What You Didn't Know

....about performance enhancing drugs in baseball. 

Be warned.  This is long and all over the place.......

Now, I don't "know stuff" (if you can call it that) because I know people....I know stuff because I read until my eyes bleed.  And, it  amazes me how naive we can be.  Actually, how naive I have been!

For years there was complete denial by the average fan that there were steroids in baseball.  Steroids don't help you hit a baseball, they help you run fast and lift weights.  They are useless in baseball.  We talked about watered down pitching, a juiced ball, different bat manufactures, temperature changes and altitude to justify escalating home run totals. 

The increase in home runs was dramatic.  The average team hit 119.88 home runs per season during the 1970's.  In the 80's it went to 126.7 per season.  The 90's saw an increase to 147.83 per year.  Finally in the 00's each team average 173.83 home runs per year.  A whopping 47 home runs a season better than the 1970's.  Let's talk about what that really looks like.  George Bell won the MVP in 1987 with 47 home runs.  That's like adding George Bell's bat to your roster every year for 10 years.  That is nuts!

How naive we were and continued to be.  The backlash against the reporter for 'detecting' the Androstenedione in Mark McGwire's locker was ridiculous.  First the was the word what it wasn't a steroid, it was merely a "pre-cursor".  The writer, Steve Wilstein was ridiculed for snooping and prying.  Forgotten in the melee was McGwire saying that a) he had used it for more than a year and b) that everyone he knew in baseball used it.  I'd encourage reading Wilsteins' article. 

We believed what we wanted to believe.  We were helped along in those beliefs by the people who SHOULD have known.  By people that we mistakenly trusted.  Jason Giambi, "Steroids don't help you hit a baseball".  Mark McGwire, "Everybody I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use." Dusty Baker, "It's like McCarthyism or something." Tony LaRussa, "We detailed Mark's workout routine -- six days a week, 12 months a year -- and you could see his size and weight gain come through really hard work, a disciplined regimen". 

The naivety continued.  The world of baseball hitters began to unravel, and people, who a week before didn't believe steroids were a problem; became experts on what to look for and how to tell if someone way using simply by looking at them.  Yes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing as people pontificated about how 'roids can "obviously" make a hitter better, but did nothing for pitchers.  CLEARLY!

Then the pitchers began to fall.  Montero, Rincon, Betancourt, Franklin, Almanzar, Heredia, Grimsley, Mota, Salas, J.C. Romero, Volquez....then it stopped being mostly Latin pitchers "looking for an edge" and the big ones came out;  Ankiel, Pettitte and then Clemens.  So then the experts that dismissed the benefits for pitchers became experts there too.  Obviously pitchers use!

The problems of steroids had been known in football for years and has been addressed to at least some level of satisfaction.  Baseball chose not to for a long time.  This isn't unusal for baseball.  "Slow to change" is an understatement.  Its well documented that Jackie Robinson 'broke the colour barrier' in 1947.  A task that had been acheived in the NFL in 1920.  Blacks had been playing professional basketball since 1903 in leagues that predated the formation of the NBA.  Don't be lulled into the thinking that Jackie Robinson suddenly changed the world.  He changed the world (of baseball) alright, but not suddenly.  The Boston Red Sox were the last team to allow a black man on the field and that took another 12 years unitl 1959.  FOOTNOTE:  The Red Sox worked out Robinson in Fenway Park in 1945 but opted not to offer a contract.  This was primarily due to threats from a city councilor who promised to reinstate a Sunday alochol ban at Fenway if they picked him up.     

Steroids and HGH may be a bigger problem in basketball and hockey than in either football or baseball; but you will never find out.  A lack of evidence is not to be confused with a non-guilty verdict.  The naivety is here too.  Now that it's history and accepted people can point to bats being snapped like tooth pics over peoples knees and balls being thrown at fans as obvious indicators of steroids. 

