No it doesn't.

I don't want it to sound like I'm accusing Maris, but he had a few fluke seasons in a short career, and his hair fell out in his 61 homer season. The arguments linking some of the top modern sluggers to steroids are actually weaker than this. If I had to guess, I'd say Maris was probably innocent of steroid use, but I think the same goes for some modern players whose names have been besmirched in this hysteria.

Apart from this, his two MVPs were both in seasons where his teammate Mickey Mantle had a much better year. The writers were just bored of voting for Mantle every year. He only had a handful of really good seasons. The HOF rules specifically state that it's a career honor, and not for single game or single season accomplishments. And if we wanted to pick a slugger who won two MVPs and was definitely clean to honor, the line starts with Dale Murphy.

Someone should write a short story involving Roger Maris as a failed prospect turned clubhouse attendant for the 1999 Tampa Bay Rays who tinkers with a time machine in his off hours, and then one night steals Canseco's stash and heads back to Kansas City to re-write the record books for the first time.

As for the amphetamines used back in that era, they might have been dangerous and foolish, but they lacked the staggering performance-enhancing powers of synthesized hormones.

Is there actually evidence for this statement or am I just taking his word for it?

Someone should write a short story involving Roger Maris as a failed prospect turned clubhouse attendant for the 1999 Tampa Bay Rays who tinkers with a time machine in his off hours, and then one night steals Canseco's stash and heads back to Kansas City to re-write the record books for the first time.

I think you just did.

As for the amphetamines used back in that era, they might have been dangerous and foolish, but they lacked the staggering performance-enhancing powers of synthesized hormones.

Is there actually evidence for this statement or am I just taking his word for it?

It's not like the career hit, home run, pitcher strike out and stolen base records were broken by guys who played when amphetimines were rampant.

If he wasn't a Hall of Famer before the steroid "scandal" then he isn't one now. How could someone claim that people cheating 40 years after Maris as a reason that Maris is a HOFer?

[H]is two MVPs were both in seasons where his teammate Mickey Mantle had a much better year. The writers were just bored of voting for Mantle every year.

There certainly was a lack of appreciation for how great Mantle was for much of his career. He led the league in OPS+ in 1959 and was widely perceived to have had not just a bit of an off-year compared to his best seasons, but an actual bad year.

Maris may not be a Hall of Famer, but he was an excellent outfielder and baserunner, as well as a home run hitter.

[Maris'] two MVPs were both in seasons where his teammate Mickey Mantle had a much better year. The writers were just bored of voting for Mantle every year.

I know what you mean, but I'm sure they legitimately thought Maris was better in '61.

The HOF rules specifically state that it's a career honor, and not for single game or single season accomplishments.

Yeah, that's almost the only concrete rule they've got...

If he wasn't a Hall of Famer before the steroid "scandal" then he isn't one now. How could someone claim that people cheating 40 years after Maris as a reason that Maris is a HOFer?

I strongly suspect that if Maris was ever going to be elected on the "true HR champ" argument, it would have occurred in 2005-2007, the height of the steroid hysteria. But I don't recall him even getting any significant bump in support at that time (anyone have the VC voting?) At this point in the news cycle of the steroid story, it certainly appears that cooler heads are likely to prevail.

As for the amphetamines used back in that era, they might have been dangerous and foolish, but they lacked the staggering performance-enhancing powers of synthesized hormones.

Faith is a fact.

Faith is a fact.

You mean he's going to the Hall of Fame because writers don't know what a blooper reel is?!?

[Maris'] two MVPs were both in seasons where his teammate Mickey Mantle had a much better year. The writers were just bored of voting for Mantle every year.

I know what you mean, but I'm sure they legitimately thought Maris was better in '61.

Wait, they did? But TFA said that he didn't get his due in 1961. Based on the research methods of the columnist, I am going to assume he got no MVP votes at all.


Also, please keep in mind that Maris ought to be in the Hall of Fame despite the fact that Maris doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame; from TFA:

But Ashburn does not belong in Cooperstown any more than Maris does.

It's too bad that there can't be an actual Hall of the Very Good established in order to honor players like Maris, who for whatever reason didn't have either a long enough peak or a productive enough career to qualify for Cooperstown. Maybe they could put it in Lake Wobegon, where everyone is very good or better.

As for the steroid issue, what the hell does that have to do with Maris? He performed at a HoF level for two years, period. Beyond that, he ranged from mediocre to very good, with a lot of injuries thrown in. That's really all there is to it.

It's too bad that there can't be an actual Hall of the Very Good established in order to honor players like Maris, who for whatever reason didn't have either a long enough peak or a productive enough career to qualify for Cooperstown. Maybe they could put it in Lake Wobegon, where everyone is very good or better.

I know people mean Cooperstown when their talking about the Hall, but there are other HOFs. Do the Yankees have their own HOF? The Red Sox do. So, yeah, Maris should be in a HOF; the North Dakota Sports Hall at the very least.

I don't want it to sound like I'm accusing Maris, but he had a few fluke seasons in a short career, and his hair fell out in his 61 homer season.

1. How can one have a few fluke seasons?

2. If he kept his hair how many HOF votes would that be worth?

Maris had a short career because he just couldn't stay healthy. I know you could say that about many players, but it was especially true for Roger. All of his seasons after 1962 were affected by injuries. He won a pair of MVPs because he led the league in RBIs twice and sportswriters just adore that stat. Sure Mantle was better, but they don't like giving the MVP to the same player every year. In 1960-61 Maris may have been even better than the numbers suggest, since he wasn't Yankee Stadium hitter. He hit 57 road HRs over those seasons compared to 43 at home. I think Maris was about 2 seasons away from the HOF. If he could have stayed healthy through 1964 and posted a pair of seasons like 1960, had over 300 HR, that might have been enough to get him in.

So does Cecil Fielder go in at the same time?

I know people mean Cooperstown when their talking about the Hall, but there are other HOFs. Do the Yankees have their own HOF? The Red Sox do. So, yeah, Maris should be in a HOF; the North Dakota Sports Hall at the very least.

He's in that. He also received something called the North Dakota Roughrider award, and of course since 1984 he's also has a plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium, which is the equivalent to a Yankees' HoF. And not one of these contains an *.

