Senator Mitchell's steroid probe

Steve Finley, outfielder, does not care for major league baseball's latest plan to investigate alleged steroid use over the past few seasons:

"It seems if you write a book about something, there's going to be an investigation," Finley said. "It seems that has followed the publishing of the book. I don't think that's right. You didn't hear anything about this until the book was written."

[Baseball Commissioner Bud] Selig said during the World Baseball Classic earlier this month he would wait to respond to the book until he had all the information and a chance to read it.

The commissioner appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, currently a director of the Boston Red Sox, to lead the investigation. For now, it will be limited to events after September 2002, when the sport banned performance-enhancing drugs - though Mitchell could expand the probe.

"If there was not a rule, how can you go back and punish people for that?" said the 41-year-old Finley, entering his 18th major league season.

The AP story emphasizes that Finley is a new teammate of Barry Bonds, and is thus defending his fellow player. However, shortstop and fellow Giant Omar Vizquel offers another take:

"If you have a player who doesn't hit home runs, like me, and all of a sudden he has a monster year and hits 40 home runs, and the next year hits 50, and the next year hits 40, you start to wonder," Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel said.

Why is this so interesting?

Well, Hank Aaron himself hit homers at a pretty good pace late in his career. In a Knight Ridder story, Vizquel declared:

"There is so much stuff in baseball that you don't know about players or about pitchers or about anybody," Vizquel said. "Who knows what Hank Aaron was taking."

This may sound farfetched, but a former teammate of Aaron's says that players had access to steroids in the earlier era.

More eyebrow-raising, at least to me: Steve Finley hit only 2 home runs at age 24 playing for Baltimore. Granted, that was in only about 235 plate appearances. Since that year, however, Finley has always had at least 400 plate appearances (typically 500 to 600 or more). Finley went from hitting a few homers in his 20s to becoming a serious power threat in his 30s:

HR Age
03 25
08 26 Houston (Astrodome tough hitter's park)
05 27 Age 27 is often seen as a peak.
08 28
11 29
10 30 San Diego: Never before slugged > .434
30 31 Slugged .531
28 32
14 33 Hit 15 extra doubles/triples.
34 34 Moved to Arizona. Good hitting conditions.
35 35 Slugged .544
14 36
25 37
22 38
36 39 Spent one-third of year for LA Dodgers.
12 40 Angels. Injured much of the season.
?? 41 New SF Giant.

I'm not accusing Finley of using steroids, but he is one of those players that no one ever talks about.

Which is stranger? Steve Finley went from 11 to 36 HRs, ages 29 to 39. That's an increase of 25 dingers, and 227%!

Bonds went from 46 at age 28 (near peak) to 73 at 36. That's an increase of 27, but only 59%.

Incidentally, I never replied to Avery's discussion of the ethics of athletes using steroids, which he posted on the Cardinal Philosophy blog. Essentially, Avery equates steroid use to other costly measures athletes take to improve their game, like weight-training or lots of practice.

Maybe.

But, I will make this point -- steroids have been a controlled substance in the US since 1990. If Jose Canseco and teammates used these drugs to create the Oakland dynasty of the late 1980s, Avery's argument carries a great deal of weight. Non-US athletes (Dominican players, for example) who use steroids at home in the off-season may also be acting perfectly legally (though now against the rules of baseball).

But if sluggers of the 1990s were using steroids, they were violating US law and that seems different to me than just weight-training or extra practice.

Finley, I would note, is certainly on Avery's side:

"They're [players are] the ones that risk their health," he said. "This is not just about baseball. This is about long-term. This is about your life after baseball. Your baseball life is very short."

Finley doesn't reflect on the evidence that steroid use may shorten one's life.


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Filed as: baseball steroids

Rocket's glare

"I'm not the man they think I am at home"

From "Rocket Man." Lyrics by Bernie Taupin, Music by Elton John

Did Roger Clemens secretly receive a 50 game suspension for violating major league baseball's steroid policy? Various rumors linking Clemens to steroids have been circulating on the internet for at least a month -- though sports writers have talked about the steroids rumors for much longer.

