Barry Bonds

In non-NBA sports news, Barry Bonds tied Hank Aaron's home run record last night. This opinion is, presumably, valueless since I'm not really a baseball fan, but I take a controversial pro-Bonds position. It's unfortunate, perhaps, that the holder of an important record should have played during the steroid era. Still, I don't see the achievement as meaningfully "tainted" by allegations of Bonds' steroid use.

The use, after all, is presumed to have happened during a time when steroid use was widespread in the league, presumably by, among others, the pitchers whose pitches Bonds was hitting and the fielders who were running down his fly balls. If there were some evidence that the introduction of steroids into the game biased things overall in the direction of more home runs, that would be one thing, but my understanding is that research doesn't show that. See, i.e., this paper PDF: "Before we can reach any conclusions about the contribution of steroids to performance in professional baseball, we first must know something about home run hitting. What was home run hitting like before there were steroids? What is it like now that there is some evidence of steroid use? In a nutshell, the answer is that there are no differences." Bonds is the greatest hitter to ever play, steroids or no.

Photo by Flickr user FemaleTrumpet02 used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

In the steroid era there was an increase in the number and frequency of home runs as is not too hard to establish by looking and the data.

Of course, correlation does no imply causation. But the statement that there was no difference in home run hitting in the steroid era as compared to previous eras is false; there was more home run hitting in the steroid era.

What is not know and it is exceedingly hard to establish is whether the increase in number and frequency of home runs is attributed to steroids, smaller parks, nutrition, other unknown factors, or possibly some combination of these

Posted by DIS | August 5, 2007 8:54 AM

I fail to see what any of this has to do with the shocking news that Andray Blatche was arrested for soliciting Elton Brand's achilles tendon.

Posted by Petey | August 5, 2007 9:03 AM

Bonds is the greatest hitter to ever play, steroids or no.

Matt, you're wrong. All of the statistics that Bonds has amassed that put him into the conversation about "best hitter ever" occurred after his big weight gain and freakishly late in his career. The improvement to his slugging percentage (in his late 30's!!!) is unprecedented in the history of the game. Before steroids Barry was considered an outstanding player and likely Hall of Famer, but nobody was talking about Bonds and Ruth, Aaron or Mantle in the same context.

There is absolutely no evidence, extrapolating from his early to mid career, that he was going to be breaking the records that he has without some miraculous improvement to his already pretty damn good stats. I think all we can reasonably conclude is that steroids work better for Bonds than they do for other people.

Posted by DMonteith | August 5, 2007 9:07 AM

If the situation isn't tainted by Bonds' steroid use, I would suggest it is tainted by the fact that he's a gigantic, obnoxious fuckwad.

Posted by Bill | August 5, 2007 9:07 AM

Of course, correlation does no imply causation. But the statement that there was no difference in home run hitting in the steroid era as compared to previous eras is false; there was more home run hitting in the steroid era.

This is a crucial point, and very true.

Posted by glenstein | August 5, 2007 9:16 AM

Much of the animosity against Bonds among baseball fans has been generated by asshole sports writers who never liked him in the first place. They bad mouthed him before he allegedly began taking steroids and the bad mouthing escalated in subsequent years. One only has to listed to morons like Mike Lupica on ESPNs' The Sportwriters to understand this. The fact of the matter is that Bonds, even before the steroid era began was one of the greatest players in terms of a combination of power and speed who ever played the game. The combination of homeruns and stolen bases he amassed prior to the steroid era was unprecedented.

Posted by SLC | August 5, 2007 9:16 AM

The only reason people care aboput steroids in baseball is because sports reporters hated Bonds beforehand. And if steroids was lead to the power surge in the 1990s, Tony Gwynn must have been at the forefront. Or as is more likely steroids played apart but so did two rounds of expansion in rapid succession.

Posted by Rob | August 5, 2007 9:29 AM

Much of the animosity against Bonds among baseball fans has been generated by asshole sports writers who never liked him in the first place.

No, sorry, Bonds in his own words is more than adequate.

Posted by Bill | August 5, 2007 9:31 AM

Like DMonteith said, if you look at Bonds' career stats, the average number of home runs he hits in a complete season dramatically increases in pretty clear correlation with a freakish increase in the size of his body. Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, of course, but it's not like Bonds' explanation for the sudden increase in his body size makes much sense. A special workout? In his late 30s?

Plus, "lots of people are using steroids" is hardly a reasonable excuse. Steroids are against the rules. If you break a record by breaking the rules, it's tainted, whether or not some of your opponents at the same time were also breaking the rules.

And on top of that, if you have 'roided up pitchers throwing harder and a 'roided up hitter swinging harder, you wouldn't expect those things to cancel each other out. You'd expect maybe fewer hits, but definitely the hits that occurred would be more likely to be home runs.

Posted by LittleMac | August 5, 2007 9:32 AM

In this particular case, I'm not sure if the mean number of home runs hit is really a useful metric. Typically the knock I've seen is that steroids allowed a guy in his late-30's to put up stats like he was in his late-20's. Home runs per player per career or homeruns per at-bat per player per career or something would be a better indicater, though that stat would be though to accurately calculate. That article does include home runs per player/game, but it was unclear if it was tracking the same player over their career.

And MY's hypothesis about juiced up pitchers and fielders would cut against the article's hypothesis. A juiced pitcher against a non-juiced batter would decrease the mean number of home runs by non-using players, while juiced batters hit more home runs, leading to a wash in average production

Posted by TheF79 | August 5, 2007 9:39 AM

What does Tony Gwynn have to do with this?

Posted by Klug | August 5, 2007 9:41 AM

We do not know if steroids benefit more a batter, a pitcher or a fielder.

But regardless of these unknowns, there were more home runs and with more frequency in the home run era.

Steroids also help prolong careers, which is essential for longevity based records like total numbers of home runs as pointed out by TheF79.

Posted by DIS | August 5, 2007 9:45 AM

Tony Gwyn has nothing to do with this.

He's just the poster boy for clean baseball.

Posted by DIS | August 5, 2007 9:47 AM

The transformation of Barry Bonds

In this excerpt from GAME OF SHADOWS by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance
Williams, the statistical transformation of Barry Bonds after he
began steroid use is detailed.
* * *
[...]

Sean Forman, proprietor of baseball-reference.com, used a different statistic
to track Bonds' power surge after 1999. In a study done in 2004 for The
Chronicle, he applied a measure of offensive performance called OPS, for
on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, to compare Bonds to other great
hitters.

Forman's conclusion: Starting in 2000, after Bonds had recovered from a 1999
elbow injury, he put together the greatest five consecutive seasons of any
hitter in baseball history. During that stretch, when he was age 35 to 39,
Bonds batted .339, hit 258 homers and drove in 544 runs, with an OPS of 1.316.
His performance was slightly better than what the study showed was the
second-best five-year run of all time: Babe Ruth's first five years with the
Yankees. From age 25 to 29, Ruth hit .370 with 235 homeruns, 659 runs batted in,
and an OPS of 1.288. No other players in baseball history came close, the study
found.

Posted by Rich | August 5, 2007 9:47 AM

Little Mac wrote:

[i]Plus, "lots of people are using steroids" is hardly a reasonable excuse. Steroids are against the rules. If you break a record by breaking the rules, it's tainted, whether or not some of your opponents at the same time were also breaking the rules. [/i]

Actually, steroids weren't against the rules in baseball until only a few years ago. Before that baseball had no steroid policy - hence, no rules were broken. Now if someone could prove that Bonds was taking the juice once the ban was enacted, that'd be different.

Furthermore, the sporting heroes of self-righteous sportswriters like Lupica and Albom were chemically enhanced also - baseball was notorious for players popping amphetamines before games (read Jim Bouton's "Ball Four"), so much so that a running joke used to be that if they banned amphetamines they would have to cancel day games.