But attacking someone from behind and mashing their head into the ice, or going into the stands from the penalty box or screaming at the official with every infraction isn't even more obvious?  Of course it isn't.  The lemmings aren't on that bus yet.  People WANT to believe the 'kid from the hood' story or the 'good old Kingston boy' story.  And can't see what is so obviously sitting in front of them.  I look at this a lot like the  argument about security on a MAC.  People will go on forever about how the MAC is virus proof and that all the problems with viruses are on PCs.  That is partially true.  However, less that 5% of population have MACs.  Hackers / virus creators aren't intimidated by MACs, they just don't care.  Its the same with Hockey and basketball.  Both sorta register to the north American market, but compared to Football and Baseball, they're barely a blip.  There will be meaningful steroid and HGH testing in Mixed Beach Volleyball before there is in hockey or basketball. No one cares enough. 

So while we fool ourselves about our various sports, what is over looked is that this isn't the first dramatic rise in home runs and performance in baseball.  The increase in home runs from the 70's to the 00's was 46%.  From the 1940's to the 1960's the increase was 63%.

Every sport has their player that changes everything.  Baseball had Ruth.  Hockey Gretzky.  Basketball Chamberlain.  Football Jim Brown.  But this home run increase didn't involve Ruth.  During Ruth's heyday, the 1920's, the average team hit 61 home runs a season.  During that same 10 year period Ruth hit 60 once, 50+ three times and 40+ another four times.  Anyway, why such a dramatic increase in home runs after Ruth was out of the game?

We can't discount the Ruth affect.  It did change the game.  The home run did become a much bigger part of the game plan and players actually tried for them more in the past.  That's fair.  But I think people have tried for 200 point seasons since Gretzky, yet I havent' seen any for a while.

Let's look at what Bud Selig says.  If you're at all interested in what follows, I strongly recommend reading the following article by Jake Emen.  According to Selig, who IS THE COMMISSIONER, "We have the toughest testing program in American sports. We banned amphetamines, which were a problem in our sport for seven or eight decades."  Everybody get that?

So....I get out my trusty calendar.  Selig made this statement in 2007....1997(1), 1987(2), 1977(3), 1967(4), 1957(5), 1947(6), 1937(7).  Lets give Bud the benefit of the doubt and take the short end of his prediction.  This poses a couple of interesting questions; namely: 

1)   Are amphetamines REALLY a performance enhancer?
2)   Is he right?  Can it be proven?

The first one has a lot of contradictory information contained within it.  Amphetamines, for starters, are speed.  They are an upper that immediately impact the central nervous system.  To make this short and remove a lot of the medical jargon, they have a similar effect to both cocaine and adrenaline, but last significantly longer.  Current research has shown that 10-30 mg dosages of methamphetamine can increase reaction times and cognitive function.

To me it sounds like a performance enhancer.

But that's me. 

There is a contingent, a non-medical contingent I should say, that feel that amphetamines are NOT performance enhancers at all.  That they merely allow an athlete to play up to their potential consistently and not necessarily to exceed it.  I think its a fair discussion, however I do come down clearly on the other side of this.  And considering that there are medical studies proving increased performance, its tough to argue anything else. 

The second part:  is Selig right in that there is / was a multi-decade problem and secondly, can that be proven?

To answer that, let me take you back to 2003.  Actually 2002.  The Players association and MLB agreed to initiate steroid testing for the 2003 season in August of 2002.  There were rules around this.  a) all tests were to remain anonymous.  b)  no player would be punished for positive results.  c)  if more than 5% were found to test positive, then testing with punishments would start the following year.

14.4% of players in major league baseball tested positive.  Now, lets start with the premise that you'd have to be an idiot to be caught.  Maybe I'm being naive again, but I would think that if you told 720 kids that you were going to do a blood test to see if they had cookies in their blood stream and that you'd continue to test them and spank them if more than 36 of them were caught; you'd end up with few if any being caught.  And the ones that you did catch would be arrogant or stupid.

Is it possible that a disproportionate number of ball players are arrogant or stupid?  Yep.  But I also think that the overwhelming majority are afraid of public opinion and are reasonably intelligent.  In other words, I believe that the overwhelming majority of users did not get caught.

Instead of making assumptions of how many users of steroids that I think there have been, I think that we can be reasonably safe in using the numbers floated by a couple of steroid experts. 