To those who are conspiracy-minded, a 50-game suspension (that's the new penalty for a first offense) would explain why Clemens didn't sign a contract with any team until about one-third of the season had been played. Granted, it's not the only explanation. After all, Clemens first retired from the Yankees several seasons ago and every comeback year is touted as his last.

But Clemens was eligible to sign with 29 major league teams at the beginning of the year and could have played for the Houston Astros beginning May 1 (due to a technical aspect of baseball's labor rules concerning arbitration and free agency). Did he wait until mid-June because baseball insisted?

According to the 2005 policy, which would arguably have been controlling on Clemens had he tested positive near the end of the 2005 season, players who are in the "clinical track" of the abuse policy cannot be identified.

A Club whose Player is on the Clinical Track is prohibited from disclosing any information regarding a Player’s participation in the Program to either the public, the media or other Clubs.

Who is on the "clinical track," as opposed to the "administrative track"?

That was up to the discretion of the Health Policy Advisory Committee. HPAC didn't discipline players, but by moving the player to the administrative task, they could make the player eligible for punishment by the baseball commissioner. The "clinical track" seemed to be reserved for confessed users who sought medical care for their drug use.

That discretion would seem to have given the HPAC some leverage over relations with players. Likewise, a popular but unsigned player like Clemens would have some leverage over baseball. If he decided never to return to the game, everyone presumably loses. He's an inner circle Hall of Fame player who ordinarily attracts fans. When people think steroids, they think Barry Bonds, not Roger Clemens.

The HPAC is now gone, by the way, as the November 2005 revised drug policy created a new Independent Program Administrator who reports positive test results to the various parties. However, so far as I can tell, the new policy doesn't say anything about disclosure of test results or penalties -- though baseball has obviously been announcing some positive tests and suspensions.

The Major League Player's association doesn't seem to have a copy of the revised agreement on their webpage, only the summary I linked above.

I previously blogged about the importance of transparency to the success of the anti-steroid policy. Public disclosure of steroid users (and their penalties) helps deter steroids use. Think about what the test disclosure last summer did to Rafael Palmeiro's career. He was essentially finished after that. Surely other players noticed.

I have no idea whether the rumor is true about Clemens, but if it is...then a star player managed to avoid the limelight and perhaps preserved his HOF sheen. And just maybe he paved a route for stars to avoid negative publicity that taints their legacy -- and the game. That cannot be good news for those wanting to see steroids removed from professional baseball.

If the Clemens rumor is false, well, this post is just wild speculation. But the logic will remain valid. Baseball needs a transparent anti-steroids policy. Cynical fans might make the same sorts of inferences about stars whenever there is a prolonged absence.

Think about other players linked to steroids in the press: In 2005, Barry Bonds somewhat mysteriously missed most of the season due to multiple surgeries. Gary Sheffield reportedly just had surgery and is set to miss the next three months of the season.

I'm not trying to fan wild rumors -- just advocating for more openness in the policy.




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Filed as: baseball and steroids

Steroids

Sorry, more sports talk.**

I've been reading a little about major league baseball's steroid policy. SABR's Business of Baseball committee has a number of documents related to the March 17 congressional hearing, including a letter from Representatives Tom Davis and Henry Waxman to Commissioner Bud Selig (pdf version). In that letter (html version), the members of Congress take baseball to task for a number of loopholes in the steroid policy. They discuss substances that aren't banned, weaknesses in the testing regimen, etc. Many in Congress want baseball to take this as seriously as the Olympics do.

In terms of my professional interests, one major loophole is lack of transparency in the testing and penalty processes:

In public statements, Major League Baseball representatives have emphasized that players who violate the new policy will be publicly identified and suspended from baseball for ten days. In fact, the details of the new policy reveal that the penalty for a first offense can be either a suspension or a fine of $10,000 or less; that there is no public identification of players who are fined instead of suspended; and that even if players are suspended, the public disclosure is limited to the fact of their suspension with no official confirmation that the player tested positive for steroids. In contrast, the Olympic policy calls for a two-year suspension for a first offense....