In any case, my baseball hero is Dock Ellis, a man who claimed he pitched a no hitter while high on LSD. Now THERE is talent.

Posted by GeorgieTheK | August 5, 2007 9:50 AM

How about this: No one has ever hit more than 61 home runs in a season except for the short timeframe in which steroid use was at its presumed peak. Never before, not since. That would appear to mean something.

Posted by bg | August 5, 2007 10:05 AM

I'm sorry, while I'm not a Bonds-hater, I think it's pretty clear that steriods weren't just allowing him turn doubles into homeruns, they gave him career longevity and thus enabled him to break Aaron's record.

Also, this is just being pedantic, but Bonds is in contention for the title of greatest slugger, not greatest hitter. Measuring the greatest hitter takes a lot more numbers than career HRs--you have to consider career batting average, RBIs, OBP and many other stats to create a portrait of how creative and timely the hitter is. Being a great hitter isn't just about the long ball.

Posted by Philly | August 5, 2007 10:17 AM

The use, after all, is presumed to have happened during a time when steroid use was widespread in the league, presumably by, among others, the pitchers whose pitches Bonds was hitting and the fielders who were running down his fly balls.

Steroid use by outfielders wouldn't have had much effect on Bonds' home run production. Use by pitchers, of course, is quite another matter.

It's interesting to ponder how Bonds would have fared had he remained clean. Some of the more reasoned estimates figure that he would have made it to the vicinity of 600 home runs, having retired a season or two ago. With a late-career trade to a team with a good hitter's park, such as the Rockies, and a fair dose of luck, he might have had a shot at passing Willie Mays for third place. In any event a first-year-of-eligibility HoF performance, but no threat to Aaron's record.

Posted by Peter | August 5, 2007 10:22 AM

No other players in baseball history came close, the study found.

Had Ted Williams not gone off to WWII, he would have most probably put up similar stats from 1942-1946.

Posted by djslippyb | August 5, 2007 10:28 AM

Re Bill

I would agree that Mr. Bonds is not a nice man. However, his personal inadequacies were greatly exaggerated by schmucks like Mike Lupica and other idiot sportswriters and broadcasters who greatly disliked him and his father before him.

Posted by SLC | August 5, 2007 10:31 AM

Implying that steroid use in batters is offset by the defensive capabilities of pitchers and fielders would only really be reasonable if we moved the outfield fences back. A steroid-enhanced outfielder is (to-date at least) still unable to run through the wall to shag those home runs. If we're going to allow the players to wield superhuman power, we cannot in fairness to players of your allow them to play in the puny field dimensions of Ruth and Mantle.

Posted by Ziggy | August 5, 2007 10:38 AM

Aaron had a power surge in the second half of his career also because the Braves moved from Milwaukee to a more HR friendly park in Atlanta. Hank was an all time great but there are plenty of people who will tell you he wasn't really the best power hitter who ever lived.

Bonds was also an all time great before the presumed late career steroid use. He was already in the conversation for best player ever before he "cheated." If you don't understand that, you don't know much about baseball.

Posted by Fat Tony | August 5, 2007 10:49 AM

Ruth, a fat slob, and Mantle, drunk, hit like Barry Bonds could only do thanks to the use of testicle shrinking performance enhancers.

Posted by rk | August 5, 2007 10:55 AM

I find this argument uncompelling as the presumption is everyone used steroids and clearly some didn't so when you look at mean home run numbers over the entire population you migt not see a difference. Look at the subgroups though and what happened to the 60 home run season after steroid testing? Gone: four 60+ seasons in less then 5 years is an abnormality when there were just 2in the prior 50.

Guys like Frank Thomas at least did it the right way as the gt older

Posted by Pioneer10 | August 5, 2007 11:04 AM

Peter already made my first point, that outfielders seldom have the opportunity to catch home runs no matter how fast they are.

Matt's conjecture is ridiculous. The immediate change in Bonds home runs when he started to use steroids is proof by itself. Is Matt suggesting that all the pitchers Bonds was hitting home runs off of started using at the exact same time so that when all were clean Bonds could not hit many home runs and when all were juiced Bonds advantage was negated but coincidentally he suddenly learned how to hit more home runs at thsi very time?

Posted by GPS | August 5, 2007 11:18 AM

Fat Tony: Hank Aaron wasn't the greatest power hitter ever. But he was the most consistent, and with a record like this that is what you need.

It may be true that, OVERALL, power numbers didn't really go up during the "steroid era" (when did it start, exactly, btw?). I am unconvinced but maybe it did not change. Which would mean that, for all intents and purposes, Bonds' numbers would have been pretty typical during the late 1990s FOR BONDS.

However, that is not true. The guy followed a completely bizarre and virtually unseen career projection: he went from a brilliant hitter and a moderately good slugger (30-40 HRs a year) to a monster slugger, the best slugger ever, in his mid 30s. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. Players start to hit their inevitable decline in the mid 30s. Its a cruel joke with ballplayers, just as their minds start to fully grasp the game they are playing, their body cannot do the same things.

Remember the season where McGwire and Sosa teed off to beat the Roger Maris record? People forget Ken Griffey, Jr. was in it for a while. He was right up there. But he eventually slowed down and finished with, I believe, 56 HRs. This is totally normal among great players - Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Mantle, A-Rod, Ryan Howard last year, and so forth. It is what made Roger Maris' record so special, other players got so close but not all the way. It led to the idea that Maris may have hit the very limit of what is possible in baseball. But all of the sudden in the late 1990s, tons of players started destroying Maris' record like it was nothing? And steroids had nothing to do with it, because if they were all juicing, so was the pitchers so it all canceled out?

Give me a break. Bonds is a fraud. He could have stayed off the juice and went into the Hall as one of the best players of all time. Maybe the best player of all time. His legacy was secure. But he did this for some reason and his reputation is ruined. And he didn't even win a World Series.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Posted by Joshua | August 5, 2007 11:18 AM

It's absurd to have this discussion on a liberal website, given that 98% of the people who don't want to see Bonds sent to Gitmo as a traitor to his country live in San Francisco, and any liberal site will have a disproportionately high number of crazy liberal San Francisco hippies who need to learn how to root for a real baseball team.

Posted by Pup, MD | August 5, 2007 11:23 AM

This type of argument depends on how you frame the question.

Most baseball commentators tend to agree that IN RELATION WITH HIS PEERS, Ruth still blasts away Bonds (there is a great exchange about this posted last night on ESPN - Neyer, Olney and Stark).

However, if we time machined all 3 players to the 21st century at their physical peak (including the pre-1999 Bonds), allowed them a winter and spring to get ready for a regular season, Bonds would almost certainly be the better player.

The reason is simple: conditioning today (Bonds, whatever else one thinks of him, is a fitness freak), much deeper competition today and the invention of pitches which were not around in Bonds, Williams or Aaron's era (in the latter cases, the forkball).

Now if WWII and Korea had not happened, Ted Williams probably would have the all-time records, but I suspect TW was happier to be known as someone who fought for his country (the whole greatest generation thing).

Posted by JRVJ | August 5, 2007 11:26 AM

DMonteith: Matt, you're wrong. All of the statistics that Bonds has amassed that put him into the conversation about "best hitter ever" occurred after his big weight gain and freakishly late in his career.

Have you looked at Bonds' stats from the 1990s? (Most of the credible steroids allegations involve only his post-1998 career. There's never been any evidence he did steroids before that, and it was only after that time that his physical proportions drastically changed.)

Bonds was the best player of the 1990s. He won three MVPs during that decade, and probably deserved one or two others. (Terry Pendleton in 1991 over Bonds? Give me a break.) He was routinely getting on base in 40% to 45% of his plate appearances (perhaps the single most important thing any hitter can do), and was hitting 30 to 45 home runs a year, while playing Gold Glove defense and stealing lots of bases at a high success rate.

