectly legal "steroid precursor". Funny that McGwire would be taking a mildly-effective "prohormone" that could be ordered out of the back any bodybuilding magazine at the time if he was juiced-to-the gills on the real thing. I'm not saying McGwire never did steroids, but as always Steve likes to minimize steroid use by black athletes while being quick to accuse white athletes.
But consider what's happening this season. It is a certainty that Bonds is clean, what with all the scrutiny he's under, yet he's still hitting home runs at a very respectable pace despite being at an age when the vast majority of players have retired. Note, in this context, that steroids have no continuing effects. Steroids taken in past years will not help anyone today.
Does anyone familiar with Rushton's work, know if testosterone levels vary across the Asian-white-black spectrum?
Arnold? Use steroids? Say it ain't so!
I doubt there is a sport where the rules aren't skirted somehow, performance enhancing drugs being no exception. Any amateur who has done research on going professional in pretty much any sport knows this.
As far as I can figure out, the charade is maintained because:
1. Such drugs have lots of nasty and often life shortening side effects, hence being illegal.
2. Those who would cheat can always stay several steps ahead of the testers, so conducting a "fair" competition is nigh impossible.
3. The better spectacle of enhanced competition is more profitable than a fair competition.
4. The public have a romantic notion that competitions in the public eye should be fair, and it should not require doing anything illegal to be able to win them.
Different sports have different extents to which drugs can have an effect.
Cycling is notorious for people dropping dead at an early age. VO2max is increased in some ungodly unhealthy ways. I'd be very skeptical that Lance Armstrong can compete and not be taking drugs.
Then there are your strength sports - football, powerlifting, etc, requiring the juice. Those people tend to drop dead early from heart attacks.
Some sports don't seem to lend themselves as well to drugs as "raw power" sports like football or weightlifting. Tennis is probably even a better example than baseball. The aerobic capacity thing is important, but not enough to where the cycling drugs will make or break you. And strength is not the limiting factor either. Too much bulk will slow down your direction changes and prematurely wreck your knees.
And then you have athletes like Fedor Emelianenko in Pride. Obviously juicing can help in such a sport (see Mark Coleman), but Fedor is just so good that he doesn't appear to need to juice.
Interesting that another nasty piece of work was baseball's most consistent hitter, Ty Cobb, an anti-black racist, who also reportedly cheated (he used the spikes on his shoes very effectively when he stole bases).
His base stealing record was of course beaten by a man who didn't cheat, well at least not on the field.
Dave
B-b-but Arnold condemned steroid use,and maintained he regretted his earlier use as a young man. He advised the "kids" to stay off that stuff,and be like him...clean! And now YOU,some internet writer,suggests he was using drugs as late as T-3?! I am shocked!!-shocked...As for Barry,Selig needs simply to say,"Yes,he cheated,and I wont be there and we'll put an aterisk by his number. And we'll asterisk Mark McGwire's ludicrous record too. Oh,BTW,I resign! Now,I can get you a deal on a new Focus that will knock your socks off..." :D
If steroids were available in the 1960's, then how can we be sure that Roger Maris didn't use them?
If he did, then obviously the moral high ground that his family occupies now would be undercut.
Granted that Maris's record-setting season took place while he was in his physical prime - 27 years old - and not at the unreal age of 37, the fact is that like Bonds, Maris never had another season like his 1961 season. He never hit as many as 40 home runs in a season before or after 1961.
I'm not aware that Maris ever demonstrated any symptoms of "roid rage". But it's well known that Roger Maris suffered significant hair loss during the 1961 season, and this was and still is widely attributed to the hostility that he suffered from a predatory New York press corps and baseball fans -- including Yankee fans -- who preferred that Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle (who also challenged the record) to himself.
But job pressure is a strange reason for a 27 year old man to lose his hair, when you come to think of it, and hair loss is certainly another possible side effect of steroids.
Dilution of pitching talent undoubtedly is another explanation for inflated home run figures, and Maris, McGwire, and Sosa all played during expansion years - 1961 and 1998.
One other ballplayer who had a remarkable and unnoticed 1961 season was Norm Cash of the Detroit Tigers.
A good ballhawk who was good for Darrell Evans-like number of .270 and 20-30 homers per year, Cash --who was also 27 in 1961 -- hit 41 home runs that year with an unreal .361 batting average.