Ken Caminiti:  "50% of players are using steroids"
Jose Canseco:  "80% of players have used steroids"

There were 720 players in major league baseball in 2004.  104 were caught red handed with steroids.  Not pre-cursors, not HGH, not stimulants.  Steroids.  Caminiti thinks they caught just 104 of approximately 360 users and Canseco puts it at 104 of 576.  Personally, I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  So for argument sake, lets put it more than half. 

What is the likelihood that any of the people tested in 2004 had used it for the first time on the day before they were tested?  We know that lots of people were using in the 90's and 80's.  We KNOW for a fact, because he's admitted it, that Canseco was using in his MVP year in 1986.  Does anyone believe he was the first?  Jose seems like a fairly charming guy, buy not terribly shrewd.  He had to learn from someone.  He was drafted as and 18 years old, didn't go to college and was in the majors at 21.  I don't think he had a lot of "doctor" friends. 

My point is, there weren't SUDDENLY 360+ steroid users in baseball.  It had to escalate.  Ground zero is near impossible to determine, although I have my own idea on that toward the end of this if you're still awake.  So, lets say, early to mid eighties through to mid 2000's as the ramp up for steroids...20 years.  20ish. 

Now back to Amphetamines.  Most people are aware of Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four" published in 1970 and recounted his days with the Yankees, Astros and Pilots.  Bouton gives detailed accounts of "greenies" (amphetamines) that are handed out from player to player on the team.  That was the 60's.  That was the New York Yankees.  "We’ve been running short of greenies.  We don’t get them from the trainer, because greenies are against club policy.  So we get them from players on other teams who have friends who are doctors, or friends who know where to get greenies.  One of our lads is going to have a bunch of greenies mailed to him by some of the guys on the Red Sox.  And to think you can spend five years in jail for giving your friend a marijuana cigarette."

I think its fair to assume that the mid sixties with amphetamines looked a lot like the mid 2000's with steroids.  The only people who weren't using them were the ones who made the personal decision not to.  It had nothing to do with availability or cost or even risk.  It was just personal.

So now, how long did it take amphetamines to ramp up like it took steroids to?  If you use the same (slightly fabricated) timeline of 20 years(ish), you'd be back at the mid 40's.  Which kind of make sense for a couple of reasons.  One reason is that it coinsides nicely with Bud's timeline and the second is that there amphetimines had an entry route into baseball at this time. 

Finding evidence and a timeline is really tough on this one.  The media hid a lot.  Sorry, but its true.  They were in the business of building heroes to sell newspapers; long before they realized that breaking down those same heroes sold even more fish wrap.  Remember, the national media didn't even let the public know that their president was an invalid in a wheel chair.  Times were different.  But....there is some purely circumstantial evidence that you can interpret how you like.

For the current affair, lets go back to another Caminiti claim that 90% of the league was using some form of stimulant.  He said, "You hear it all the time from teammates, 'You're not going to play naked, are you?' Even the guys who are against greenies may be popping 25 caffeine pills, and they're up there [at bat] with their hands shaking. This game is so whacked out that guys will take anything to get an edge. You got a pill that will make me feel better? Let me have it"

And that's backed up by Chad Curtis.  Does anyone remember Chad Curtis?  He played from '92 - '01 with the Angels, Tigers, Dodgers, Indians and Rangers.  But he's best remembered for a 3 year stint with the Yankees which saw 2 World Series wins.  I liked him a lot.  An above average outfielder with near blinding speed and was one of those guys who seemed to do more at the plate that others who were obviously more skilled.  He was kind of like John MacDonald, with more talent.  "You might have one team where eight guys play naked and another team where nobody does, but that sounds about right," (substantiating the 90% claim) "Sometimes guys don't even know what they're taking. One guy will take some pills out of his locker and tell somebody else, 'Here, take one of these. You'll feel better.' The other guy will take it and not even know what it is."

Yeah, there are issues.  But we know we have that today.  What about the 'ago'?

Again.  This stuff is tough to trace, but here's what we know.

1986 -  The Pittsburgh cocaine trials.  A number of Pirates players were arrested with cocaine.  Two players, Dave Parker and Dale Berra, testify under oath that Bill Matlock and Willie Stargell often gave out greenies in the clubhouse.

1979  -  Pete Rose admits to Playboy magazine that he's used greenies.

1972  -  OF/1B John Milner testifies in 1986 that Willie Mays kept "red juice" in his locker which was "real potent speed".