In addition, contrary to public statements by Major League Baseball, the policy does not require public disclosure of positive steroid tests. In fact, the policy appears to prohibit such disclosure. The policy states that “the results of any Prohibited Substance testing … shall remain strictly confidential.”[11] In the case of a fine, the policy also states that “any disciplinary fines imposed upon the Player by the Commissioner shall remain strictly confidential.”[12] Under the policy, there appears to be public disclosure only in the case of a suspension, and even then the disclosure appears to be limited. The policy states that “the only public comment from the Club or the Office of the Commissioner shall be that the Player was suspended for a specified number of days for a violation of this Program.”

I'm a fan of public accountability, and people in baseball apparently agree that this could me a mechanism for cleaning up the game.


Commissioner Bud Selig says that the potential for negative publicity will assure that the steroid policy works:

Major League Baseball officials have also indicated that the names of players who test positive for steroids will be disclosed to the public. Commissioner Selig has stated, “The fact that it is announced and everybody in America will know who it is, that’s a huge deterrent … No player wants that.”

Selig's arch-enemy Donald Fehr, head of the Player's Association, agrees. This was in the Boston Globe this week:

"The biggest deterrent is exposure. Once that happens, that costs all kinds of things in the job," Fehr said after meeting with Baltimore Orioles players Tuesday. "There's the reputation issue, there's the question everybody's going to look as to whether or not any statistics that individual put up are legitimate or not -- and that can affect future contract negotiations."

Stars and non-stars appear to agree too. I've seen a lot of quotes from players in the media; allow me to pick just a couple for illustration purposes.

Oakland A's journeyman outfielder Bobby Kielty:

"Right now, the strictest penalty is probably having the names publicized.''

Curt Schilling, star pitcher of the Boston Red Sox.

He said he had no problem with naming names of players who test positive, adding, "No player that isn't cheating has a problem with that. It's very clear now that if someone is a positive, they're done. They might still be able to play after a suspension, but they're forever labeled as a cheater."

The consensus is quite interesting, eh?

Anonymous steroid testing in 2003 yielded 5-7% positive results. Apparently, that's around 90 players. In 2004, only 12 players tested positive.

Baseball responded to the congressional criticism by renegotiating the penalties for positive tests:

Players and owners tentatively agreed Sunday to close at least that loophole and require the suspension of any player who tests positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs....Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations, said Sunday he expects the policy to be changed to "just the straight suspension." Players still need to approve the deal, but Manfred said, "We do have an agreement with (union head Donald Fehr)."

I have not yet learned if the names will be publicized under the new deal.


**Note: I have three of he final four teams in my NCAA tourney bracket.
How'd you do?

What is it with Congress and baseball?

Earlier this year, Congress held hearings about steroids in baseball. A lot of people thought it was kind of strange for that legislative body to concern itself with something so unimportant. Shouldn't it spend more time worrying about major issues? You know...Iraq, health care, Social Security, etc.

Well, this week, some members of Congress are going even further. This time, their concern is quite transparently about partisan politics, and cannot be readily (or credibly) framed as a public policy concern.

Major League Baseball owns the Washington Nationals and plans to sell the team soon to one of seven or eight private groups that have bid on the team. The deal is expected to yield $300 to $400 million, so baseball is looking for especially affluent people. Remember, the President himself was once a minor partner in the Texas Rangers (a connection that advanced his political career).

One group bidding on the Nats includes billionaire George Soros as a minor investor. Soros, of course, is a well-known backer of Democratic politicians and progressive causes and groups. Some sources suggest he gave $20 million last year to defeat George W. Bush. This is from the Washington Post story, June 28:

some Republicans on Capitol Hill already are hinting at revoking the league's antitrust exemption if billionaire financier George Soros, an ardent critic of President Bush and supporter of liberal causes, buys the team.

"It's not necessarily smart business sense to have anybody who is so polarizing in the political world," Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) said. "That goes for anybody, but especially as it relates to Major League Baseball because it's one of the few businesses that get incredibly special treatment from Congress and the federal government."

Rep. Tom M. Davis III (R-Va.), who was a strong supporter of bringing a baseball team to Virginia, told Roll Call yesterday that "Major League Baseball understands the stakes" if Soros buys the team. "I don't think they want to get involved in a political fight."

You can always count on the Washington Times for the most colorful quotes:

"Soros is a political thug, and if he becomes an owner of the Nationals, I would recommend they be moved back to Montreal,"
conservative publicist Craig Shirley told Ralph Z. Hallow of The Washington Times.

