PED’S: The Savior Of Baseball

I’m a diehard sports fan. I believe in the spirit of competition and think that there is nothing better than seeing two teams (or individuals if your sport is one like tennis or golf) battle and match wills in an attempt to come out the victor on that day.  I believe in fairness during competition, knowing that everyone is on an even, level playing field.  I do leave one exception though.

 

Performance enhancing drugs in baseball.

 

Before you go ape-nuts, lemme explain. Currently, I think that baseball has no need for PEDs in the game, and I’m glad to see that MLB is trying to clean out the rampant drug use that is currently happening.  Once upon a time though, that wasn’t always the case.

 

To understand why I have this view I have to explain another example that created my mindset towards this situation.  It’s the situation of the NBA in the late 70′s and early 80′s.  The NBA was on its way out the door.  After the merger with the ABA, the NBA saw a new type of basketball; renegade, individual oriented basketball that turned off fans and viewers because it was all about ignoring the team concept.  Players with the flashiest names and moves, guys like George “The Iceman” Gervin and his eloquent finger roll, was what dominated the day.  Recreational drug use was rampant; at one point it was estimated that 40-75% of players in the league used drugs.  The NBA was in dire straits entering the 80′s.  Up until 1982, the NBA Finals, the crown jewel of the basketball season, was shown on tape delay.

 

It took something that could transcend the game to save basketball from heading into extinction.  That something ended up being the duo of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.  Two men who were basketball savants, who were doppelgangers of each other on the court, yet were so opposite.  The both played the game with a team first concept; rarely did they lead their teams in shots taken, but they were clearly the best players on the court and dictated the action.  Yet Larry Bird was as shy and introverted as they come while Magic Johnson was like a larger than life character that was real.  Add in the fact that it drew in casual fans because of the racial demographics, and you had a formula that saved basketball.  Nearly every week, the Celtics and Lakers would play on Sunday, Celtics first, Lakers second.  Fans couldn’t get enough.  The Finals in 1983 were shown live and when Magic and Bird met in the Finals in 1984, their epic seven game series was one of the most watched Finals in basketball history. The NBA went from death knell to darling.

 

Fast forward to the early and mid 1990s. Major League Baseball had the same issue; dwindling interest.  The leagues top teams were mired in mediocrity.  Proud franchises like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers were .500 or so teams that really didn’t have any standout players.  The Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, Atlanta Braves, and the Minnesota Twins were the standard bearers of the day.  While it’s great to see small market teams succeed, part of having a successful league is that your biggest markets stay relevant.  They don’t always have to be champions, but they have to at least figure into the equation.  Nobody tunes in consistently to watch teams they rarely know battle for spots in finals and championships.

 

Baseball had reached the brink of being forgotten in the public eye due to greed.  The players and owners both wanted more, and it led to work stoppage strikes left and right.  In fact, there were 5 baseball strikes from 1980-1994. The last one, which occurred in 1994, was the worst.  It happened mid-season, ruining what was shaping up to be an outstanding season. (EDITORS NOTE: And potentially Don Mattingly getting a ring) Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants had 43 HRs at the time of stoppage, while Ken Griffey Jr. of the Seattle Mariners had 40. With the strike happening on August 12^th, there was approximately 40-45 games left in the regular season for most teams. It was very possible that both men could have made a run at what was then (and in my mind, still is) the Major League  home run record of 61, set by Roger Maris in 1961. The strike erased the remainder of the 1994 season and playoffs, ending the season with no champion. Baseball fans were enraged. Many swore to never follow the game again.

 

Just like in basketball’s case, it took a moment that transcended the game for baseball to recover and once again become relevant in the public eye. It took two men on a home run race to save the game. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, two men who played for rival teams in the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, went on a home run race in 1998 that brought back even casual fans to baseball. It became a nationally televised version of “Can You Top This?”, that made people feel like that had to watch, with each home rum carrying more meaning and emotion than the last. When McGwire hit number 62 to pass Maris, I remember the CBS evening news interrupting prime-time television to show the home run. I had never seen that happen before, a sporting moment carrying so much significance that normal TV was interrupted to show it.

 

When the dust of that exciting summer settled, McGwire held the record with 70 HRs, and Sosa finished with 66. Fans came back to follow baseball in droves, and baseball avoided their own death knell. Now McGwire and Sosa were great power hitters, but neither had shown the kind of power they were displaying that season. Did they have the help of performance enhancing drugs or other help?  Signs point to yes.  McGwire admitted to using Androstenedione, which at the time was legal, but is still performance enhancing, as well as admitting to using steroids during the chase, while claiming he didn’t need them. (EDITORS NOTE: Puuuuure Balls.)  Sosa was caught using a corked bat in 2003. Nobody could determine how long he’d been using them though.  He was also accused of using steroids.

 

I understand baseball has a duty to the fans to produce and display competition that is fair and legal.  I completely agree with it, and I want to see baseball played at its highest level without the help of performance enhancing items…but baseball also needs to remember that if it weren’t for those same items, we’d probably have no baseball today.  What does baseball do?  Does it turn its back on the moment that saved it from the brink of extinction, or does it still embrace it while claiming that the items that made it happen have no place in the game, making a contradiction that looks hypocritical?  Baseball is currently opting to do the latter, and fans are at a crossroads on what to believe. With the meteoric rise of the NFL and the continued patronage of the NBA, what place does baseball have in the current landscape of American sports?

 

We don’t know the final answers for sure, but I do know one truth.

 

PEDs saved baseball.

 

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