Give me a break, Maris is the only player in the 60-HR club that does not belong. R Maris = J Burnitz

Give me a break, Maris is the only player in the 60-HR club that does not belong. R Maris = J Burnitz

If I had to guess, I'd say Maris was probably innocent of steroid use.

As Nick Charles would say, that's mighty white of you.

So, yeah, Maris should be in a HOF; the North Dakota Sports Hall at the very least.

North Dakota Sports Hall of Fame IIRC, there is also a section of a wall at a mall in Fargo that showcases Maris career.

Hopefully, there is also one showcasing Skip Hinnant's career.

Not yet mentioned: Maris' defensive play in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the '62 WS is credited with saving that Series for the Yankees. Also, he finished his career by playing a key, but not leading, role for two pennant winners in St. Louis.

I've always thought there should be a wing, if you will, at the Hall for players with renowned contributions but not longevity. The Fame, but not the career. Like Maris, Wills, Thomson, maybe Firpo Marberry. I used to think Maz, and then they went and put him in the big Hall. Who else?

I've always thought there should be a wing, if you will, at the Hall for players with renowned contributions but not longevity. The Fame, but not the career. Like Maris, Wills, Thomson, maybe Firpo Marberry. I used to think Maz, and then they went and put him in the big Hall. Who else?

I propose an opposite wing, for the guys with the career, but not the Fame. Rusty Staub and Harold Baines would top my ballott for that wing.

For the Fame not Career wing:

Mark Fidrych, Fernando Valenzuela, Bo Jackson, Hideo Nomo.

Doesn't the Hall highlight this sort of thing already?

Pete Reiser.

I propose an opposite wing, for the guys with the career, but not the Fame. Rusty Staub and Harold Baines would top my ballott for that wing.

I like this one, but I'd start with Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, and Lou Whittaker.

I like this one, but I'd start with Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, and Lou Whittaker.

Personally, I'd also add in Tony Fernandez.

I like this one, but I'd start with Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, and Lou Whittaker.


Personally, I'd also add in Tony Fernandez.

I think Dave Steib can bud into the front of that line.

Doesn't the Hall highlight this sort of thing already?

They do already have displays for all sorts of stuff and accomplishments.

This sounds like a suggestion to add a HOVG wing.

I've always been partial to the idea, espoused most often around here by Andy, that "Fame" should play some role in the Hall of Fame and, as such, that the criteria for the Hall of Fame are subtly different than those for the Hall of Merit. So, for example, I think that Lou Brock and Dizzy Dean are deserving Hall-of-Famers even if they're somewhat undeserving Hall-of-Meriters. Given that, I sometimes go back and forth as to whether Maris belongs in the Hall of "Fame" based on the 2 (admittedly undeserved) MVPs and the 61 home runs. He's sort of the borderline for me - he's either as famous (edit: for his actual baseball accomplishments) as one can be and not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame or as bad as one can be and still deserve to be in the Hall of Fame based purely on his "fame". I think today I lean toward the former - not good enough long enough to be a Hall-of-Famer.

but they don't like giving the MVP to the same player every year

Terry Pendleton says hi.

Given that, I sometimes go back and forth as to whether Maris belongs in the Hall of "Fame" based on the 2 (admittedly undeserved) MVPs and the 61 home runs.

A good way to measure it is, "if you were telling the story of MLB baseball, would he be required in the story?"

I lean towards yes. His 61 is a big part of the story of baseball.

A good way to measure it is, "if you were telling the story of MLB baseball, would he be required in the story?"

How about if Ken Burns were telling the story? Because then we could pretty much leave Stan Musial out.

It's too bad that there can't be an actual Hall of the Very Good established in order to honor players like Maris, who for whatever reason didn't have either a long enough peak or a productive enough career to qualify for Cooperstown. Maybe they could put it in Lake Wobegon, where everyone is very good or better.

don't most teams have their own "team HOF" which is where these guys usually get some type of recognition? I guess it would be better if most of these were more formal recognition instead of a few comments, but that is where I think most of the HOVG players should be is in the teams local hof. Now that I really think of it, the Cardinals hof doesn't have a true induction type of thing, kinda weird I guess, because that is how to really honor guys like Willie McGee, Ray Lankford, etc.

As for the steroid issue, what the hell does that have to do with Maris? He performed at a HoF level for two years, period.

and so did Bobby Murcer!
Top 5 by OPS+

Murcer: 181, 169, 134, 127, 123
Maris: 167, 161, 145 (in 351 PAs), 128, 127

career:
Murcer: 124 in 7718 PAs
Maris: 127 in 5846 PAs

:-)

Maris was a very good player, but he had a short career and never had an argument for being the best player in the league (2 MVPs notwithstanding).

Basically, he had a flukey year where the ball went over the fence, a lot, but he also hit juts .269 that year, with just 20 non-homer xbhs, and was 4th in OPS+ that year.

putting Maris in would be the clearest example you could find of the HOF honoring a NUMBER, a STAT rather than "greatness"

Terry Pendleton, 1 All-Star Game
Don Baylor, 1 All-Star Game

Of those who won MVP awards since 1964 these two are the only ones to play in only 1 All-Star Game (except Ryan Howard and Dustin Pedroia). How about a Hall of Occassionally Very Good but Not Popular for these two?

Terry Pendleton, 1 All-Star Game
Don Baylor, 1 All-Star Game

Of those who won MVP awards since 1964 these two are the only ones to play in only 1 All-Star Game (except Ryan Howard and Dustin Pedroia). How about a Hall of Occassionally Very Good but Not Popular for these two?

Kirk Gibson won an MVP and never played in an All-Star Game.

Is there actually evidence for this statement or am I just taking his word for it?

Jim Bouton was on the MLB channel on xm radio on Friday morning. He mostly told neat stories, which was a fun way to start the day, but he also vigorously defended the use of greenies in his era by claiming that while steroids are performance enhancing, allowing players to be "better" than they would have been without them, greenies were performance allowing, letting guys play up to their "natural" levels if outside factors would have made them otherwise unable to. He literally compared it to drinking a cup of coffee.

Not yet mentioned: Maris' defensive play in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the '62 WS is credited with saving that Series for the Yankees.