Mr. Shirley added: "If Soros gets the Nationals, I think the president of France should throw out the first ball, not President Bush."

Pretty outrageous, eh? Here are the kind words from the Times story:

Beltway conservatives wouldn't boycott a Soros team, said R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of the American Spectator.

"The difference with liberals is that they have the political libidos of a nymphomaniac while conservatives have practically no political libido. Conservatives don't see everything as political. We'll go to the baseball game and not pay attention to who owns the team, though I suppose it would make a difference if the Nazis or the communists owned it. George Soros isn't that extreme -- just short of it," he said.

Ouch!

The Post story quotes an angry Democrat and one Republican who tries to claim that the opposition to Soros stems from his funding of efforts to legalize drugs. Yes, it links this ownership question to baseball's steroids problem.

So that angle takes this full circle, eh?

20 Years Later: 3 Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger

This book has been on my radar for a long time. It was published to some acclaim in 2005 and concerns a three game baseball series that occurred August 26th to 28th, 2003, involving the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. In that era, these were two of the best teams in the National League. It's been on my shelf for a good while after I eventually acquired a used paperback copy complete with an Afterward published in December 2005 that includes the framing of the book as a counter-take to Michael Lewis's terrific Moneyball, which I read soon after it originally appeared. I finally decided to read this book when visiting St. Louis for the fourth of July weekend earlier this summer. 

The book tells some interesting stories and offers some revealing insights into the way Tony La Russa managed baseball games. Though the book focuses on a three game series, it also covers some of La Russa's personal baseball history dating back to his first job as a manager in the late 1970s, continuing through the 1980s with first the Chicago White Sox and then the Oakland A's. La Russa was hired by Sox owner Bill Veeck, who bought his first baseball team in 1941 and was the son of a man who was president of the Cubs in 1918! After this book was written, La Russa managed Cardinal teams that went on to win the 2006 and 2011 World Series. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. 

The book also features stories about several star players that continue to be relevant two decades later. Future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols was arguably the greatest hitter in baseball when this book was written and he retired just this past off-season, ending his career with a bit of a bounce-back season in St. Louis in 2022. Another prominent member of that 2022 Cardinals team, Adam Wainwright, is briefly mentioned in the book's Postscript because he was part of the return for a trade involving JD Drew, a talented Cardinal player of 2003. And Scott Rolen, who hit a key home run in one of the book's three games and made timely defensive plays as well, was just inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer. La Russa himself returned to managing the White Sox in 2021-2022, winning a division title in 2021, but not completing the season in 2022 because of health reasons (after mediocre results as well). 

The reader gets a good feel for how La Russa and his long-time pitching coach Dave Duncan prepared for games and thought about various tactics, strategies, and statistics. The events in the book occurred prior to the Statcast era, but many of the ideas La Russa and Duncan have about pitch sequence and selection are now readily testable by anyone with an internet connection given the trove of data Statcast publishes online. 

These are the best elements of the book. But there are some important weakness too:

First, the book barely scratches the surface on the steroids scandal that greatly influenced baseball in this era. The game had already agreed to employ anonymous PED (performance enhancing drug) testing in 2002 and the results announced after the 2003 season revealed that 5 to 7% of samples were positive, triggering a new random testing policy. Bissinger knew all this when he published the book and yet devotes only a few pages to the issue. I attended SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) meetings in Boston in the first months of 2005 and this was the center of a tremendous amount of discussion. 

Bissinger's neglect of this topic is important for multiple reasons. To begin, he describes La Russa as an avid opponent of steroids who lamented their effects on the game and on young lives. Yet, we now know that La Russa's A's and Cardinals featured stars that were among the most notorious users -- sluggers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Bissinger quotes La Russa as saying he could tell which players were using and that Canseco wasn't! While the identities of the users had not been revealed by baseball in 2003 and 2004, by December 2005, when the Afterword was written, Canseco's book had acknowledged that he had been a user. Moreover, Canseco named Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (a Cubs star in 2003) as users too. In March of 2005 McGwire and Sosa, along with Rafael Palmeiro (later suspended for PEDs) and Curt Schilling testified before Congress about steroids. 