Before steroids Barry was considered an outstanding player and likely Hall of Famer, but nobody was talking about Bonds and Ruth, Aaron or Mantle in the same context.

Some people were. And they should have been; even if you discount everything he did after 1998, he was as good in his prime as Mantle and Mays were during theirs.

I think all we can reasonably conclude is that steroids work better for Bonds than they do for other people.

With all the hoopla over steroids, one thing I think is being overlooked is the possible role of human growth hormone. I don't know if this is even prohibited by baseball, but there is some reason to believe that Bonds was or is using it.

Apparently, there is a cottage industry in providing hGH to middle-aged men. Is there any evidence that this is actually harmful? If (and this is a big if) hGH is not particularly harmful, then I see no reason why its use should be prohibited. (The evidence for the harmfulness of steroids is considerably clearer.)

DIS: What is not know and it is exceedingly hard to establish is whether the increase in number and frequency of home runs is attributed to steroids, smaller parks, nutrition, other unknown factors, or possibly some combination of these.

I think this really needs to be emphasized. It's worth pointing out that home run numbers are still up, even with steroid testing in place; several players this season are on pace to hit over 50 home runs, and it's not out of the question that A-Rod could rack up 60 this year.

Overall, parks have gotten smaller. It's interesting to note that hitting statistics dropped precipitously during the mid-1960s, when pitchers' paradises like Dodger Stadium and Candlestick Park were built; and when a new age of bandboxes arrived in the 1990s, hitting stats rebounded. This can't simply be ignored, especially when the causation is so obvious. Many of the newer parks were specifically designed to make it easier to hit home runs, and they have done this.

Conditioning has vastly improved. At one time, almost no ballplayers engaged in regular exercise or weightlifting. Today, almost all of them do. Even without steroids, legitimate workout regimens can produce not only more home runs, but also increases in longevity. Better medical care also helps increase the length of careers as well.

Many players in past decades wasted much of their talent through substance abuse. Mickey Mantle and Jimmy Foxx both ended their careers prematurely due to booze. Babe Ruth could probably have gotten several more productive years in if he had stayed in shape and moderated his drinking. Bobby Bonds, Barry's father, had Hall of Fame-level talent, but smoked and drank it away. All of this is much less common now.

Expansion and the five-man rotation has diluted pitching staffs. There are about the same number of elite pitchers to go around as there were during the 1980s, but there are four more teams looking for pitching. And they pitch fewer innings, too. This means that a lot of pitchers are in the major leagues now who wouldn't have been in 1990. No doubt this also makes hitting statistics look better.

rk: Ruth, a fat slob, and Mantle, drunk, hit like Barry Bonds could only do thanks to the use of testicle shrinking performance enhancers.

The overall level of professionalism in MLB was much lower during the 1950s, much less the 1920s. Ruth and Mantle got away with boozing and staying out of shape because everyone else did the same thing. Furthermore, Ruth never had to face the best African-American pitchers, nor did he have to play night games.

Posted by Josh G. | August 5, 2007 11:30 AM

Not only did Ted Williams miss time for WWII, but Willie Mays missed most of the 1952 season and all of the 1953 season serving in the army while Korea was going on.

Give him 30 a year - and he sits at 716. 40 a year and he's at 756. (He had hit 20 homers in 121 games in his rookie year in '51, then hit 41 in 1954 when he returned.)

Ted Williams would've had to avg. around 49 homers a year in those 5 years he missed to beat Aaron. Considering that he hit more than 39 homes just once in his career (43 in 1949), unlikely that he would've been the home run king.

Posted by GeorgieTheK | August 5, 2007 11:41 AM

I bet all the Bond bashers don't mind the Viagra era of porn.

Posted by steve duncan | August 5, 2007 11:42 AM

Lay off Ruth. He was an incredible athlete but the pictures we see tend to be of his final years.

As a pitcher he had the lowest ERA in the league one year and was among the lowest many years. He actually led the Yankees in steals one year.(albeit a very small number by today's standards)

Posted by GPS | August 5, 2007 11:44 AM

Pre 1998 Bonds was the best player of his era. He was also one of the best of all time. This is true regardless of whether he did steroids, growth hormone, or god knows what later in his career.

Now he's never been charming I don't particularly like the guy.

Posted by DIS | August 5, 2007 11:48 AM

Performance-enhancing drugs are here to stay both on and off the field. Soon the arguments against them will seem as silly as the old arguments about amateurs and professionals in the Olympics. The fat drunken fan in section 42 will have to find something else to be outraged over. Effing billionaire can't even run to first base.

Posted by peter | August 5, 2007 11:50 AM

which is more likely - the MLB had all of its home run records broken within a decade randomly, or that the last decade has seen a fundamental change in gameplay due to performance enhancing drugs?

Posted by shaun | August 5, 2007 12:18 PM

I think you'll find the most salient criticism of Matt Yglesias's technique in the final sentence of the post. You've got some quality arguments in the post, supported by some cherry-picked evidence. But then you've got that dangler at the end there, which he has declined to support with any evidence at all. It exists, of course, because it is contrary and provocative and vexing, and dropping those kind of bombs into your blog-- regardless of their argumentative value-- gets you cred. Which wouldn't be disappointing, except that MY is generally an enormously talented and thoughtful writer.

Posted by Freddie | August 5, 2007 12:30 PM

By the way that study Matt linked is not particularly convincing even within its own framing (that's a lot of standard deviations in a three year period) but also shows little understanding of the differences between baseball in 1961 (the last time you had a comparable grouping of home run hitters) and 1998, specifically in pitching.

I not a big statistics guy but anybody who actually watched baseball in the seventies and eighties saw averages drop as pitchers got more specialized, batters had fewer at bats against any given pitcher any given game and so fewer chances to adapt, and the dominance of the closer in the last inning or so. All of a sudden 300 started moving from being the batting average of a good hitter to that of a really good hitter.

Steroids might help fielders and pitchers to recover from injuries but would seem to have limited impact on either range or pitch speed. But their muscle building powers would naturally add to arm strength and make just enough difference to turn that deep fly out into a home run. So I don't buy the offset argument.

(All of which is too bad because my entire baseball card collection is a single Sammy Sosa rookie card. God knows how much this controversy is costing me in dollars and cents.)

Posted by Bruce Webb | August 5, 2007 12:34 PM

We can argue steriods all day, but there's no question that the piece of armor on Bonds' arm that NO ONE ELSE gets to wear enables him to crowd the plate without fear. Drysdale or Gibson would have sawed his arm off.

Posted by jim 7 | August 5, 2007 1:10 PM

"...allegations of Bonds' steroid use..."

I may be wrong, but is it not the case that Bonds has admitted using steroids, but unintentionally so? Remember his laughable statements that he thought they were just giving him "flaxseed oil"?

"Bonds is the greatest hitter to ever play, steroids or no". Even if you ignore steroids, just simply not true. He is one of the greatest, but on balance (in terms of RBIs, runs scored, total hits, total homers, etc.) he is only 'one of', he's not 'the best'.

I have always been of the opinion that all - and I mean ALL - of the other numbers are secondary to runs scored and runs driven in. I mean, what is the point of the game from a hitter's perspective? To generate runs. Nothing more, nothing less. ("But what about home runs?" They're very important, because they produce runs! So important that they count twice! - both as a run scored and at least one run driven in.) So, in the category of 'runs produced' (ie RBIs plus runs scored) Aaron has 4471, Ruth 4391, Bonds 4189, Ty Cobb 4183, Cap Anson 4072, Mays 3965, Musial 3900, Gehrig 3883.

One of the very best. But not 'the best'.

Posted by Robert Earle | August 5, 2007 1:15 PM

I have always been of the opinion that all - and I mean ALL - of the other numbers are secondary to runs scored and runs driven in.