He also must have benefited from expansion, and I think that he later acknowledged using a corked bat that year -- but still...
Good points Steve. I think the big problem with Bonds is his surly behavior. Americans like a certain style among athletes, and that's affable. They'll forgive a lot if that quality is there.
Sosa and McGwire got a pass because they appeared to be affable and approachable. Had Bonds even bothered to develop some schtick that got him over with fans it would be "steroids what?" But he embraced his inner jerk (like Ty Cobb) and it's cost him.
Maris, nah? There has been an enormous amount of sportswriter interest in that summer of 1961 in New York ever since (what with the NYC dominance of the sportswriting business, which was much worse back then), and nothing has ever turned up about Maris and steroids.
Maris was the reigning MVP, hitting 39 homers in 1960. Then, 1961 was an expansion year, so there were a lot of bad pitchers in the league. And, he got lucky: he hit 61 homers but only 16 doubles, which means that practically everything he hit hard that year went over the fence rather than off it.
After 1961, he got hurt and lost his power.
Anyway, the first test of steroid use is whether somebody lifts weights. They won't get much benefit from steroids without weightlifting.
Very, very few baseball players in 1961 lifted weights, so steroids were implausible.
Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa also benefited from expansion-era pitching but that doesn't detract from the case that they used steroids.
The fact that Maris had only 16 doubles in 1961 would add weight to the contention that he might have used steroids -- it would suggest that he had roughly the same number of "long hits" during expansion as he did before expansion but that his "long hits" simply traveled further -- much like the late accumulation of Bonds's "splash downs".
Doesn't Andrew Sullivan boast that his use of steroids enables him to achieve muscle growth without lifting weights?
In my what-if scenario, Maris might have experimented with steroids, experienced a certain amount of attitude change and side effects (hair loss) but did not take full advantage of the steroids due to the stigma against lifting weights that existed at the time among baseball players.
The fact that New York sportswriters who didn't like Maris never uncovered anything suggesting an illicit use of substances is a factor in Maris's favor -- but they might not have even been familiar with the notion of the use of drugs to improve performance.
I think that the biggest factors in Maris's favor are that he was apparently always very muscular and also that his playing weight remained constant throughout his career.
I'm not saying that Maris took steroids; I'm simply raising it as a possibility.
Here's a bit or irony: Barry Bonds has his people working behind the scenes to try to convince Hank Aaron to show-up to see his record broken (Bonds has even gone so far as to publicly promise to show up should A-Rod or someone else break his record). In other words, Bonds, who didn't respect Hank's achievement enough to challenge it fairly, is now desperate to avail himself of Hank's hard-earned credibility. Bonds fears -- correctly, I think -- that without Hank Aaron's blessing, his record will remain locked in purgatory.
Meanwhile, Barry's best friend rots in jail. No frantic, behind the scenes efforts going towards getting him there to view history. Of course, Greg Anderson can't do anything for Barry, right now.
A scumbag with a quick bat and a gifted eye is still a scumbag.
Peter,
Note, in this context, that steroids have no continuing effects. Steroids taken in past years will not help anyone today.
Nonsense. At the very least, an intelligent user will keep some of the muscle gains. Depending on the age of the user, it's also likely permanent masculinizing biochemical changes occur.
Steve,
Anyway, the first test of steroid use is whether somebody lifts weights. They won't get much benefit from steroids without weightlifting.
More nonsense. Anabolic steroids significantly increase strength, improve recovery ability, and shift body composition without weightlifting. Weightlifting is necessary to maximize these effects and maintain significant gains after ending steroid use.
Barry Bonds is a longtime friend of Victor Conte the BALCO wiz that designed the "clear" one of the most potent of steroid cocktails. To assume that he only started on some kind of drug regimen 13 years into his career is a bit naive. He was probably a long time user who amped up his program with HGH, insulin, etc. when McGwire and Sosa had their success.
To insinuate that Roger Maris playing in 1961 had any concept of using drugs such as steroids is so laugh out loud ridiculous that it exceeds the hilarity of people who still don't believe Bonds uses PED's.
Actually I think a good argument can be made that Babe Ruth used steroids because no one in the history of the game was both a great pitcher AND a great hitter. Ruth lost his hair too, and I once heard a story from a hooker that he had small testicles. So there you have it, possible proof that Ruth was a drug cheat too.