Second, rather than enter into the steroids controversy, which seems like it would have said something important about the "humanity" of baseball, ostensibly Bissinger's goal in writing the book, the author instead takes the opportunity to attack Moneyball. He attacks the statistical analytical perspective promoted in Moneyball early in the book but the theme becomes the centerpiece on p. 269. I believe Bissinger focuses on the trees rather than the forest, devoting great attention to criticizing (with very little context) the specific players selected by the Oakland A's in the 2002 amateur draft. It's always dangerous to discuss a draft in the first few years after it occurred, but Bissinger makes fun of the Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton initial two selections even though both turned out to be a pretty good players who spent a decade or more as major league regulars (or in Blanton's case as members of a major league rotation). Swisher made an All-Star team and both men played in a World Series. Many other selected players enjoyed decent careers and the draft was not a bust. This is now easily confirmed with a simple Google search. 

The real problem, however, is that Bissinger completely misses the point about Moneyball. He treats the book as if the Oakland A's use of various strategies and tactics to pinch pennies is inherent to the approach. That organization is notoriously cheap and Bissinger points out that money can buy winning players regardless of how smart the Harvard MBA GMs are. However, in this century, wealthy teams like the New  York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers have won numerous division titles, pennants, and championships by using the kind of advanced statistical analysis that Moneyball entails and that Bissinger explicitly hates. Yes, low budget teams like Tampa and Cleveland have also consistently succeeded (KC did as well in 2014-2015) by employing some of the same tactics, but the tactics themselves are not solely about saving money. Rather, they are about analyzing the game statistically to reveal previously unexploited advantages and inefficiencies. 

Third, Bissinger's critique of advanced statistics also seems pretty hypocritical given that he devotes so much attention to the kind of small-N data that Earl Weaver allegedly used to  employ in the 1970s. Apparently La Russa and Duncan kept track of whether a particular hitter was 5 for 19 against a certain pitcher (and whether pitchers mostly succeeded against certain opposition hitters), but we have known for a fairly long time (dating to the work of Bill James in the 1980s) that these kinds of small sample statistics are not very meaningful. In any case, Bissinger seems to love revealing these and other less important stats throughout the book.  He repeatedly mentions batting average, RBI, pitcher wins, and other traditional stats that are now widely recognized as less meaningful. Much of this was known in 2003, discussed prominently by Bill James and Michael Lewis and less notably by many hundreds of stats-drunk baseball nerds on the internet in the 1990s. Why convey so many stats that do not say very much about winning baseball games? This book isn't really an anti-statistical diatribe, it is a attack made with a head-in-the-sand approach. Bissinger simply refused to keep up with the field's use of more meaningful stats but relies upon older, less revealing, stats. Was this true of La Russa too?

These are not the only shortcomings and contradictions of this book. On p. 217 of the paperback, Bissinger writes about how pitcher Brett Tomko is laid back and sleepy. On the very next page he mentions how lost Tomko is in high pressure situations, implying a high strung response. Can an observer ever really know a player's psyche and situational reactions? 

On pp. 270-71 Bissinger criticizes then-Baseballprospectus.com writer James Click's article evaluating and critiquing the use of the (sacrifice) bunt. Bissinger favorably quotes Hall of Famer Frank Robinson who objected in part because of his personal experience on the field as player and manager, something Click never had. I guess Click got the last laugh since he was the GM of the World Series winning Houston Astros in 2022 and the sacrifice bunt has practically disappeared from the modern game. In 2021-2022 while managing the White Sox, La Russa himself used the bunt less than half as often as he did when this book was written. 

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Steroids update: baseball 2005

The baseball season is a month old and steroids are still dominating the news.

Commissioner Bud Selig has called for a much stricter penalty for those found using performance enhancing drugs. He wants the first offense to cost the user a 50 games suspension and the second offense to be 100 games lost. The third offense would be banishment from the game: "three strikes, you're out."

The union says the current plan is working (the latest suspended player is Twins pitcher Juan Rincon) and no stronger penalty is needed. Since the issue is deterrence, I'm not sure when we'll know whether players are now clean.