Umm, no. That makes sense in theory, but you can't drive runs in (or really score runs) without the help of your teammates. If you hit a double when there are two men on, you get two RBIs. If you hit a double when no one is on, well, you get nothing by that metric. More to the point, pitchers walk good hitters in pressure situations, especially if the good hitter has no protection behind him (i.e. another person to drive him in.) In one year, Bonds was intentionally walked 120 times because no one wanted to pitch to him when runners were on, and there was no one behind him to drive him in. Logically, drawing more intentional walks than any TEAM in history is a sign of enormous talent and respect; by your measure, those walks inadvertently seem to show he can't hit.

Posted by bk | August 5, 2007 1:45 PM

I think baseball fans have an atavistic attitude about their sport. I remember when fans were outraged about Cal Ripken beating Lou Gerig's record for consecutive games. There were people out there seriously suggesting that Ripken sit the game out-as if he didn't deserve the right to beat the older record. I don't think those sentiments were widespread, but they were in the air-they would have been way worse if Cal hadn't been generally well liked. Barry Bonds suffers from this, especially because he is widely held to be an asshole. No one wants to see him beat Hank Aaron's record, because Aaron has been deified in baseball mythology. The tacit assumption is that a person would have to live up to the legendary reputation of Aaron before they could possibly deserve acknowledgment for eclipsing his home run record. Hell, not even Hank Aaron stacks up to the Hank Aaron legend, but that doesn't matter now that he has been hallowed by the past.

I think all of this is just plain silly. Baseball is a game, and baseball history is just play history. There's nothing objectively important about the number 756, and all this teeth grinding over records is disproportionate to the their piddling insignificance. The mistake was made long ago when little boys were told that breaking records was important all by itself. So instead of examining the struggles of their sports heroes in a more humanistic fashion, they grew up always looking for the evidence of excellence in stats alone. Well, Barry Bonds is living proof that numbers aren't the real measure of a man. But now that so many of you have pinned so much upon them, you have no idea what to do about it. My suggestion? Get over the home run record already. It's the sort of thing 12 years drool about, but grown men should have gotten over years ago.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 5, 2007 2:34 PM

No doubt the guy is a phenomenal player, but also no doubt that steroid use turned a lot of long fly ball outs into homers.

He has to have the skill to nail the ball consistently, and steroids does not help that, but it sure adds that extra 20-30 feet.

If steroid use was a legit part of training, then Ben Johnson deserved gold in 1988.

Posted by dmbeaster | August 5, 2007 2:35 PM

Look, basically, Matt, you're wrong about Bonds and the people pointing out how absurdly weird Bonds's career trajectory went are right.

That being said, it is worth noting that Clay Hensley, who gave up Bonds' 755th homer, was suspended for steroid use while in the minors two years ago. Just pointing it out.

Also, as a Dodger fan, I've been booing Barry Bonds since before anybody ever mentioned him and the word "steroid" in the same sentence.

Posted by Adam Villani | August 5, 2007 2:44 PM

The game changed in many ways in the '90's, besides teh use of PED's.

Parks were smaller,bats springier (thinner handled), conditioning improved, the balls may've been juiced-so to attribute Bonds' numbers-or anyone else's-to steroids-is silly. BTW Matt Williams was en route to break Maris' record in '94, before the strike, and I've never heard it suggested that he used anything. The game changed in the hitters' direction, and, now, as always, the pendulum is swinging back again.

And if Bonds can still hit healthy numbersof homers ar 43, presumably not on anything, isn't that the best argument yet that he didn't do 'roids? They're suppossed to shorten careers,not extend them.

Bonds almost ceratinly IS the greatest hitter ever-the quality of play is much higher than what Ruth or Williams dealt with, and he comparable numbers.

Posted by John Salmon | August 5, 2007 2:46 PM

Hello, this is the statistics police:

Matt ably demonstrates why baseball talk is hell on earth for anybody with a working knowledge of statistics. Matt argues that the effect of steriods in unimportant if the gain for the hitter is offset by the gain of the pitcher and fielders. Atmittedly if this were the case and for each category the same percentage of player uses steroids, the mean number of homeruns per season should be unaffected. But this is because the number of homeruns for the users increases, while, for the non-users if decreases.

Lets work this out: Suppose 50 percent of both pitchers and hitters use steroids. The use of steroids increases the chance of a HR if a steriod using hitter is matched by a non-steriod using pitcher, while it is the same if the pitcher also uses. Furthermore, if the pitcher uses, but the man at bat doesn't the chance of a homerun decreases by 10 percent. What is the result? The steroid using hitter has on average a 5 percent higher chance of hitting a home run, while the non-user has a 5 percents lower chance. So the average chance of a HR stays the same, but the user still has a clear advantage.

So even if we grant all Matts premisses they still don't establish his conclusion. He would need to make the extra assumption that all players use steroids. Is he willing to go that far or will he admit defeat?

Posted by cargo cult | August 5, 2007 3:04 PM

So even if we grant all Matts premisses they still don't establish his conclusion. He would need to make the extra assumption that all players use steroids. Is he willing to go that far or will he admit defeat?

Read more carefully. The nut of his argument is here: "If there were some evidence that the introduction of steroids into the game biased things overall in the direction of more home runs, that would be one thing, but my understanding is that research doesn't show that."

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 5, 2007 3:26 PM

Matt,

You're wrong. DeVany's paper is no good.

For a quick introduction to the history of steroids in sports, especially baseball, see my 2004 American Conservative article:

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_04_12/article.html

Bonds deserves some sympathy because he was the best player of the 1990s even though he was clean through the 1998 season. He didn't start cheating until 1999, because he was jealous of all the attention paid to obvious cheaters like McGwire and Sosa in 1998. The reason Bonds put up such ridiculous numbers after he started cheating was, first, because he was so talented to begin with, second, because he's a very smart, driven guy who made sure he did his juicing right.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 3:35 PM

I agree with Matt, and with Art Devany. The guy appears to be a real, hardcore statistician. The "Wages of Win" blogger (name escapes me) agrees that Devany may be on to something, too (I commented once on the WW blog, and asked him whether or not he thought Devany's theories were worthy of consideration).

One thing I remember Devany mentioning is the lack of an increase in average distance of home runs. If steroids were as helpful in home running hitting to Bonds (or to others) as is alleged, we should have seen a sharp jump in the distance that home runs are being hit. As far as I know no such increase is in evidence.

By the way, Roger Maris wasn't exactly in the habit of hitting 50 or 60 home runs throughout his career. Was his spike in production attributable to steroids, too?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/marisro01.shtml

At the heart of Devany's argument is the proposition that "genius" achievement (whether it's in sports, the arts, or whatever) tends to follow a mathematical distribution that would give us exactly the type of career HR numbers put up by Bonds -- in other words, a distribution characterized by sharp, even erratic "spikes". I definitely recommend reading him before you draw your conclusions, or dismiss Matt's post.

Posted by Jasper | August 5, 2007 3:38 PM

"Bonds deserves some sympathy because..."

Steve Sailer, shouldn't you be arguing that both Bonds and Aaron are illegitimate, and that Babe Ruth is the only true home run champ?

Posted by Petey | August 5, 2007 3:41 PM

To steal a phrase here, it's time for some "nuance".

Too much authoritative talking, without considering all the evidence.

So, here's my contribution. Some of the reasons for the change in hitting in the 90's have already been said:

a. Parks were changed, and were made friendlier to the hitter.
b. Training regimens went through a huge change, in the early 90's - this was the introduction of the "training all the time" freaks, and lots of players adapted this method.
c. Steroids as opposed to performance-enhancing legal substances.