And Ty Cobb was a "cheater" because he used his spikes? WTF? I've looked through my baseball rule book for that rule that outlaws the sharpening of spikes but have been unable to find it. Cobb was, however, very aggressive and exhibited repeated episodes of "roid rage" so I think we can also consider that Cobb's many batting records were illegitimate due to his use of steroid.
Norm Cash, who also had a possible steroid tainted 1961 season (according to some people posting on this topic) happens to be one of my favorite players who I followed closely as a kid. To insinuate that he took any substance stronger then Jack Daniels is really getting waaaaay out there.
Not every position at football is going to be steroid-ridden.
High-skill positions where athleticism is probably secondary to skill would see far less of it, since the payoff is enhancing skill not pure strength. Examples would include QB, WR, TE, CB, FS, SS. And of course Kickers.
Linemen and running backs probably juice, carefully (a less careful Raider got suspended today for being caught juicing). Some Linebackers probably juice and some might not depending on if they need to be fast enough cover the pass or strong enough to rush or stop the run.
Just like Pitchers probably don't juice. There's an article today in the Weekend WSJ, on extensive bio-mechanics use by pitchers to extend their careers (clubs like it since they can sign them to lower-risk one year deals). Wells, Maddux, Johnson etc. all those guys over 40 have extensive bio-mechanic studies to insure the least amount of stress and most effective pitch selection.
Steroids are a response to competitive pressures, but bio-mechanics are too. As the money gets bigger players and teams will probably turn to this bio-mechanics usage as a way to get an edge.
If Bonds is "clean" now he may also be using bio-mechanics to perfect his swing and pitch selection. [stuff like bio-mechanics is probably less effective in football outside QBs and Kickers.]
No one except maybe Russian olympic athletes had steroids in 1961. It's ridiculous to suggest that Roger Maris might have used steroids.
My understanding is that some sports came to adopt steroids before others. Weightlifting may well have been the first. Dr. John Ziegler, associated with Strength & Health magazine (published by Bob Hoffman of York Barbell Company), is supposed to have been among the earlier people to develop steroids. In 1962, an older weightlifter (37?), Louis Riecke, came up from the 165 lb. class to the 181 lb. class to set a world record of 325 lbs. in the two-hands snatch. Prior to then he had been a 290 or so snatcher. Bob Hoffman, writing in Strength & Health, attributed the gain to "isometric contraction." This was one of the early and likely examples of steroid use in American sports. From that point on, steroid use spread like wildfire to virtually all of American weightlifting, and since the powerlifters and bodybuilders did training that was similar, and in some of the same gyms, it moved on to those sports as well. By the late 1960s football teams were hiring "strength coaches," who came straight out of the same weightlifting/powerlifting world. Women's competition in bodybuilding and powerlifting began in the late 1970s and was intially pretty clean, but by the mid-1980s nearly all the top competitors were on the stuff. Baseball seems to have been a relatively late arrival to the steroids game. It's hard for me to imagine that Roger Maris would have been ahead of the curve on this, as baseball coaches were not enthused about weight training at this time and steroid use would have been almost unthinkable. Today, I'd say nearly all the top athletes in sports where strength is a major advantage use steroids, human growth hormone, or some related product. As for Barry Bonds, he is the scapegoat for all this, guilty as sin, but no more so than many others. As someone else said, he is not "affable," making him an easy devil figure for the media to project.
like practically half the stuff that came out of the last century, germans developed anabolic steroids. heck, the man most directly responsible was a scientist in nazi germany named adolf butenandt. this was around 1935. he even got a nobel prize in chemistry for it in 1939. anabolic steroids spread across eastern europe for the next 20 years and did not get to the states until 1960 or so. no baseball players were using them then.
contrary to what peter said, you can keep some improvements made on steroids after you stop using them. but bonds also probably took human growth hormone, which helps longevity in other ways and can also have a permanent effect.
i don't know why people think that pitchers, kickers, or punters would not take steroids. pitchers definitely take steroids and have been caught and suspended. how would increasing the amount of force you can generate not increase the initial velocity of a ball that you that throw or kick? kickers and punters would definitely be interested in generating more force so they can kick or punt the ball farther.
i think the interesting thing is that steroids do not seem to be an issue in basketball.