That was perhaps right up there with maybe a half dozen or so others as the greatest (or at least most important) defensive play in World Series history. It saved extra innings at worst and probably the entire Series as well. To me that was always my greatest Maris memory, well above any of his home runs, and I think that Maris himself once said that he considered it his proudest accomplishment as well.

------------------------

I've always been partial to the idea, espoused most often around here by Andy, that "Fame" should play some role in the Hall of Fame and, as such, that the criteria for the Hall of Fame are subtly different than those for the Hall of Merit. So, for example, I think that Lou Brock and Dizzy Dean are deserving Hall-of-Famers even if they're somewhat undeserving Hall-of-Meriters. Given that, I sometimes go back and forth as to whether Maris belongs in the Hall of "Fame" based on the 2 (admittedly undeserved) MVPs and the 61 home runs. He's sort of the borderline for me - he's either as famous (edit: for his actual baseball accomplishments) as one can be and not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame or as bad as one can be and still deserve to be in the Hall of Fame based purely on his "fame". I think today I lean toward the former - not good enough long enough to be a Hall-of-Famer.

Yeah, I think you've got Maris on the right side of the line, meaning below it. Dean and Brock weren't A-level HoFers by the usual standards, but they were clearly on the other side in terms of accomplishment. I never meant for "fame" to be the only factor in electing HoF members, or even the leading factor, so much as it should be considered as a tie-breaker in otherwise marginal cases.

------------------------

Jim Bouton was on the MLB channel on xm radio on Friday morning. He mostly told neat stories, which was a fun way to start the day, but he also vigorously defended the use of greenies in his era by claiming that while steroids are performance enhancing, allowing players to be "better" than they would have been without them, greenies were performance allowing, letting guys play up to their "natural" levels if outside factors would have made them otherwise unable to. He literally compared it to drinking a cup of coffee.

You'd better batten down your storm windows if Dial ever reads that. After all, what does Bouton know about the game of baseball compared to a cageful of labaratory rats? Our greenie-obsessed Primates take "performance enhancing" to mean not just imparting extra power beyond one's natural talent, but enabling players to go from a hangover to hanging in there, on a day after a night on the town. And while this is technically true, since 1 > 0, that's not exactly what most people think of by "performance enhancing"---which is why the writers blow off such inane greenie / steroid comparisons. It's the sort of comparisons that the terminally literal minded love to make.

You'd better batten down your storm windows if Dial ever reads that. After all, what does Bouton know about the game of baseball compared to a cageful of labaratory rats? Our greenie-obsessed Primates take "performance enhancing" to mean not just imparting extra power beyond one's natural talent, but enabling players to go from a hangover to hanging in there, on a day after a night on the town. And while this is technically true, since 1 > 0, that's not exactly what most people think of by "performance enhancing"---which is why the writers blow off such inane greenie / steroid comparisons. It's the sort of comparisons that the terminally literal minded love to make.

Andy, I want to dip this paragraph in gold and THEN bronze it and THEN encase it in lucite and THEN hang it on my wall. It perfectly encompasses my frustration with the inanely childlike literalism that Dial (et al.) engage in on the subject of amphetamines vs. steroids. And of course the fundamental soundness of your logic will be completely overlooked by them as they bang on their drums.

And of course the fundamental soundness of your logic will be completely overlooked by them as they bang on their drums.

How about the part of his logic that assumes the only possible time a player could ever pop a greenie is when he's hung over or otherwise less than his normal state of health?

So does Rabbit Maranville belong in the "Fame, but not career" Hall or the "Career, but not fame" hall?

There's no such thing as a player who can play 162 games in 181 days at his "natural" talent. "One's natural talent" includes wearing down over the course of a long season.

There's a performance enhancing substance that can help you hit 73 homers in a season, and one that can help you get 4,256 hits in a career. It seems very silly to pretend there's a great moral gulf between the two.

There's a performance enhancing substance that can help you hit 73 homers in a season, and one that can help you get 4,256 hits in a career.

Considering what some of the people who were living with Mr. 4256 were selling, it may have been the same sort of performance enhancing substance.

Speaking of greenies, a couple of guys mentioned Reggie Jackson as a speed user on Friday without offering proof. Yet, when a current player gets accused of using PEDs without evidence, the accuser is hooted down. I find the double standard unsettling.

Amphetamines aren't a thing like steroids, no how, not in any way. Also, the dead ball wasn't really a baseball.

I am not sure there is any way to "prove" anyone in particular used speed short of confessions, even if Brian Doyle or someone starts outing guys. By most accounts, though, they were commonplace and it was an era in which drugs in general were around. Pennant Race and Ball Four both talk about amps very openly.

But, IMO part of the reason people do what you describe is not so much that they are 100% sure Jackson or whoever used amps, but rather that the fact that they are tired of guys from the 1960s-1980s moralizing about steroids without talking about/ackowledging amps as PEDs (saying stuff like Bouton does). Even if one agrees with Andy, I think it's fair to call amps PEDs.

Jim Bouton was on the MLB channel on xm radio on Friday morning. He mostly told neat stories, which was a fun way to start the day, but he also vigorously defended the use of greenies in his era by claiming that while steroids are performance enhancing, allowing players to be "better" than they would have been without them, greenies were performance allowing, letting guys play up to their "natural" levels if outside factors would have made them otherwise unable to. He literally compared it to drinking a cup of coffee.

He trotted out that crap at the SABR convention a year ago and it was as stupid then as it is now.

You take a drug that allows you to perform better than you would without the drug. How is that not "performance enhancing?"

That was perhaps right up there with maybe a half dozen or so others as the greatest (or at least most important) defensive play in World Series history. It saved extra innings at worst and probably the entire Series as well.

1962 was my first WS. After the incredible high of the season's final week (I was in the stands on the last day, when the Giants needed both to win and to have the Dodgers lose; Mays homered in the 8th for the win and Gene Alley homered in 9th to beat the Dodgers) and the playoffs, that 9th inning, especially Maris' play, was as down as it gets (other than the 7th inning in 2002). If only McCovey had hit the ball 2 feet higher....