1970  -  Jim Bouton's (pitcher) book ball four is published.  Its speaks of rampant amphetamine use, particularly in the early 60's when he won 21 and 18 games for the Yankees.

1961  -  Mickey Mantle is felled by an injury at the end of the 1961, preventing him from finishing the chase to Ruth's record of 60 home runs.  It is widely rumoured that he developed an infection from an injection from a "quack doctor".  More on the quack doctor later.

1942 - Major League Baseball players return from World War II and bring with them amphetamines.  Both sides of the war issued amphetamines regularly to its soldiers.  The British documented issuing 72 million tablets for example.

++++

Amphetamines were first synthesized in 1887, but not marketed until 1932.  Here are a couple of pre-amphetamine examples.
++++
1926(?) - Babe Ruth falls "incredibly ill" after taking an injection of sheep testosterone as part of a "magic elixir" in an effort to increase performance.  This was supposedly provided via the research of scientist Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard.  If he tried sheep testosterone is it reasonable to think that he tried other things OR that other players did?

1889  -  Dr. Brown-Sequard mentioned above demonstrates the results of his elixir at a convention.  Within weeks the New Haven Register wrote, "The discovery of a true elixir of youth by which the aged can renew their bodily vigor would be a great thing for baseball nines."

Now, lets follow two of these threads.  First the magic elixir.

The industrial makers of the concoction tried to get John L. Sullivan, the heavy weight boxing champ of the day to be their spokesperson.  He respectfully declined.  So they turned to baseball, and specifically, Pud Galvin.  Galvin was coming to the end of what would be a hall of fame career, posting a record of 365-310 and 2.85 career ERA.  He's 5th all time in wins, 5th all time in walks per 9 innings, 2nd in innings pitched and 2nd in complete games.  Yes, the game was different, but he was the best of his day.

Pud was definitely on the down side of his career when he agreed to endorse the "magic elixir".  Galvin was injected at the Pittsburgh medical college.  Shortly thereafter his home town Pittsburgh Burghers beat the cross town rival Pittsburgh Allegheny's 9-0.  Galvin pitched a complete game shut out and collected two hits in the win.  The legend of doping to win was born on this day.

The second piece that merits follow up is Mickey Mantle's infection from an injection from a "quack doctor".

About that "quack".

Max Jacobson was a German born, Manhattan Doctor.  He was dubbed "Dr. Feelgood" by many.  Jacobson had many famous patients.  He was the doctor to the stars.  Included in his stable were Nelson Rockefeller, Cecil B. Demille, Tennessee Williams, Anthony Quinn, Truman Capote, Marlene Dietrich, Eddie Fisher...the list goes on.

But Jacobson's REAL treasure of a patient was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  Yes, JFK and also Jackie.  Jacobson may have been a 'quack', but he was a 'quack' with a potent remedy for those that could pay.  Jacobson made more than 30 visits to the White House and travelled with Kennedy to Vienna for peace talks with Krushev AND injected Kennedy just prior to the famous debate with Nixon in 1960.  There are many references to this relationship and very real quotes with name, just use google.

JFK had long suffered sever back pain and had a staff of White House doctors with varied solutions.  These doctors agreed on very little with the exception of their uniform dismissal of Max Jacobson.  He was viewed somewhat has a charlatan.  Yes, his remedy worked, but there were significant side effects and those would show up soon enough.  As far as Kennedy was concerned,  he was otherwise untroubled by FDA reports on the contents of Jacobson’s injections, proclaiming "I don’t care if it’s horse piss. It works."

So what was this magical injection that Kennedy and others received regularly?  What he referred to as vitamin shots actually contained, vitamins, amphetamines and hormones. Oh, there's no doubt it works.  And you needed to keep going back for more. 

Now why is all this so important?  Does it matter that a world leader, singers and a bunch of actors were using amphetamines and hormones?  No, I don't care.  I do care that a ball player was though.  In case you hadn't figured it out yet, Mickey Mantle was also a patient. 

Say it ain't so. 

I'm rethinking Barry Bonds.  Rethinking McGwire.  Rethinking Canseco.  Clemens is still a jerk, but I'm rethinking that too.