It's important to remember that there exists a whole host of ways to improve one's performance, based on what one ingests. Heck, we've all heard about the "protein diets", and we know that you can fundamentally alter the way your body performs, based on what you eat. As well as lots of perfectly legal nutrition enhancers. Then of course, you have stuff like creatine - perfectly legal (I believe, is this right?), or has been mentioned earlier, HgH - human growth hormone, which is a gray area, as counting as a steroid (Hgh is naturally occuring in the body (HUMAN growth hormone, duh), so how can it count as a steroid? But in the 30's the amount of HGH the body produces drops dramatically. So, as has been said above, there is a cottage industry to counteract this natural drop of HGH, by supplementing with artificial, man-made, HGH.

And then of course, you have the ACTUAL STEROIDS.

There is NO DOUBT that Bonds was using performance enhancing supplements, as well as eating a diet to enhance performance - and HGH, creatine, other types of natural supplements play a part.

In that sense - OF COURSE this new regimen, which came about, again, in the revolutionary early 90's theories of nutrition, performance, and supplements - is responsible for Bonds becoming so HUGE and LARGE.

What isn't known is, how much of that new regimen included steroids.

In addition, people ignore the fact that during that 4 year period where Bonds was simply untouchable, he also achieved the best batting average, and a couple of other top ten batting averages.

No one thinks that steroids improves one eye-hand coordination, one's ability to spot a hittable pithc, and to hit the ball, so it can't explain away Bond's accuracy in hitting the ball.

I don't think you can say Bonds is the best hitter of all time.

But I do think that the period when Bonds production was at his apex - that 4 year run - was the best 4 year run by any hitter ever.

Posted by JC | August 5, 2007 3:42 PM

I generally don't watch baseball except during the playoffs, and that not every year, so needless to say I don't have anything invested in the Great History of Baseball.

Which is why, while I can understand people being upset by the use of steroids over the past decade or so, I just get amused by people who want to selectively call out the people they (think) they KNOW have sinned. If anything in this era gets an asterisk, everything gets an asterisk. More players used steroids than could ever be positively identified, so...you just don't know. To me, this means I also don't judge. For all we know, players taking steroids have participated in every important baseball game of the past few years. World Series should get asterisks.

And in the end, why will it matter? I ask friends who are more into baseball about the stats I see from long ago and they say things like "well, in that period the ball was lively / the ball was dead / the mound was different / pitchers cheated all the time".

People just like to feel righteous.

Posted by Quarterican | August 5, 2007 3:42 PM

One thing I remember Devany mentioning is the lack of an increase in average distance of home runs. If steroids were as helpful in home running hitting to Bonds (or to others) as is alleged, we should have seen a sharp jump in the distance that home runs are being hit. As far as I know no such increase is in evidence.

That's a true statement, if you don't know much about physics. There are limits to the amount of force human arms can generate as a function of various biological factors.

Consider an analogy of life expectancy. Over the past century, we have increased the number of people who live to be over 100 (home runs) by a drastic number. We haven't, however, changed the maximum length of time that folks can live (a theoretical, say 115 years). And we would not expect the "average" length of time after 100 people live to increase either (although we would expect some change in the variance), since people that would have once died at 71 might live to be 101. If we now have a bunch of 380 foot home runs that would have been 350 feet flyouts at the warning track, we still call them home runs. And their inclusion makes distance analysis entirely moot.

Posted by Pup, MD | August 5, 2007 4:15 PM

Another factor is that the Giants moved to Pac Bell Park in 2000, and that park was specifically designed so Bonds could hit home runs.

Posted by croatoan | August 5, 2007 4:30 PM

Here's Barry's batting performance by age (as of July 1) through 2004 when he was 39, using the Baseball Reference's single best hitting statistic, Adjusted OPS. The average hitter is a 100. To reach 200 for a single season is out of the reach of most Hall of Famers (Hank Aaron and Willie Mays never did it). As you can see, Barry reached his first peak, achieving 205 and 206, in 1992-93 when he was 27 and 28, which is the typical peak age for a ballplayer. He then declined slowly, as is conventional, to a still outstanding 162 at age 34 in 1999. The next year he bounced back up to 191, which is a little suspicious but hardly impossible for somebody who was already one of the top 20 or so greatest ballplayers of all time, and arguably top 10. Then, from the age of 36 through 39 he went on a four-year tear averaging 257, which is better than Babe Ruth's single best season (1920) of 255, when he was 25. Ted Williams had a 233 when he was 38 but his surrounding seasons weren't too close to that. Bonds' last four seasons include the three best offensive seasons in the history of baseball. That just ain't natural.

age Avg=100
21 103
22 114
23 147
24 125
25 170
26 161
27 205
28 206
29 182
30 168
31 186
32 170
33 177
34 162
35 191
36 262
37 275
38 231
39 260

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2004/12/barry-bonds-batting-by-age.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 4:36 PM

"...Pac Bell Park ...was specifically designed so Bonds could hit home runs."

Is that why the deepest part of the park is the right field power alley, at a VERY deep 421 feet?

Posted by Robert Earle | August 5, 2007 4:39 PM

Look, this is a silly thing to debate: there's an entire book that gives all the details about Barry's use of performance-enhancing drugs, why he started using them in 1999, and what effect they had on performance (as you'd expect, the performance-enhancing drugs enhanced his performance). The Art DeVany's of the world would have you believe that Barry Bonds risked shame and prison for a placebo, which is ridiculous.

As I blogged in 2006:

Barry Bonds and Steroids

Sports Illustrated runs an excerpt from a book by reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams documenting seven-time baseball MVP Barry Bonds' performance enhancing drug regimen. It's all pretty much what you'd expect from my American Conservative article "Out of the Park" from two years ago, but what's new is that the authors have found (based on interviews with Barry's ex-mistress) that the direct cause of Barry starting to cheat was the intense jealousy he felt about the humongous hoopla over Mark McGwire's 1998 breaking of Roger Maris's homerun record, when it should have been obvious that McGwire was a juicer. (Indeed, late in the season a reporter found a vial of steroid precursor in McGwire's locker).

Toward the end of the 1998 season, Stephen Jay Gould wrote a celebratory op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how the homer competition between McGwire and Sammy Sosa had restored the innocence to the game, yada yada. I sent Gould a fax suggesting that there was nothing innocent about it, that the explanation for their soaring totals was that they were breaking the law by using steroids. Gould never replied.

According to the article, Bonds never used anything stronger than a protein shake before the end of the 1998. Bonds was certainly the best all-around ballplayer of the 1990s, winning three MVP awards from 1990-1993 when he was in his later 20s.

His father, Bobby Bonds, had been a remarkable talent, with an almost unprecedented combination of speed and power, but teams had had a hard time figuring out how to use him. Moreover, Bobby was an alcoholic and chain-smoker, so his output fell off rapidly after he hit 30.

Barry inherited his father's power and speed, and avoided his failings. Bobby struck out almost twice as much as he walked, and Barry started his career with a similar pattern, but by 1996 was walking twice as much as he struck out.

Without performance enhancing drugs, Barry was one of the top 20 players of all time, and had a shot at the career top 10. Up through age 33, during which Barry was clean of steroids,, the most similar career to Barry's was that of Frank Robinson's, one of the greatest players of all time. Still, Barry's godfather was Willie Mays who was even better than Robinson. And Barry's career was following the normal path -- he'd peaked at age 27-28 in 1992-93 -- and he was now in his biologically inevitable decline phase.

At age 34 in late 1998, his stats remained terrific, but his body was slowly deteriorating, and lesser players like McGwire and Sosa were cheating to steal the limelight from him.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/03/barry-bonds-and-steroids.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 4:49 PM

Steve Sailer, it's not very clear that Bonds was in any serious danger of decline in 1999. He peaks at ages 27 and 28, but 182/168/186/170/177 Adjusted OPS stats from ages 29 through 33 isn't exactly a story of inevitable decline -- it looks a lot like random variation at an extremely high level. I mean, not being able to match some of the very best seasons in history is a decline of sorts, but he's hardly spiraling downwards at age 33.