**** To insinuate that Roger Maris playing in 1961 had any concept of using drugs such as steroids is so laugh out loud ridiculous ****
Well, that settles it then. JB Cash has declared it to be ridiculous. What can one do when faced with the crushing grip of empiricism?
***** Actually I think a good argument can be made that Babe Ruth used steroids because no one in the history of the game was both a great pitcher AND a great hitter.*****
However, decathalon champions have demonstrated an ability to excel in a number of different activities.
There probably was no such thing as steroids in Babe Ruth's time and there was also no striking improvement in his performance leading up to 1927 and no striking decline afterwards -- other than that which one would expect of an aging athlete.
Also, Ruth, from all accounts, enjoyed life and never demonstrated any of the surliness associated with steroid use.
***** Ruth lost his hair too, and I once heard a story from a hooker that he had small testicles. So there you have it, possible proof that Ruth was a drug cheat too.*****
Those things simply didn't happen. Babe Ruth didn't lose his hair in 1927 and you never spoke with a hooker who observed Babe Ruth's testicles.
***** And Ty Cobb was a "cheater" because he used his spikes? WTF? I've looked through my baseball rule book for that rule that outlaws the sharpening of spikes but have been unable to find it.*****
Empiricism marches on.
Cobb should have brought a shotgun into the ballpark then and mowed down his opponents with it.
That isn't forbidden in the baseball rulebook either.
***** Cobb was, however,
very aggressive and exhibited repeated episodes of "roid rage" so I think we can also consider that Cobb's many batting records were illegitimate due to his use of steroid.*****
A good deal of what's written on the Internet might as well have been written as a result of "roid rage".
***** Norm Cash, who also had a possible steroid tainted 1961 season (according to some people posting on this topic) happens to be one of my favorite players who I followed closely as a kid.*****
There's that crushing grip of empiricism yet again.
By sheer coincidence, Norm Cash was one of the favorite players of an individual who shares his surname so all discussion of how he was able to obtain a completely uncharacteristic .361 average is out the window -- though Norm Cash himself did later admit to having filled his bats with cork and other substances.
***** To insinuate that he took any substance stronger then Jack Daniels is really getting waaaaay out there.*****
To insinuate that O.J. Simpson would throw his life away over a woman when he had everything going for him and access to large numbers of women is also getting waaaaaay out there, but sometimes it's necessary to think out of the box.
I am insinuating nothing and simply wondering if substance abuse in major league baseball has an older pedigree than is generally believed.
synthetic male hormones dates back to the 30s & obviously the soviets used them in the 50s. i guess they might have been used earlier as well. amphetamine was used by athletes in the 30s...
How does anyone know that Bonds is "clean" this season, as some of the drugs he is accused of taking cannot be detected with the testing regimen used by MLB.
As per Maris' "16 doubles" in 1961, that is evidence of nothing except the fact (as James rightly writes) that the '61 Yankees have been grossly over-rated as an offensive unit. In fact, only 2 players on the entire team had at least 20 doubles for the season (!); the Yankee teams of the 50s and 60s were based on some guys hitting singles and some guys swinging for the fences. There weren't any Stan Musial/George Brett line drive types on those teams. No one on those teams was hitting doubles or triples and, aside from Mantle and a few isolated cases, no one drew walks either.
So, the vaunted '61 Yankees didn't even lead their own league in runs scored, were outscored by many teams of the 60s and 70s, including the 1977 Yankess (also an expansion year), which, in my opinion, were a better and more balanced team that actually did things other than hit homers.
The idea that Maris was "on steroids" in '61 is absurd. Here was a good player, having a fluke year in an expansion year - the same as Cash (who was using a corked bat).
His record on doubles that year says nothing about "steroids" and says much instead about the one-dimmensional offenses the Stengel-Houk teams of that era were using.
They were successful, no doubt, as that strategy was an extreme form of 1950s baseball. But out of context, they really don't seem all that impressive.
Mantle and Ford were the only players on the '61 Yankees who were a) great players and b) still in their prime.
Berra was a truly great player, but a plodding left fielder by then.
No steriods for Maris in '61. And no evidence that Bonds is "clean" in '07.
Steve, by the way, is giving us the censored version of Bonds' opinion of McGwire's 1998 season. Where's the term "white boy" that was used in that context? As in "great white hope" (Van Slyke) or "I don't sign for white people", or "I don't give my money to white people", or "forget about Ruth."