Jim Bouton was on the MLB channel on xm radio on Friday morning. He mostly told neat stories, which was a fun way to start the day, but he also vigorously defended the use of greenies in his era by claiming that while steroids are performance enhancing, allowing players to be "better" than they would have been without them, greenies were performance allowing, letting guys play up to their "natural" levels if outside factors would have made them otherwise unable to. He literally compared it to drinking a cup of coffee.

In other words, "take my word for it."

You take a drug that allows you to perform better than you would without the drug. How is that not "performance enhancing?"

Because, silly, of the law that specifically prohibits baseball players from taking greenies unless they're hung over, sleep-deprived, or otherwise under the weather. And this law has never, ever been violated.

Duh.

Gene Alley

Gene Oliver.

Did you listen to the re-broadcast of 1962 Game 7 on KNBR during the strike in 1981? The one where they spliced in a pleasant surprise ending?

Amphetamines aren't a thing like steroids, no how, not in any way

Actually they aren't. Steroids, to be effective, must be part of a serious body-building program. Amphetamines are for people who like to jump around yelling "whoo-hoo" and "hee-yah" and giggle like maniacs before ballgames.

It is therefore pretty surprising that there's so much more moral opprobrium against steroids. At least 'roiders have an agenda, work toward it, and are trying to be better athletes. Greenies, from the tales that circulate around them, are preferred by clowns who want to party a lot and still be alert enough to play ball.

It's pretty clear that you can do steroids and have a long, extremely productive career (Bonds, Clemens). I am not that sure about amphetamines. I've always held in these threads that serious methamphetamine addiction would be incompatible with putting together a career like that of Mays or Aaron or Reggie Jackson. This either means that such players didn't do very serious speed very often or for very long periods, or that the less-serious stimulants they were on weren't much stronger than No-Doz. But people are affected by drugs in widely different ways. Pete Rose is often cited as a guy greenied out of his mind, and he had the longest career of anybody, at a very consistently high level.

By contrast, there are examples of guys who did amphetamines and found that they both shortened their careers and reduced their production – often because they were also doing tranquilizers and alcohol and what-not, too. Eddie Waitkus (I have to mention him once per greenie thread :) is an example of this group.

Here's a short piece about KNBR's World Series v.2.

greenies are part of the myth of ballplayers as "fun-loving, rowdy #######\"; steroids are part of the myth of ballplayers as "Frankenstein monsters."

changing the body through science has been seen as creepy for a long time, and this traditional view ties in to the steroid debate in a way that it doesn't tie in to amphetamines, thus giving us a distinction between what otherwise might be seen as just two groups of drug abusers......

thus, while I agree with Andy about the obviousness of the distinction based on folk psychology, I don't necessarily agree about what follows from that distinction. folk psychology is folk psychology. it's not necessarily the last word on anything.

Good points, hygiene.

greenies are part of the myth of ballplayers as "fun-loving, rowdy #######"; steroids are part of the myth of ballplayers as "Frankenstein monsters."

I don't find these good points at all. What "myths" are you talking about? Who talks about baseball players as "Frankenstein monsters?" Everybody lauded the pumped-up ballplayers. No matter how many times you guys claim the opposite, or get condescending about it, the public - thank god - continues to treat steroids abuse differently from greenies. I agree with robin that we can talk about them both as PEDs. But, even within that, we can distinguish between them, and most of us are more put off by drugs that affect your body so deeply as to diminish your sexual differentiation from the opposite sex than we are by drugs that have more in common with coffee and Red Bull.

and most of us are more put off by drugs that affect your body so deeply as to diminish your sexual differentiation from the opposite sex

I often thought Sammy Soser was a woman.

I often thought Sammy Soser was a woman.

Well, she's not.

After all, what does Bouton know about the game of baseball compared to a cageful of labaratory rats?

So what you're saying, Andy, is that you accept Bouton's word as gospel on everything, even though he claims not to have taken greenies much, if ever, and that the possibility that he is merely defending the guys he played with, while crapping on today's players, should be disregarded out of hand? Okay.

And all those old players who said that player's shouldn't lift weights, because it will make them musclebound and unable to play, we should accept that in full, because, after all, they played the game?

to mean not just imparting extra power beyond one's natural talent, but enabling players to go from a hangover to hanging in there, on a day after a night on the town.

And increasing concentration and reaction time, but hey, what does that have to do with baseball?

That was perhaps right up there with maybe a half dozen or so others as the greatest (or at least most important) defensive play in World Series history. It saved extra innings at worst and probably the entire Series as well.

1962 was my first WS. After the incredible high of the season's final week (I was in the stands on the last day, when the Giants needed both to win and to have the Dodgers lose; Mays homered in the 8th for the win and Gene Alley homered in 9th to beat the Dodgers) and the playoffs, that 9th inning, especially Maris' play, was as down as it gets (other than the 7th inning in 2002). If only McCovey had hit the ball 2 feet higher....

Ahhhh, if that'd happened, Wilt Chamberlain would've be stationed at second instead of Bobby Richardson, and he would've finally won a game 7.

most of us are more put off by drugs that affect your body so deeply as to diminish your sexual differentiation from the opposite sex than we are by drugs that have more in common with coffee and Red Bull.

And some of us are much more put off by drugs that have racked up a huge body count of death and destruction, like amphetamines, than those that are basically aids to body-building.

I don't find these good points at all. What "myths" are you talking about? Who talks about baseball players as "Frankenstein monsters?" Everybody lauded the pumped-up ballplayers.

Everybody lauded them before everybody knew they were using; now they're vilified, with constant discussions of head size, etc, etc.

My basic point is that you can see players who use roids as UNNATURAL--the category of the unnatural has a long social history--but players who use greenies are, at worst, druggies....EDIT: and I'm talking about cultural metaphors here, not about my own opinion.

I don't find these good points at all. What "myths" are you talking about? Who talks about baseball players as "Frankenstein monsters?"

Denis Hamill, New York Daily News: "Take any one of these guys - Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Giambi, Bonds - and hold up a late-career photo next to their rookie baseball cards and you don't need a grand jury to figure out that they've all been to Dr. Frankenstein's sports clinic."

John Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle: "Reading the book [Game of Shadows], it is surprising just how many athletes signed on for this Frankenstein regimen."

Selena Roberts, New York Times: "This was Frankenstein Theater, with [Victor] Conte as host, shamelessly posing as the moral conscience of all sports, going so far as to cackle at Major League Baseball for its toothless doping test that does little to prevent creeps like him."