Meanwhile, former pitcher and pitching coach Tom House says that baseball players were using steroids and human growth hormone as far back as the 1960s. House's revelation is interesting because many in the media have denigrated the current crop of sluggers compared to the generation that matured when they were younger. Note: House is the guy who caught Hank Aaron's 715th HR ball on April 8, 1974. He was drafted in 1967 and was in the majors by 1971.

Willie Mays played his last season in 1973; Aaron played through 1976; and Frank Robinson through 1976. The career home run list is dominated by guys who played all or part of their careers since 1970. For every 1990s slugger (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro), one can name a 1970s counterpart (those named, plus Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt).

Notice, I've just identified every player in the top 11 career HR list, save Babe Ruth. Number 12 is Mickey Mantle.

House told the SF Chronicle's Ron Kroichick that 6 or 7 pitchers per major league team were on these drugs during his 1970s career:

"I'd like to say we were smart, but we didn't know what was going on. We were at the tail end of a generation that wasn't afraid to ingest anything. As research showed up, guys stopped."

House was listed at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, and he ballooned to 215 or 220 while on steroids.

House claims that the drugs did not add zip to his fastball, but reliever Juan Rincon significantly increased his strikeouts per inning pitched last season.

Want more evidence that this is not a new probelm? Lyle Alzado, the football player who admitted using steroids, started his professional football career after being picked in the 1971 draft. Note this fact: Alzado says he started using steroids at Yankton College, a tiny NAIA school in South Dakota.

Imagine how widespread steroids would have had to have been in sports to reach a tiny NAIA program in South Dakota in the late 1960s.

Behind the iron curtain, the infamous East German women's swim team used steroids to achieve dramatic victories at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic games. Thousands of athletes were drugged, including young teenage girls!

This is a new issue causing the HR burst of the past decade? Hmmmm.

What do the data show? ESPN has been tracking HRs per game. In 2005, teams are hitting 0.955, down from 1.123 last year (which was up from 1.043 and 1.071 in 2002-03). That means teams are hitting only 85% as many this year as they did last year, but note:

1. Cold weather hurts offense and this has been a wet and cold spring in many major league cities. We'll have to monitor these numbers through the summer. I think ESPN is comparing this year's April data to full season data for other seasons.

2. Single season fluctuation of this magnitude isn't that unusual. Go back and compare 1987 leaguewide HR numbers to the three years prior and after. It's a major outlier as the league hit over 700 more HRs in 1987 than in 1986, and then dropped by almost 1300 in 1988!

I'll be following this story as the summer progresses.

Starburst?

On Friday, July 15, Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles was on top of the world. On that evening, he registered his 3000th major league hit. Only 25 other men in history have achieved that feat.

Some sportswriters noted that Palmeiro became an immortal on that night. His place in Cooperstown, NY, at the Baseball Hall of Fame was assured. Of course, serious baseball fans would likely say that his place was already secured. After all, Palmeiro hit his 500th home run in early May, 2003. He was only the 19th player ever to achieve that milestone.

Only a few stars have both 3000 hits and 500 HRs, and two of them are considered "inner circle" HOFers: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray.

Today, Palmeiro broke new ground. He became the first star player to be suspended because of baseball's anti-steroid policy. Blogcritics call him a "cheat and a liar."

Fans remember that Palmeiro, after being named as a steroid user by Jose Canseco in the former teammate's bestselling book Juice, looked members of a congressional committee in the eye and denied ever using steroids. Former star slugger Mark McGwire would not do the same.

Today, he repeated those denials. However, he also acknowledged that he had exhausted his appeals and would serve his 10 game suspension.

You know this is serious because Palmeiro already has his apologists, including a minority owner of his former team, George W. Bush:

"He's a friend," the president said in a White House roundtable interview with several Texas reporters. "He's testified in public, and I believe him."

Bush, recall, mentioned the scourge of steroids in the 2004 State of the Union address.

There are others who think Palmeiro's denials could be truthful, though they base their position on science rather than character. From the AP:

The director of Baltimore's Office of Substance Abuse studies says a baseball player could test positive for steroids without knowingly ingesting the drug.

Anthony Tommasello, who's also an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, says substances called prohormones are found in over-the-counter protein supplements.