Of course, "racism" with respect to Bonds must be white racism against Barry, the king of tolerance.
Stix on Bonds:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/blog/stix/2005/06/barry-bonds-racistby-nicholas-stix.html
Stix of course leaves out much, like the comments made by Bonds about why Bonds never helped out Anderson and his comments about van Slyke. But, hey, given the torrent of anti-white hate spewing out of Bonds on a regular basis, it is understandable why some may be missed.
By the way, when are Bonds and Sheffield going to be disciplined a la John Rocker?
I mean, there isn't like, you know, some sort of reason why the sets of comments are treated differently, is there?
re: mcgwire. steroid precursors don't work. androstenedione would not have done mcgwire much good. that's not to say he wasn't using the real stuff. he probably was less careful about hiding the andro because it was legal at the time.
Why is everyone so worked up over this? Professional sports these days is just a big waste of time. Think about all the productive things people would do if they weren't stuck in front of the tube watching sports 3 hours a day. All the things they wouldn't buy if they weren't bombarded by constant advertising and star endorsements. All the kids that would have more realistic role models instead of overpayed sports stars.
Considering that professional sports is unattainable for 99% of the population because of bad genetics, how is it unfair for someone to up their advantage to increase their productivity? Everyone drinks caffeine at work, and every other college student takes ritalin. That's our society.
Posthumanism is inevitable because we shouldn't let our genes determine us. We should determine our genes.
Wasn't runty Arnie ( probably no taller than 5" 10" at most ) sponsoring body-building shows not too long before becoming guv?
And wasn't Ah-nuld thereby implicitly endorsing steroids for muscle building?
So do you think Serena Williams is on steroids?
Look at this picture.
Regardig Bonds,there are only 2 alternatives. Either Barry started taking steriods cicra 1998 or he's the stupidist ballplayer in the history of the game.
If Barry has NOT been taking roids that means he's gained all that stegnth and power from weight traing.
Well, if so, that means Barry could have been lifting weights, and banging 60 homers a year in 1990.
Except he was too stupid or lazy to start serious wieght training until he was 37 years old.
I don't think Barry is stupid. And I don't think you start hitting more Homeruns when you're 37 than age 27. Unless you're taking drugs.
Here's a thought, maybe Robinson was taking Roids in '47. Great performance, hot temper, fights, it all fits.
Grizzlie Antagonist wrote:
"I am insinuating nothing and simply wondering if substance abuse in major league baseball has an older pedigree than is generally believed."
You accuse me of empiricism then admit your whole line of reasoning on Roger Maris and steroids is "wondering" WOW! now that's the "rational" approach.
A good ol' boy ball player in 1960 America wasn't sticking syringe's in his ass to boost his performance. That accusation is a smear based on a ridiculous premise. There is not a single whit of evidence you could present to make such a case therefore the very idea was worthy of ridicule.
Which BTW I attempted to do by making the even more absurd comment that Ruth and Cobb might have been steroid users at an even earlier and more improbable time. I guessed you missed out on that subtle dig.
As to me being a fan of Norm Cash due to my last name being the same, is it really so improbable that a kid growing up in Detroit in the 1960's with the last name of Cash would become a fan of a local star player with the same name? I think not.
You should stop smearing old ballplayers, men who were true representatives of the game. The stories about Cash corking his bat were hyperbole that Cash told after his retirement to stir up interest in his yarns in the same way old timers often retell tales from the old days.
There's no evidence he ever did it in 1961. A corked bat would only help with homeruns anyway not the base hits that give one a high batting average. Since he was not suspected of using a corked bat that year why wouldn't he have used it until he was caught but he never hit like that again. Nobody did. That year was an anomoly, maybe besides expansion they used juiced balls? Who knows, maybe everyone was just fired up that year. You don't know and neither do I. But it sure as heck wasn't steroids.
1961---- Maris leads with "61" homeruns, Cash hits ".361" coincidence?
The posters "wondering" if Maris or other old-time players used steroids are just trying to divert attention from the FACT that Bonds did steroids. That is undeniable. There is no evidence at all that Maris or the others did steroids. It's amazing that some would carry water for a scumbag like Bonds. He cheated and deserves to be banned from baseball.
Steroids get all the attention but amphetamines were widely used in baseball for a long time. Anyone know when amphetamine use started?
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