JAG’s Sports Blog

The winner of the Albert Pujols UD Mini-Jersey was reader Utenzi. Utenzi won because I think his answers and overall attitude most closely mirrors my thoughts on this subject of steroids in sports and fans that don’t simply react to not liking Barry Bonds whether they admit to it or not. His arguments were as follows:

“I don’t worry about steroid use by baseball players. While there’s a certain percentage of athletes in any sport that will do anything legal and many things illegal to gain an advantage, the majority will just play the game doing nothing wrong and with a clear conscious.”

Another reason that I don’t worry about steroid use in baseball is that it doesn’t convey the extreme advantage as it would in a “strength sport” like weightlifting or even football. Speed and agility, especially bat speed, count for more than pure strength. Hell, even a spindly pitcher will occasionally lift one out of the park albeit only once in a while–it’s timing more than strength that makes for a high batting average.

I do agree that in limited amounts gaining strength will be an advantage to a player, but the large gains that steroids provide won’t turn an average joe into a pro athlete nor an everyday player into a superstar.

Brian responded nicely “Utenzi, the numbers say you’re wrong on the advantage. Take a look at Bonds’s numbers pre and post 1998, including batting average. You can say it’s coincidence it jumped 50 points or so, but more strength = more bat speed.

As for steroids themselves, I’m of two minds on the matter. I don’t really care that they used, as I’d have done the same thing in their position. As a business decision, it’d be stupid not to. (I’d likely leave out the HGH for reasons of not wanting an overgrown head.) I’m also not a huge baseball fan, so that must be taken into account.

The other side of it is the arrogance with which they’ve done it, though. My favorite is the “it wasn’t against the rules of baseball” rationale. It’s against US LAW. I’m pretty sure baseball never explicitly stated you can’t murder people either - does that mean it’s okay to do so?

Tyler’s commented ” I believe, if you were to poll America, you’d find that they’d rather go to a 9-inning baseball game with no homeruns, that ended in a 1-0 score that they knew was legit (not assisted by steroids or other performance enhancing drugs) than go to a game that was 15-14 with 12 home runs per team. If you want huge guys in uniforms scoring 15-20 points a game, go watch football, and turn your attention to the NFL. Keep baseball pure”.

Utenzi responded back with “Not me, Tyler. I like to see homeruns. They’re quite thrilling. When I was in Atlanta, at the old Fulton County stadium, the chop making the stands look alive, the chant going on filling the air with noise and excitement, when a homerun was hit the crowd would jump to its collective feet and cheer or groan. Nothing else like that, Tyler”.

I feel that steroids can increase strength, but it doesn’t make your bat quicker. Brian is right that Bonds’ batting average did increase over that 7-year stretch of possible steroid use , but that can also have an explanation. Bonds averaged 30 home runs a season his first 12 seasons (1994 season, he hit 18, but strike season) and averaged 47 from 1998-2005. That’s an increase of 17 home runs per season. A home run has the same affect on your average as a single, so that’s 17 home runs a season and that doesn’t add up to his batting average going up 50 points.

In Bonds’ case, I believe yes, steroids could have increased the distance of his hits that increased his home run totals, but it’s his patience at the plate that accounted for the dramatic rise in his batting average. There’s no way he was as patient at the plate when he was younger. Watch his plate appearances over the last 7 years and rarely did you ever see Bonds swing at a bad ball. Blame the umpires for not calling anything close a strike to force Bonds to have to decide on chasing a close pitch. Bonds would possibly get 3 or 4 pitches every game to swing at and that certainly makes it easier to get a great cut if you know you’ll only swing at the perfect pitch each at bat.

To Utenzi’s point that he prefers home runs to a great pitched game, I agree totally. I think fans love to see home runs first and that’s why the McGwire and Sosa chase in 1998 captivated the American public’s attention. Watching a no-hitter from a pitcher happens so infrequently, it’s considered a great feat in sports. Would fans want to watch it every game though, I don’t think so. If Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens had a 1-0 showdown every time they faced each other, great thing, but a couple of no-name pitchers doing it every game, kind of boring. I found myself kind of sighing when there’s a lack of offense in baseball games and I specifically mean in a professional game. That’s why fans didn’t care how bulked up Sosa and McGwire got while hitting those home runs in every game between the two of them.

Utenzi wins this battle, but we’ll come up with another topic soon to see who can make the best argument. I would be willing to give a large pennant to anyone that will write a story on the NFL draft and the effect it will have on future drafts with Houston passing on Reggie Bush and signing and drafting Mario Williams instead. Give me your opinion on what happened and what it did to the rest of the draft choices and how players and their agents will react in the future when they negotiate for a monster salary or will they try and strain every penny out after they see a team pass and go to their next pick.