Duke Keith, El Paso Times: "The monster knows it, too. His bulk and his misshapen head make him all too easy to spot. There is no escape for Barry Bonds. But there was sympathy for Frankenstein's monster, wasn't there?"

ESPN The Magazine: "At the time, McGwire was at 51 homers and counting... The revelation threatened to unmask the slugger as more Frankenstein's monster than Popeye. "

Bill Livingston, Cleveland Plain Dealer: " Frankenstein's new monsters will make Barry Bonds look like a pixie. Then again, the old ones [in the NFL] already have."

Mark Kiszla, Denver Post: "With his reputation built one mighty blast at a time, McGwire now seems as much Frankenstein monster as American folk hero."

Dave Kindred, Sporting News: "In April '98, as [Christiane] Knacke-Sommer testified about life in Dr. Frankenstein's pool, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa began a baseball season in which they hit 136 home runs."

Mike Shropshire, Slate.com: "In the only conversation I ever had with [George W.] Bush regarding his Rangers days, I came away convinced that he was oblivious to Dr. Frankenstein's presence in the training room. According to Bush, he was much more concerned over the mental state of his pitching..."

Pico Ayer, Los Angeles Times: "If he [Bonds] is eventually found guilty of using enhancement drugs, it seems safe to say, another Frankenstein athlete will soon come along, ready to do anything he can to break Bonds' marks."

Spencer Graves, WDEL: "Anyone who noticed that the one time little boy who ran around the Phillies clubhouse [Bret Boone] grew up to have a head as big as Frankenstein, has already made the assumption."

SportsFan Magazine: "This story is like the old Frankenstein movies. Once they had a hit on their hands, the moviemakers made Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Next Door Neighbor of Frankenstein, Prom Date of Frankenstein and so on. It seemed like the monster would never die. That seems to be the case with baseball and steroids."

Abraham Socher, Commentary Magazine: "We have, in brief, a kind of reverse-Frankenstein problem: not has the monster become human, but has the human become monstrous? And are we as interested in seeing these players throw fastballs and hit home runs once we know that monsters or virtual post-humans is what they are?"

Jim Bouton was on the MLB channel on xm radio on Friday morning. He mostly told neat stories, which was a fun way to start the day, but he also vigorously defended the use of greenies in his era by claiming that while steroids are performance enhancing, allowing players to be "better" than they would have been without them, greenies were performance allowing, letting guys play up to their "natural" levels if outside factors would have made them otherwise unable to. He literally compared it to drinking a cup of coffee.

You'd better batten down your storm windows if Dial ever reads that. After all, what does Bouton know about the game of baseball compared to a cageful of labaratory rats? Our greenie-obsessed Primates take "performance enhancing" to mean not just imparting extra power beyond one's natural talent, but enabling players to go from a hangover to hanging in there, on a day after a night on the town. And while this is technically true, since 1 > 0, that's not exactly what most people think of by "performance enhancing"---which is why the writers blow off such inane greenie / steroid comparisons. It's the sort of comparisons that the terminally literal minded love to make.

Andy, I want to dip this paragraph in gold and THEN bronze it and THEN encase it in lucite and THEN hang it on my wall. It perfectly encompasses my frustration with the inanely childlike literalism that Dial (et al.) engage in on the subject of amphetamines vs. steroids. And of course the fundamental soundness of your logic will be completely overlooked by them as they bang on their drums.

Thank you, Eso. But I do want to acknowlege the point that's been made by Chris and others: That greenies may well have "enhanced" the career totals of players who played in games that they otherwise might have missed if not for them. I don't object to this, just as I wouldn't object to steroid use if it were purely restorative, in the sense that vision correction is restorative, or Tommy John surgery is restorative. If all that steroids had done for Mark McGwire had been to enable him to recover faster from injury, I'd consider that a positive advance, because as a fan and as a human being I don't like to see players sitting on the bench due merely to injury or to fatigue.

Unfortunately, the benefits of steroids don't seem to stop at that.

Which of course then brings us around to the people who cite their lab rat reports that greenies "enhance" a player's talent beyond their God-given level. And here we run into a problem of definition, or in this case, a disagreement on the basis for comparison.

Is a player's "God-given level" of talent the level that God gave him in his well-conditioned state, meaning minus the benders? Or if a player shows up drunk and a greenie helps him play anyway, is he somehow cheating God (and the game) by not taking his punishment and sleeping it off?**

That's a crude way of putting it, but I think it spells out the practical divide among us. Bouton and most of the baseball world, including the writers, see no particular "enhancement" in a pill that merely gets you out onto the field in a more or less pre-hangover state of condition---because all it's really doing in effect is improving your reaction time to counter its slowing by the aftereffects of alcohol. IOW it's a wash. And you can trot out lab tests that try to show that Mickey Mantle (just using him as a shorthand here) couldn't have hit a ball as far as he did without greenies, and most of us react to that by simply saying, "compared to what"?

Compared to what he would have done if he didn't play at all due to a hangover? Well, duh. But what of it?

Or compared to what he would have done if he'd never been plastered in the first place? Well, that's a different story altogether. And I'd like to find a scientist who would look at a Mantle's drinking and pill popping habits in toto, and say that he wouldn't have had as good or better career if he'd stayed sober. And that's what we mean in our skepticism about the "enhancing" effects of amphetamines.

Convince the writers that greenies truly "enhance" a player's performance beyond the ability to play more games than without them (and hence show that they do more than to add to one's counting stats), and you'll start to see a wholesale change in the way that they look at steroids. Either that, or convince them that steroids do nothing more for a player than help him reduce injury time. Your choice.

**This seems to be implicit in Srul's comment in #61, though of course he's merely using it as a rhetorical device to make the greenie/steroid connection---in truth he doesn't care one way or the other about greenie use any more than he does about steroids. He's more into implying innocence by association, which is a common line of argument among de facto steroids apologists.

If greenies were only used to restore players from a hungover state, 90 percent of the players in the 1960s and 1970s must have been raging alcoholics.

If greenies were only used to restore players from a hungover state, 90 percent of the players in the 1960s and 1970s must have been raging alcoholics.