In 1998 at the age of 33 he puts up a .438 OBP and .609 SLG, ranking fourth in the NL in each category (McGwire, Sosa, and Colorado-enhanced Larry Walker provide most of the competition). His 177 adj OPS at age 33 is the average of his 29-32 numbers.

Even in 1999, when he posts his lowest adjusted OPS since 1991 (a year where he should have won MVP!) he puts up the fourth-highest slugging percentage in his career.

Posted by Barbar | August 5, 2007 5:16 PM

Right, Bonds may have been the best clean player in the league in 1996-1998, which is a big reason why he dipped his toe into juicing in 1999, then got much better at it in 2000 and 2001. But, as the book shows, Bonds knew his body a lot better than anybody else (a lot better than Prof. Art Devany, that's for sure), and he knew his best days were behind him without help.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 5:25 PM

I see, so in addition to global warming DeVany thinks the idea steroids helped Bonds is a myth?

Matt you realize you're citing a pretty far out libertarian right? I assume his goal in defending Bonds is mostly to try and get the government away from regulating steroids.

Posted by DJ | August 5, 2007 5:27 PM

It's not only the right. Nation sportswriter Dave Zirin has been a long-term defender of Bonds: http://www.edgeofsports.com/

Posted by Kalkin | August 5, 2007 5:56 PM

I watch athletic competition to see what natural ability + training + willpower can accomplish. Anytime the equation becomes natural ability + training + willpower + chemical enhancement, it devalues the competition and the accomplishments. But maybe I'm wrong and out of the mainstream. Maybe we should just stop testing for drugs in the Tour De France and the Olympics and let them all become like body building and pro wrestling. We could all marvel at the number of records that are broken and use it as proof that we are living in the greatest era for sport that ever existed. Because that's what this Barry Bonds record is about. People with a selfish interest in claiming they were "there" when it happened. I am constantly amazed with how little coverage of Barry Bonds is devoted to why the use of performance enhancing drugs is cheating.

And FYI, there WAS a steroid policy in baseball starting in 1991. Look up the Faye Vincent memo in which he states that ALL illegal substances are banned and he specifically mentions steroids.

Posted by Just Karl | August 5, 2007 6:37 PM

One last thought on Bonds, he's one of the biggest chokers in post season history. It's no surprise to me that he's in a terrible slump while trying to break the record.

Posted by Just Karl | August 5, 2007 6:48 PM

Bonds hit 8 home runs in 45 at bats in the 2002 postseason. But I've had this conversation with Just Karl before; Bonds was on steroids then, unlike now, so he wasn't surprised by that.

Posted by Barbar | August 5, 2007 7:10 PM

Were steroids part of the offensive explosion of the late 1990s? Almost certainly.

Were they the only component, or even the primary component? I don't think so, and here's my evidence: aggregate home run totals (measured in terms of home runs per game) have not significantly fallen since baseball got serious about steroid testing. See this ESPN article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2179376

With serious steroid testing and suspension in place, home run totals fell from 2.25 per game to 2.06 per game. That's about a 10% difference, which means it probably wasn't entirely random variation, but the new totals are still far above the offensive nadir of the 1960s through 1980s. People who grew up then began to think of this as a baseline, rather than a unique era, but that is not correct. Look at the 1930s; balls were flying out of parks like crazy back then. During that decade, you had Hack Wilson's 56 HR and 190 RBI season in 1930, and you had two 58 HR seasons (one by Greenberg and one by Foxx). Why? Certainly not steroids.

In addition to steroids, you have to take into account: smaller parks (tons of these were built during the 1990s); better legitimate conditioning; and a weakening of pitching staffs due to two rounds of rapid expansion. (What do 1961 and 1998 have in common, aside from single-season home run records? They were both expansion years.)

We're still seeing people rack up 50 HR seasons now that steroid testing is in full force. This leaves two possibilities: either the testing is completely ineffective (which is possible) or the other factors I mentioned are still driving high levels of offense.

It's entirely possible that four players (Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder, Adam Dunn, and Ryan Howard) will hit 50 HR or more during this season. As far as I know, there have never been any credible accusations of steroid use against any of these players.

As for Mark McGwire, I'm not convinced he was using banned substances. We know he used Andro, which was neither illegal nor prohibited by baseball at the time. He was never anywhere near the all-around player Bonds was, but he always had home run power (his 49 HR in 1987 is still the most ever hit by a player in his rookie year). Tony LaRussa claims that McGwire spent much more time working out than Canseco (who we know used steroids, by his own admission) and yet Canseco was much more heavily muscled. Maybe LaRussa is covering up for McGwire, but I'd like to see some actual evidence that Big Mac was juicing, and not just gossip from a disgruntled and probably jealous former teammate. Nor do I consider taking the Fifth to be indicative of guilt; perhaps he didn't know if Andro was considered steroids and didn't want to risk perjury charges, or perhaps his lawyer told him to keep his mouth shut. I do know that it is wrong and even un-American for a deserving player to be denied Hall of Fame admission on the basis of rumor and innuendo.

Posted by Josh G. | August 5, 2007 7:39 PM

2002 was a drug fueled outlier Barbar. Tell us about his other post season appearances, you know before the drugs, while he was still one of the greatest players in his era.

"Unlike now," is a strange idea. Has Bonds body returned to it's former size now that he's stopped using? It seems to me his head is still very large. MLBs steroid policy (or the NFLs for that matter) which allows someone to return to the game after they have gained all the benefits of steroids (increased muscle mass) are the equivalent of giving Sammy Sosa his corked bat back after his suspension. I think anyone caught using performance enhancing drugs should be banned for life. Right now, kids are using steroids in high school and college and gaining all the benefits before they reach the pro level. Not for nothing, but I grew up in Miami about the same time as A-Rod. Let's just say he wasn't even close to his present size back then. I have my doubts about him, too.

Posted by Just Karl | August 5, 2007 7:40 PM

Oh so it's no surprise that Bonds hit all those clutch home runs in 2002, because he was on steroids then.

Oh so it's no surprise that Bonds is slumping *now* as he approaches the MLB home run record, because he's just a choker.

Yes, I see a clear-headed scientist at work. No confirmation bias here.

Yogi Berra started using steroids in 1953, which is why he went from a guy who hit under .200 in his first 100 (!) postseason at bats to being one of the best renowned playoff hitters ever.

Posted by Barbar | August 5, 2007 7:51 PM

I don't believe there's a test for Human Growth Hormone, so I presume some players are using it.

Are the current MLB steroid tests highly effective? I don't know. There's always an arms races between users and testers, as the history of the Olympics shows. Certainly, the current testing would catch some careless dope like the late Ken Caminiti, who gave himself megadoses of anabolic homer-helpers in the second half of 1996 to win the MVP, but would they definitely catch a smart guy like Bonds? How about a certain legendary pitcher?

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 8:27 PM

By the way, Andrew Sullivan revived his punditry career in the late 1990s with prescription testosterone:

http://www.isteve.com/ManlyMolecule.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 8:29 PM

Any and all criticism of Bonds is racist in its effect if not its intent; just kidding, but most Bonds haters get real racist real fast.

Posted by Gregorio | August 5, 2007 8:45 PM

"Not for nothing, but I grew up in Miami about the same time as A-Rod. Let's just say he wasn't even close to his present size back then. I have my doubts about him, too."

Yes, history clearly shows that the only way to gain large amounts of muscle mass between the ages of 18 and 32 is to use steroids.

Posted by weichi | August 5, 2007 9:48 PM

Not for nothing, but I grew up in Miami about the same time as A-Rod. Let's just say he wasn't even close to his present size back then. I have my doubts about him, too.

Not for nothing, but you would expect a professional athlete -- and indeed most men in general -- to have bulked up over the course of their 20s.