Tommasello says prohormones could be found in sufficient amounts in protein supplements to trigger a positive test for steroid use.

Saddened by this news, I tried to cheer myself up tonight by watching Bernie Mac in "Mr. 3000."

In that film, a retired former player attempts a comeback to the game because a statistician has learned that he has erroneously been credited with 3 extra hits (a suspended game's stats were double counted). Because "Mr. 3000" had been viewed as selfish, baseball writers refused to admit him to the HOF despite his key credential.

I won't spoil the ending, but will say that at the very end of the movie, the 47-year old former athlete is shown advertising Viagra. Coincidentally, Rafael Palmeiro already spent two years as a spokesman for that performance-enhancing drug.

So I'm left where I started. Will Palmeiro's new image problem ruin his all-but-certain HOF case? We'll have to wait 5 years after he retires to find out.

Baseball 2011: Runs are Scarce

The baseball season is roughly one-third completed and a number of observers are calling this "the year of the pitcher." Of course, many analysts used the same phrase last season primarily because an unusually large number of pitchers threw no-hitters in 2010.

This year, the phrase is being tossed around because teams are scoring many fewer runs. Indeed, baseball 2011 looks a lot like baseball 1988-1992. Look at the runs scored per game in this chart, which I created at the invaluable baseball-reference.com.

Long-time fans might remember that 1987 was an unusual summer -- rookie Mark McGwire hit 49 homers (he was on my very first fantasy baseball team that year), Andre Dawson of the Cubs also hit 49, and Toronto's George Bell hit 47. More importantly, a lot of guys unexpectedly hit for power -- the kind of power fans started to take for granted from the mid-1990s through the next decade. My first fantasy team featured Milwaukee's Dale Sveum at SS. He hit 25 homers in 1987 -- after hitting 7 in 1986. He would hit 9 in 1988. In a dozen major league seasons, he hit over one-third of his home runs in 1987.

These unusual homer numbers from 1987 signaled a new era for power, though that era (primed by performance enhancing drugs) didn't really arrive for a few seasons. And the influence of PEDs was hard to pinpoint given that most major league teams built new stadiums, announcers provided a lot of talk about rabbit baseballs (and corked bats), and the summers were very hot (which is conducive to home run hitting). Whatever the cause, between 1994 and 2000, teams often scored a full run more per game than they are now. That may seem small, but the difference is 160 runs over a full season.

Baseball implemented its first PED testing regime in 2001, for minor leaguers only. The major league program began in 2003 and was toughened in 2005. Presumably, the stigma associated with links to steroids has had a deterrent effect on some potential users.

I'm beginning to wonder if the latest data truly signal the end of the PED era? While there are a couple of individuals who are raising some eyebrows, the scoring numbers reveal that major league baseball is changing at a steady pace -- reverting to a game fans have seen not-so-long ago.


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Steroids update: Bonds edition

I've blogged about steroids and baseball in the past, but Sports Illustrated today published the most comprehensive story I've yet read detailing allegations about slugger Barry Bonds (708 career homers; ranked #3 all-time).

Given the revelations by Jose Canseco (462; #26), positive test for Rafael Palmeiro (569; #9) and non-denial by Mark McGwire (583; #7)...the home run binge of the past decade or so suddenly looks quite sad, in retrospect.

I'm hopeful that fear of this sort of negative publicity cleans up the game. I would think that the overwhelming majority of players even tempted by steroids would worry about the nasty consequences for their public image -- if caught using. Or, as in the case of Bonds, if facing serious public allegations.

Then again, track-and-field has been fighting this problem for decades, literally. While some evidence suggests this problem goes back a very long time in baseball, the negative publicity (backed with evidence) has really only started to accrue.

I'm looking forward to the 2006 baseball season, but the evidence compiled in the latest story about Bonds made my stomach turn.


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Filed as: Barry Bonds and steroids

Steroid decade?

Earlier this month, Alex Remington of Yahoo Sports Big League Stew posted his Ten noteworthy offensive statistics from the 2000s.

As baseball fans might expect, the list is dominated by sluggers -- notably the PED-tainted hitters Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez:

I've tried to avoid the impulse to make this an entire list of Barry Bonds stats, but even though he stopped playing before the end of it, Bonds dominated the decade like no other player has ever offensively dominated, since Babe Ruth himself.