I see you've been absorbing all those detailed statistics on greenie usage that you got from Bill James's rare unpublished abstracts. Could you possibly post these in a PDF format so that the rest of us can read them? Thanks.

It was thoughtful of teams to provide amphetamine-spiked coffeepots just for 1 or 2 guys.

Andy, your entire elaborate argument fundamentally rests on the assumption that greenie usage is limited to hung over or otherwise less-than-healthy players, and the assistance that the amphetamine provided was thus "restorative." Do you truly believe that no non-hung-over, normally-functioning ballplayer ever popped a greenie before a game? And if he did, the amphetamine provided no assistance to his capabilities -- which would, in this case, by definition be "enhancement"?

-in truth he doesn't care one way or the other about greenie use any more than he does about steroids. He's more into implying innocence by association, which is a common line of argument among de facto steroids apologists.

In truth, I don't care. But to suggest that amphetamines cannot speed up concentration and reaction beyond base normal, even in a hung over player, without any evidence at all, is total BS. And hitting is greatly dependent on concentration and reaction time.

The idea that it simply gets you exactly back to where you were, if you had not been partying, is every bit as much a piece of faith-based horsecrap, as the claim that steroids don't do anything since the extra muscles don't help, and besides, look at all the lousy players who got caught taking them. The fact is that the claims involving greenies affect your rooting interest, in the same way that claims involving steroids affect the rooting interest of others, and you are downplaying it for the same reason -- defensiveness in support of your heroes and memories, and outright denial. A typical response from amphetamine apologists.

The issue with performance enhancing drugs should not be how much they enhance performance, but rather what health risks the player taking them faces. Players take some health risks all the time, for example by playing hurt. If there's a drug with little or no potential for causing serious health problems, then players should be allowed to take it. By this token, I take amphetamine abuse more seriously than steroid abuse. Most of the medical information I've read indicates that frequent amphetamine abuse is addictive and extremely risky in terms of both mental and physical health. Steroids have some well publicized side effects, but the evidence that they frequently cause long term serious health problems is a lot weaker than for amphetamines.

As for the weightlifting issue, it's true that the prevailing notion in baseball until at least the late 80's was that the losses of flexibility from weightlifting outweighed the gains in strength. However, there were a few players like Honus Wagner for sure, Willie Mays if I remember correctly, and, to pick some non-super stars, Brian Downing and Lenn Sakata, who were lifting weights before the mainstream.

One more thing - let's remember that the laws against amphetamines and anabolic steroids are relatively recent. In some cases, players in the past may have used them without violating either the law or baseball regulations. We can debate about whether that was sensible, but in their cases, it shouldn't be held as any more immoral than if a player today uses approved nutritional supplements.

Gene Oliver.

Did you listen to the re-broadcast of 1962 Game 7 on KNBR during the strike in 1981? The one where they spliced in a pleasant surprise ending?

Gah. I can't believe I mixed up two very unalike Genes.

No, I missed the rebroadcast because I was down in LA. I heard about it, though, and thought it was great.

No, I missed the rebroadcast because I was down in LA. I heard about it, though, and thought it was great.

I didn't hear it live. But my dad taped it, and he lent me the tape without dropping the slightest hint. I was totally blown away by the 9th-inning surprise; they did a really good job of editing Kell's voice, along with crowd noise.

One more thing - let's remember that the laws against amphetamines and anabolic steroids are relatively recent. In some cases, players in the past may have used them without violating either the law or baseball regulations. We can debate about whether that was sensible, but in their cases, it shouldn't be held as any more immoral than if a player today uses approved nutritional supplements.

Amphetamines, IIRC, became illegal without a prescription in 1965, so of the players who have admitted amphetamine use, only Duke Snider is cleared there based on legal reasons (though there could be others that admitted that I forgot about).

Srul Itza Posted: June 29, 2009 at 05:21 PM (#3237017)

After all, what does Bouton know about the game of baseball compared to a cageful of labaratory rats?

So what you're saying, Andy, is that you accept Bouton's word as gospel on everything, even though he claims not to have taken greenies much, if ever, and that the possibility that he is merely defending the guys he played with, while crapping on today's players, should be disregarded out of hand? Okay.

And all those old players who said that player's shouldn't lift weights, because it will make them musclebound and unable to play, we should accept that in full, because, after all, they played the game?

to mean not just imparting extra power beyond one's natural talent, but enabling players to go from a hangover to hanging in there, on a day after a night on the town.

And increasing concentration and reaction time, but hey, what does that have to do with baseball?

- srul
you are wasting your breath

there is NO way you are gonna convince the jim boutons and esoterics and andys that there is any difference whatsoever between greenies and coffee. and yes i know that they can't explain why, if greenies are just coffee, that ballplayers took an illegal highly dangerous drug which has killed millions more than steroids ever did, instead of, well, just coffee.

there is NO way you are going to convince them that, you know, being awake enough to, like SEE the ball or increasing focus to, like you know, CONCENTRATE on the spin, might could have anything to do with actually hitting the ball, or catching the ball.

no amount of medical literature about what amphetamines do to ALL people, including people who are not sleep deprived and not hung over or on some other drug, is gonna convince the closed-minded

besides

before steroids, every single baseball player, with 2 exceptions, lou gehrig the saint and dale murphy the sinless, was a drunken, drugged out scumbag with the morals of a tomcat and this is how things SHOULD be. that and them not getting paid and WANTING IT THAT WAY.

Lisa, do you mind if I dip post #76 in gold and THEN bronze it and THEN encase it in lucite and THEN hang it on my wall?

The key, I think, for those of us that don't see red every time the word steroids comes up is that we need to start brushing it to the side, like the greenie head-sanders and compare it to some mundane, everyday product, ignoring that it's a powerful, illegal drug banned in every athletic competition that drug tests.

So, steroids are just hamburgers, helping people "recover" from muscle fatigue so that players can "recover" from their workouts faster. Anyone says different? WHO ARE YOU TO BAN HAMBURGERS?

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a deca-durabol today.

Well, Srul, you've got the majority of BTF and for the time being I've got the BBWAA. That's a tradeoff I can live with, and I'm sure you can, too. So we're both happy.