Posted by Rick | August 5, 2007 9:59 PM

In 1993, Bonds best year prior to the 'roid/HR era, Bonds hit 46 home runs in 539 at bats. Ten years later, he hit 45 home runs in 390 at bats.
In 1993, 8.5% of his ABs ended in a home run, ten years later 11.5% of his ABs resulted in the home run.

Willie Mays hit 51 in 1955 and 52 ten years later in 1965. The difference in HRs/ABs was only .6% however (8.7 and 9.3).

Posted by Brady Anderson hit s 50 | August 5, 2007 10:22 PM

I could give a shit about baseball, but you are all acting like we "can't be sure" that Bonds did steroids. First, he admitted under sworn testimony to using the Clear designer steroids from BALCO. Second, the book Game of Shadows meticulously documents his steroid use. It was written by two real reporters (not the sports variety) who are well-respected and have good reputations. The word "allegedly" does not appear in the book. No one has been sued about it. By most standards, we do in fact know that Bonds used steroids. You've really got to have an unusually high standard of evidence to think otherwise.

Posted by Freddie | August 5, 2007 10:27 PM

Yes, history clearly shows that the only way to gain large amounts of muscle mass between the ages of 18 and 32 is to use steroids.

Yes, but this is what fathers across America are telling themselves when their child takes a weight training class in high school or comes home from his first semester at college and suddenly weighs 30 lbs more than he did 6 months ago. He had a growth spurt. Well yeah, he sure did. You cannot get infinitely big by lifting weights. There is a large genetic component that creates a diminishing return. It's hard to put on weight. Barry Bonds could never get as big as his is today, or was in 2002, simply by lifting and eating right.

Steroids were everywhere in Miami in the mid-late eighties. How many of you reading this blog have ever actually seen steroids or known personally anyone who did them? How many have ever deigned to lift a weight? Jose Conseco is from Miami. We all knew he was a juicer when he was with the As and McGuire. I always hated him until he wrote that book and spilled the beans. But if you want to look at the statistics, check out the rise to power of Miami, Florida State, and Florida in college football begining in the 80s. Coincidence, perhaps, but it sure seemed to come out of nowhere. Bobby Bowden was at Florida State a long time before they were any good. It's not like he suddenly got any better. Florida State became a football powerhouse because the kids coming to him were already juiced up. In judging athletes from Miami, "something in the water" is likely to have been accurate at some point of their career.

Posted by Just Karl | August 5, 2007 11:04 PM

Has anyone seen Carrottop lately? Scary. He did not just change his diet and start lifting. But I don't know that for a fact.

Posted by Just Karl | August 5, 2007 11:11 PM

Steroids tended to be big early in areas with local muscle beach cultures, like California, or big gay communities, or both. John Hadl, for example, said the strength coach of his San Diego Chargers was handing out steroids in the 1960s. (Of course, there's the rumor that the Steelers won all those Super Bowls in the 1970s because they got into steroids early, so that would be an exception.)

A baseball agent told me around 1993 that "Jose Canseco is the Typhoid Mary of steroids." You can take a look at the roster of the Texas Rangers in 1992-93 when Canseco was there and make some guesses. Interestingly, George W. Bush was co-managing director of the Rangers at the time the Rangers made the blockbuster trade for Canseco, who had been first publicly accused of steroid use in 1988. The other partners didn't let Bush have much power, but he always claimed he signed off on all trades, which meant he signed off on bringing in the notorious juicer Canseco.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 11:13 PM

Just Karl: Yes, history clearly shows that the only way to gain large amounts of muscle mass between the ages of 18 and 32 is to use steroids.

Yes, but this is what fathers across America are telling themselves when their child takes a weight training class in high school or comes home from his first semester at college and suddenly weighs 30 lbs more than he did 6 months ago. He had a growth spurt. Well yeah, he sure did. You cannot get infinitely big by lifting weights.

But in this particular case we're talking about years, not 6 months. No, you can't get infinitely big by lifting weights (and you can't get infinitely big by using steroids either... don't be silly). There are limits. But, all else being equal, someone who engages in intensive regular exercise and weight training is going to gain a lot of muscle mass as they grow into their late twenties and early thirties. They may gain even more if they do steroids, but they will gain plenty of it with normal weight training. In the late thirties, it becomes harder to do so, but A-Rod hasn't hit that wall yet. Remember, he only just turned 32.

Freddie: The word "allegedly" does not appear in the book. No one has been sued about it. By most standards, we do in fact know that Bonds used steroids.

I agree, the evidence shows that it is likely that Barry Bonds started using steroids and/or hGH after 1998. However, I wouldn't put much stock in the fact that the reporters haven't been sued. Have you read Times v. Sullivan? It's nearly impossible to successfully press a libel suit in the U.S. if you are a public figure. The burden is set deliberately high to avoid a chilling effect on free speech. You have to prove the reporters either knew they were lying, or didn't care whether it was true. Factual inaccuracy alone is not enough, even if it can be proven to have led to damages. A showing of simple negligence is not enough.

I believe the arguments in Game of Shadows because they are persuasive and make sense, not because the authors haven't been sued.

Posted by Josh G. | August 5, 2007 11:58 PM

There's another issue here. I think it's important not to place too much weight on the steroid issue not only because it is factually overblown, but because all the current talk about steroids sends exactly the opposite method that the tut-tutters intend.

For Christ's sake. The way some people talk, you'd think that anabolic steroids were Captain America's Super-Soldier serum. We are told that steroids explain not only increased strength, but also increased longevity in sports, increased hand-eye coordination, and God knows what else. If steroids turn ordinary mortals into the Ubermensch, why are we against them?

Posted by Josh G. | August 6, 2007 12:04 AM

I don't think you can have Ubermenschen with kleine Eier.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 6, 2007 1:10 AM

Kind of interesting that out of 79 comments on this subject, the only one that mentions race is this guy, who seems convinced the rest of us are racist:
Any and all criticism of Bonds is racist in its effect if not its intent; just kidding, but most Bonds haters get real racist real fast.

I think the competition for dumbest comment here, though, is a tossup between that and the guy who is stunned to find out that a professional athlete is bulkier today than he was 15 years ago in high school. Look, I put on 40 pounds of bone and muscle mass between the ages of 17 and 21, and I rarely exercised.

Sheesh. Think before you post, folks.

Posted by Adam Villani | August 6, 2007 1:54 AM

There's, of course, a million other things that have changed in the last 20 years that has affected home run hitting and other offensive production beyond steroids. For a simple start, extensive weight training and fitness training even without illegal enhancements has totally transformed the physique of the average player only in that time period.

And more interesting may be the effects of video analysis, particularly on improving swings. Here for an argument as to the dramatic effect of better swing mechanics on bat speed:
http://www.batspeed.com/research05.html

Posted by Will Hutchinson | August 6, 2007 9:30 AM

People just like to feel righteous

Exactly.

