Steroids myth is dangerous
Performance-enhancing drug use hasn't 'ruined baseball'
Adam Roberts
Issue date: 2/16/09 Section: Opinion
Last week, Alex Rodriguez confessed that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). This led to Bud Selig, Major League Baseball commissioner, telling USA Today that he's thinking about stripping the career home run record from Barry Bonds and returning it to Hank Aaron.
This would be an awful idea.
The entire baseball community has been overreacting to the steroids scandal for a decade. It not only unfairly casts a stigma over the sport, but it sends a dangerous message to kids, as well.
Yes, taking steroids was cheating, and yes, the players deserve to be punished. But the idea that steroids use has somehow "tainted" baseball or that Bonds' records are invalid is ridiculous.
The so-called PEDs don't really enhance performances as much as most fans assume.
I've read quotes from biologists who say that steroids would somehow increase the number of home runs that players hit by as much as 50 to 100 percent. That's plainly not true.
When we actually look at the real-world examples, we find that PED use didn't really have much of an effect.
If steroids are really these "superdrugs," we'd expect Rodriguez to have a huge spike in his home run totals during the years he took the illegal drugs: 2001 to 2003. And yes, these three were his most productive seasons.
But it's not really this simple - these three years also were the only ones that he spent with the Texas Rangers, playing in the homer-friendly Ballpark in Arlington. In fact, the design of the ballpark where Rodriguez played made hitting home runs so easy that the Rangers led the league in that category in each of those three years.
Statistician J.C. Bradbury crunched the numbers and published the results on his Web site, Sabernomics.com. Bradbury adjusted A-Rod's home run totals to account for the park he played in, the time he played and the natural aging process.
In 2001, the computer predicted that he'd hit 51.07 home runs. He hit 51. In 2002, he was supposed to hit 52.56 home runs. He hit 55. In 2003, he was supposed to hit 52.72 home runs. He hit 45.
This would be an awful idea.
The entire baseball community has been overreacting to the steroids scandal for a decade. It not only unfairly casts a stigma over the sport, but it sends a dangerous message to kids, as well.
Yes, taking steroids was cheating, and yes, the players deserve to be punished. But the idea that steroids use has somehow "tainted" baseball or that Bonds' records are invalid is ridiculous.
The so-called PEDs don't really enhance performances as much as most fans assume.
I've read quotes from biologists who say that steroids would somehow increase the number of home runs that players hit by as much as 50 to 100 percent. That's plainly not true.
When we actually look at the real-world examples, we find that PED use didn't really have much of an effect.
If steroids are really these "superdrugs," we'd expect Rodriguez to have a huge spike in his home run totals during the years he took the illegal drugs: 2001 to 2003. And yes, these three were his most productive seasons.
But it's not really this simple - these three years also were the only ones that he spent with the Texas Rangers, playing in the homer-friendly Ballpark in Arlington. In fact, the design of the ballpark where Rodriguez played made hitting home runs so easy that the Rangers led the league in that category in each of those three years.
Statistician J.C. Bradbury crunched the numbers and published the results on his Web site, Sabernomics.com. Bradbury adjusted A-Rod's home run totals to account for the park he played in, the time he played and the natural aging process.
In 2001, the computer predicted that he'd hit 51.07 home runs. He hit 51. In 2002, he was supposed to hit 52.56 home runs. He hit 55. In 2003, he was supposed to hit 52.72 home runs. He hit 45.
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Bman
posted 2/16/09 @ 3:08 AM CST
"But his lifetime home run pattern very closely matches that of a similar outfielder - Babe Ruth. His overall hitting game improved in the early 2000s, a clue that steroids were not the major factor. (Continued…)
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