The fact is that the claims involving greenies affect your rooting interest, in the same way that claims involving steroids affect the rooting interest of others, and you are downplaying it for the same reason -- defensiveness in support of your heroes and memories, and outright denial. A typical response from amphetamine apologists.

Cute, Srul, since you know damn well that I have zero interest in "defending" players from decades past, and no interest in attacking players from recent times. If you can provide one scintilla of evidence to back up the idea that I have any personal rooting interest in defending Whitey Ford over Roger Clemens, or Brooks Robinson over Rafael Palmeiro, or Clete Boyer over Alex Rodriguez, or Bobby Bonds over Barry Bonds, I'm all ears. This is the same sort of BS that you and others trot out here every time this topic comes up----but funny, when the discussions come around to comparing eras and I spend my energy arguing that the game today is infinitely better than the game of my teenage years, all of a sudden I get accused of bias in the other direction. I wish some of y'alls would make up their minds where my "bias" lies.

I'll let the steroids apologists speak for themselves. They don't seem to need much help on this site.

---------------------

The key, I think, for those of us that don't see red every time the word steroids comes up is that we need to start brushing it to the side, like the greenie head-sanders and compare it to some mundane, everyday product, ignoring that it's a powerful, illegal drug banned in every athletic competition that drug tests.

So, steroids are just hamburgers, helping people "recover" from muscle fatigue so that players can "recover" from their workouts faster. Anyone says different? WHO ARE YOU TO BAN HAMBURGERS?

You do that, Dan. Maybe the Times will give you an Op-Ed slot alongside Zev Chafets. You two can be their best one-two punch since Mantle and Maris----or should that be since Jason and A-Rod?

Which of course then brings us around to the people who cite their lab rat reports that greenies "enhance" a player's talent beyond their God-given level. And here we run into a problem of definition, or in this case, a disagreement on the basis for comparison.

No; the problem is not "disagreement on the basis for comparison," but denial on your part as to their effects. They enhance your performance more than your "God-given state." They do not just "restore" you to your GGS.

But in any case, the "restoration" claim misses the point, because by "restoring" you, you're "enhanced," because fatigue is part of your natural state. (That's primarily what steroids do, too: they restore you to your GGS, allowing you to continue working out when you otherwise would be fatigued.) It's not just restoring you when you're hung over. It's restoring you from ordinary fatigue which you "should" suffer, naturally. Perhaps an example would help illustrate the point. Many pitchers can give you ~100 good pitches, but after that you have to go to the bullpen. Why? Because after 100 pitches, the pitcher is fatigued and isn't as good any more. Now, assume when he reaches pitch #90, he takes a pill, so that when he hits #100, he's not fatigued anymore; he's still pitching as well as when he was at pitch #1. What would that do to his career? It's not just increasing his "counting" stats; it's making him a better pitcher. Would that merely be "restoring" him, or would it be "enhancing" him?

Well, Srul, you've got the majority of BTF and for the time being I've got the BBWAA.

You do this as often as I name the non-liberal BTF posters. ;-

agree with robin that we can talk about them both as PEDs. But, even within that, we can distinguish between them, and most of us are more put off by drugs that affect your body so deeply as to diminish your sexual differentiation from the opposite sex than we are by drugs that have more in common with coffee and Red Bull.

This is the key point--and determining how (or if) we distinguish them, revolves around three separate but interrelated questons:

1) Are steroids/greenies different morally/ethically?
2) If you say "yes" to 1, is it because of the potential dangers of the drugs to the health of players, differences in performance-enhancing capabilities, or both?
3) And if you "yes" to the second part of (2), how do you make intelligent qualitative judgments about it? Do we have the information base we need to do that?

Gonfalon's Frankenstein quotes show what bothers some people (me included) about the rhetoric in the debate. I am in favor of a testing program and trying to keep PEDs out of baseball, and I am OK if the BBWAA keeps Bonds out of Cooperstown (although I don't think I would and I have said a zillion times I want to see an expanded voting pool) but I agree to a large extent with Srul about Bouton et al.

1) Are steroids/greenies different morally/ethically?

Are we supposed to answer or did you intend it to be rhetorical?

I answer no to 1. They are both performance-enhancing drugs explicitly against the agreed-upon rules set in the CBA. As such, I consider use of steroids in 2009 to be cheating and use of steroids in 1999 or amphetamines in 1969 as not.

I find the complaints of "but steroids are more efficient cheating drugs!" to be completely unconvincing. Getting the answers ahead of time is a more effective way to cheat on a test than to copy your neighbor's exam, but I doubt any professor would find that a convincing argument.

Well, Srul, you've got the majority of BTF and for the time being I've got the BBWAA

So you identify yourself with the idiots of the past, and you identify me with the future. Yeah, I can live with that.

It's not just restoring you when you're hung over. It's restoring you from ordinary fatigue which you "should" suffer, naturally. Perhaps an example would help illustrate the point. Many pitchers can give you ~100 good pitches, but after that you have to go to the bullpen. Why? Because after 100 pitches, the pitcher is fatigued and isn't as good any more. Now, assume when he reaches pitch #90, he takes a pill, so that when he hits #100, he's not fatigued anymore; he's still pitching as well as when he was at pitch #1. What would that do to his career? It's not just increasing his "counting" stats; it's making him a better pitcher. Would that merely be "restoring" him, or would it be "enhancing" him?

I still think it is different, in college when we had a pitcher that was fatigued and pitching well we would load him up with sugar, which would give him an extra inning or two before he hit the wall. Anecdotal, sure but it worked.

From my point of view I always hated the people around me and that I played against that used steroids to get an advantage. It made otherwise fringe athletes/ballplayers capable of challenging you for a spot. You make an argument that greenies does the same thing with a competitive advantage and that may be I honestly don't know and really nor do you. But I have never heard anyone complain personally about someone on caffeine pills or greenies or any of those things, so really if no one is complaining and it is acceptable by the players then it is not as big a deal as steroids (even if they are just as illegal, I am talking about the game not the legality of anything).

So you identify yourself with the idiots of the past, and you identify me with the future. Yeah, I can live with that.

Equal rights for Chinamen? That's nice, son, but I have a whole God-fearing Congress working to stop the yellow peril behind me.

Cute, Srul, since you know damn well that I have zero interest in "defending" players from decades past, and no interest in attacking players from recent times.