Posted by rb | August 6, 2007 10:00 AM

Bad arguments:
1. Bonds was so good beforehand, we shouldn’t take away his accomplishments or assume that his steroid/HGH use was a huge factor. Right. And insider traders are successful and intelligent before they start breaking the law, so there's really no use in sending them to jail. It seems that many would have the Ryan Franklins and Juan Rincons thrown out of the game or forgotten, yet Bonds, Sosa, et al are to be forgiven or voted into the HoF because, well, they were good hitters before they got on PEDs and “hitting the ball is not easy.” Personally, I have more sympathy for a mediocre talent who gets on PEDs so he can make the team and get a contract than I have for a perennial All-Star whose ego and vanity make him lust for all-time records and even more accolades than they'd already earned. To me, Bonds and the other Juice Guys’ transgressions are worst of all because they knew they were breaking the law AND they knew that their assaults on the recordbooks weren’t on the level. Can you imagine the guilt McGwire (I hope) feels when he thinks back to how he hugged Maris’ kids and pointed to the sky and all that crap? Disgusting. He duped everyone, and then he was too cowardly to admit that he’d been playing with a loaded deck all along. At least Canseco fessed up.
2. Steroids don’t help you put the bat on the ball. If steroids and HGH weren’t effective, Bonds and others wouldn’t have risked their health and their careers to use them. The use of illegally-obtained PEDs is and always was (see Vincent memo of ’91) against baseball’s rules. Whether you used them forever or just once, or you were great or mediocre without them, you are a cheater and a law-breaker. Whether PEDs actually enhance performance is a moot point vis à vis their illegality. Any illegal PED user is breaking the law and breaking the rules of baseball. Period. But a user who achieves otherwise-unachievable success is also shattering the meaning and honor of competition, and for that they deserve a real or unspoken asterisk. Again, I think Bonds is more of a criminal in that sense than the Ryan Franklins of the world. And I don’t know why it’s so hard for some people to understand that being able to swing faster and harder is a huge advantage. Having a good eye means squat if you can’t catch up to the pitch. Sure, Bonds and Giambi have great eyes that steroids and HGH probably did not help, but without their massive muscles (bat speed and resultant “pop”) their hand-eye coordination wouldn’t be a $100 million asset. That’s why they got on these substances in the first place, and why they continue to use the one substance (HGH) that urinalysis cannot spot.
3. People can get big by lifting. True. But I’ve never seen someone’s jaw muscles get bigger by doing squats, bench presses, and curls. Check out McGwire’s mandible circa 1998 versus 1987. Caminiti was the same. Huge muscles all over his face. Go to the magazine rack and look at the muscle mags. See how even their eyelids are muscular? That’s not natural, folks.

Posted by tinisoli | August 6, 2007 12:36 PM

One thing that has always struck me about this issue is the lack of questioning why chemical enhancers are 'cheating'. Seems to me that there is not a clean line between diet and drugs or medical treatment and enhancement. Doctors are prescribing HGH now to older men b/c it seems to make them healthier. Does that make taking it is cheating? What if you changed your diet as you got older for the same reasons? Plus, players have been taking amphetamines for years. Should caffeine be illegal too? If the answer is: because its bad for you, fine, I understand why that's a good argument. But then we should have some discussion about which techniques are bad for you. B/c heck, playing in the NFL is a lot worse than what Bonds did to his body, but we aren't worried about all the high school football players around the country. And if Bonds extended his career using HGH, which we agree is a safe (enough) technique for countering the effects of age, maybe he wasn't a cheater.

Posted by mpowell | August 6, 2007 2:28 PM

tinisoli- your 3rd point is off. Steroids don't just magically make your muscles bigger. They allow them to recover faster so you can work out more often more intensely and build more mass. People see what they want to see.

Posted by mpowell | August 6, 2007 2:48 PM

mpowell,
Sorry, but you are the one who is off. Anabolic steroids trigger increased protein synthesis. They do this whether or not you are working out, but obviously the combination of weightlifting with increased protein synthesis leads to greater growth in the target muscles. But the overall spike in protein synthesis means that even the non-target muscles will grow, hence McGwire's massive mandibles while he was on steroids. The idea that steroids simply let people work out more often and/or harder is just one of those misconceptions that makes these cheaters look like they're merely trying harder. Steroids will make you bigger and stronger even if you aren't working out harder or more often.
Check it out.

Posted by tinisoli | August 6, 2007 3:24 PM

This report you footnote cites Charles Murray as one of its intellectual forefathers. Yglesias supporting Murray's theories! The scandal!

Posted by Mikey | August 6, 2007 3:32 PM

BTW, it may well be that Bonds took a lot of stuff AND worked his ass off to maximize the benefits of his drug use, whereas some of the small guys who tested positive simply took PEDs and didn’t lift any weights. But again, they’re all cheaters. It may be that pitchers and other players who do not want or need added mass simply take PEDs like stanozolol, testosterone, and HGH in order to maintain a certain level of mass and strength for endurance purposes. This is why it is folly to only look at people and “test” them with our eyes. But this does not mean we should turn a blind eye when a juicer is standing right in front of us, shattering records and exhibiting all the signs of steroid use. We should suspect everyone, yes, but it is not unreasonable to be more suspicious of the most flagrant, obvious users.

Posted by tinisoli | August 6, 2007 3:35 PM

Tinisoli,
You may be right. I had heard differently, of course, but I am not an expert and your study does suggest otherwise.

Posted by mpowell | August 6, 2007 6:19 PM

Professional athletes - and for that matter, franchises - have always done everything within their power in order to gain an edge. There's nothing new about this. For most decades, sports fans ignored or even enjoyed these aspects of the games. It's only recently that public opinion has turned against it.

Bonds' only crime, relative to his peers and his predecessors, is being a difficult and arrogant individual. Fans should be glad that he cheated in ways that helped his team win rather than lose.

Posted by Tom Strong | August 6, 2007 6:58 PM

Firstly, Bonds most likely did Steroids. Wow. So did SOSA MCGWIRE CANSECO GIAMBI CLEMENS CAMINITI PALMEIRO Luis Gonzalez? Raul Mondesi? John Rocker? Curt Schilling? Who knows for sure, all we know is it was an epidemic-- the whole era is "tainted." Ask Mays and Aaron about "uppers" and "greenies," ask Ruth about the Black pitchers he faced.

Bonds is the focal point because BALCO ties, body chanegs blah blah, but only more so than a nutjob like Clemens because Bonds is a STRONG, DEFIANT black man, which is something many casual sports fans/ racists have a problem with. Bonds does not bow and scrape, he knows he's the best, he works hard to maintain that level of performance, and probably availed himself of all the advantages at his disposal to "keep up with the Sheffields and Joneses" ;) ;). The level of Bonds-hatred and hysteria is mind-blowing. Do you notice credible major leaguers speaking up and out about this poorly-loved slugger? No, only grandstanders like Schilling, 'cos they know the blatant hypocrisy of singling out one guy from an era trackmarked by steroid-abuse.

Posted by JBF (fka Gregorio) | August 6, 2007 7:11 PM

I do not doubt that there are people whose animosity toward Barry Bonds has a racist or race-conscious component. But there are also many people who loathe the man because he is an asshole, a cheater, an adulterer, and a proven liar. And those of us who care not one whit that he is black also dislike him because he has always tried to characterize his PR problems as a race thing (as does his former BFF and steroid buddy Gary Sheffield) rather than an honesty thing, a steroids, thing, or anything other than his revolting persona. There is a difference between being strong (or "STRONG")and being a dickhead.

As for the "greenies and uppers" accusation thrown at Aaron and Mays, instead of asking them about those substances we could just ask Barry, who tested positive for amphetamines last year. Oh, wait. Those weren't HIS pills. He got them from a teammate. Right...

As for Clemens, yeah, he's worthy of suspicion and he is an egomaniacal, greedy asshole, too. But unlike Bonds, there's no grand jury testimony nor any other hard evidence of his use of PEDs. And he's also not breaking the single most important baseball record, so nobody's paying too much attention to him. But believe me, there are plenty of Clemens haters and if it ever got out that he was juicing for the last ten years, he'd be catching shit just as much as Bonds.

Posted by tinisoli | August 6, 2007 7:47 PM

I personally don't find the arguement that Bonds increase in production in 1999 is proof of steroids use, and is altogether "unnatural".

You can make a fantastic Case that 30 year old+ Honus Wagner was a vastly superior player in his 30's than 20's. You can also make that arguement for old Randy Johnson, who seemed to get much better with age. Does anyone suspect them of cheating, or does cheating only confirm Bonds success?

Posted by yuytu | August 14, 2007 4:23 AM

"I think all we can reasonably conclude is that steroids work better for Bonds than they do for other people"

Actually, we can't. There's very little evidence that steroids work better for older athletes compared to younger athletes. So if anything, they provided less of an advantage to him compared to other young juicers.

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