And yet, you keep doing that. One is assumed to intend the natural consequences of one's actions. But maybe you're Bizarro-Andy, and you just normally act in the opposite of what you support.

I spend my energy arguing that the game today is infinitely better than the game of my teenage years

Well, since you are the only with vivid personal memories of the deadball era, we really can't compete with you there.

But I have never heard anyone complain personally about someone on caffeine pills or greenies or any of those things, so really if no one is complaining and it is acceptable by the players then it is not as big a deal as steroids (even if they are just as illegal, I am talking about the game not the legality of anything).

CBW has complained about his personal experiences with other players using greenies. So has my former AA reliever cousin.

CBW has complained about his personal experiences with other players using greenies. So has my former AA reliever cousin.

I should have phrased that better, I am not sure what they complained about but from what I saw when people complained about the greenies or stuff like it, it was more along the lines of "I wasn't out all night acting like an idiot and this a$$hole was". It seemed more like wishing people had to pay for their actions then cheating, but like I said, I am not speaking for CBW or your cousin who may think other wise. If someone was on steroids there was not a question whether or not they had an unfair advantage amongst the players but not a lot of people felt that way about caffeine pills or greenies. Again not arguing which one is more of an enhancement because I don't know of any studies that can really shed light on the subject, just what the feelings were amongst the players.

But in any case, the "restoration" claim misses the point, because by "restoring" you, you're "enhanced," because fatigue is part of your natural state. (That's primarily what steroids do, too: they restore you to your GGS, allowing you to continue working out when you otherwise would be fatigued.) It's not just restoring you when you're hung over. It's restoring you from ordinary fatigue which you "should" suffer, naturally. Perhaps an example would help illustrate the point. Many pitchers can give you ~100 good pitches, but after that you have to go to the bullpen. Why? Because after 100 pitches, the pitcher is fatigued and isn't as good any more. Now, assume when he reaches pitch #90, he takes a pill, so that when he hits #100, he's not fatigued anymore; he's still pitching as well as when he was at pitch #1. What would that do to his career? It's not just increasing his "counting" stats; it's making him a better pitcher. Would that merely be "restoring" him, or would it be "enhancing" him?

That's a fair question, but whatever you call it, it wouldn't bother me particularly, just as if that's all that steroids did, it wouldn't bother me, either.

1) Are steroids/greenies different morally/ethically?
2) If you say "yes" to 1, is it because of the potential dangers of the drugs to the health of players, differences in performance-enhancing capabilities, or both?

Strictly the latter, though I have no problem with banning them both for health-related reasons if that's what it takes to get it done. And I say this in spite of the fact that I don't see greenies as performance-enhancing in the same sense as I see steroids. I saw what greenies did to enough pool player friends of mine in the 70's to make me no big friend of them.

3) And if you "yes" to the second part of (2), how do you make intelligent qualitative judgments about it? Do we have the information base we need to do that?

Not complete information, but there's enough of it out there to form a working hypothesis that could be subject to revision. And if it's shown at some point that steroids didn't help to pad those juicers' home run totals, then I'll be glad to welcome Barry Bonds et al to Cooperstown sometime around 2029. He wouldn't be the first player to have to wait a few years, and just think of those tearjerking ESPN apology specials that'd be his to savor.

Cute, Srul, since you know damn well that I have zero interest in "defending" players from decades past, and no interest in attacking players from recent times.

And yet, you keep doing that. One is assumed to intend the natural consequences of one's actions. But maybe you're Bizarro-Andy, and you just normally act in the opposite of what you support.

Your evidence for "that" seems to consist of the crushing fact that I'd deny known juicers my hypothetical Hall of Fame vote. A real generational slam, that, directed at this point at about half a dozen players at most. And never mind anything else I've ever posted here concerning the relative merits of the two generations of players in question, since none of it would fit into your imagined notions.

Well, Srul, you've got the majority of BTF and for the time being I've got the BBWAA. That's a tradeoff I can live with, and I'm sure you can, too. So we're both happy.

So you identify yourself with the idiots of the past, and you identify me with the future. Yeah, I can live with that.

Yes, you've seen the future, and it works. My warmest regards to Lincoln Steffens Itza, the artist formerly known as Srul.

This thread came *this* close to be an actual discussion of differing opinions. Without Kevin, Joey, and Backlasher around, I thought it had a chance. Could we please stick to arguments actually presented by other posters? Personally I've had enough of posters generalizing about anti-steroid zealots or steroid apologists.

my props to gonfalon @ #65 for backing me up with such massive firepower....and yeah, I pretty much agree with Greg Pope's last...

Because, silly, of the law that specifically prohibits baseball players from taking greenies unless they're hung over, sleep-deprived, or otherwise under the weather. And this law has never, ever been violated.

Don't forget, if you're hung over and take greenies they automatically stop working as soon as they take you to your normal state. Greenies are pretty smart.

greg

kevin or no kevin, there is not ever going to be much of a discussion for the very simple reason that a certain number of people simply will not believe that amphetamines enhance baseball performance in any way except to act as a cup of coffee to those who are hungover, and yes i know this does not explain why the un-hungovered would use these drugs, but i digress... they insist that "restoring" a baseball player by non-steroid illegal drugs to his supposed maximum ability is not an enhancement of what would be his unrestored, undrugged performance.

ONLY an increase in physical size of the player can improve his performance, and amphetamines do not increase someone's size. the fact that some of the greatest players have been smallish men is not relevant.

also, people believe that IF steroids can increase muscle size/strength, that then the baseball player is bigger and bigger is always better. and that is the end of the argument, except that the hall of fame is used as a judgement call for only those who hit home runs - the other steroid users, regardless of size, are irrelevant, because so what if pablo ozuna shoots up.

pablo WHO?

it has been the same discussion for years and years and really, there has been little to no change whatsoever in anyones belief/position over the past 5 years

and in case you are going to ask me why i keep coming back and joining in the same arguments i been making for the past 6 years, all i can say is, you got me there, boy, you surely do. or like the old song goes

woman
i feel like a ma-annnnnn

Eh, he's a pretty damned famous ballplayer, he should be in. Casual baseball fans are usually shocked to find out Maris isn't in the HOF. It's not a Hall of Great Career Stats.