Remington notes that the 2000s featured 12 players hitting 300 or more home runs, "the most ever. (There were 11 in the 1990s, five in the 1960s, and no more than three in any other decade.)"

While those numbers for the last two decades certainly sound inflated by steroids, it is worth noting that major league baseball included 30 teams throughout the 'aughts, but only 16 teams from 1900 until the 1961 expansion. The 1960s ended with major league baseball at 24 teams. Two teams were added in 1961 and 1962 and four teams were added in 1969, so figure just under 20 teams per year that decade. There were fully one-third more teams in the just-completed aughts than in the 1960s. The 1990s featured 28 teams until 1998 when two expansion teams were added.

Incidentally, with expansion, major league baseball increased the length of the season from 154 to 162 games. That's about a 5% increase and people typically remember it when they think of the controversy surrounding Roger Maris in 1961.

If someone like Remington had noted in December 1969 that the 1960s featured 5 players with 300 or more homer runs and no other decade had more than 3, he would certainly have been reminded about expansion and the longer season. The number of teams had grown by 25% in 1962, 50% by 1969.

Until 1960, decades typically had 16 teams playing 154 games (ignoring rainouts, etc.). That meant about 1232 games (it takes 2 teams to play a game). In the 2000s, by contrast, 30 teams playing 162 games each tallied roughly 2430 games, almost twice as many. Observers could reasonably expect a doubling of certain kinds of counting statistics -- like the number of players who reach a particular milestone.

I'm not saying steroids had nothing to do with the recent home run explosion, but it is frustrating to see people write about baseball as if the structure of the leagues and seasons was the same throughout its history. This is not a knock on Remington per se, as I've even seen this in SABR conversations. Members sometimes like to highlight Hall of Fame arguments by noting whether a player finished in the top 5 or 10 of a desirable statistical category. They refer to the "black ink" or "gray ink" tests -- and they overlook the fact that it is much harder to do this now in an expanded player pool.


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'roid rage

I know exactly where I was on the evening of April 8, 1974. Do you?

I was sitting in my family's living room, watching the Atlanta Braves play the Los Angeles Dodgers in Fulton County Stadium. Al Downing was pitching for LA and America was waiting to see if Hank Aaron would break Babe Ruth's longstanding home run record. In the fourth inning, Aaron hit his dinger, pitcher Tom House caught the ball in the bullpen, and American baseball had a new Home Run King. Aaron finished with 755 home runs in his career.

This past weekend, Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth for second place on that list by hitting his 714th homer. Last Monday night, I watched two Bonds plate appearances, and through the week I saw many more, but the slugger did not make history until this weekend. Unfortunately, I missed seeing it live.

Oh well.

Many baseball fans hate the fact that Bonds has caught Ruth because they think that the star of the Giants has used steroids to become a freak. While others too stand accused, Bonds is threatening to own the game's most cherished records. He already claimed the single season mark.

The all time record is even more important and historically significant. Since 1921, Babe Ruth has been first or second in major league baseball's all-time home run list. That's 85 years!

Then again, few fans ever talk about the taint surrounding Ruth's record. He hit all of his official home runs in an era of racial segregation. Ruth never batted against Satchel Paige or any other Negro League great in a major league baseball game. Jackie Robinson didn't play for the Dodgers until 1947. Ruth had been retired for 12 seasons.

Some baseball historians point out that the game wasn't fully desegregated until the early 1960s. The Boston Red Sox, Ruth's original team, was the last team to sign an African American player. Pumpsie Green made the majors in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

By this way of thinking, Aaron too played in a partially segregated era. Willie Mays did as well -- along with Harmon Killebrew and Frank Robinson. If one lumps Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro with Bonds, then 1000s of home runs in baseball history have some sort of blemish.

People who hate Bonds probably won't like this conclusion: Maybe Reggie Jackson should be viewed as the true Home Run King?


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Me and Brad Pitt: ? degrees of separation

Today, the "Moneyball" film is being released nationally, starring Brad Pitt (longtime blog favorite Angelina Jolie's spouse) as Oakland A's GM Billy Beane. I read and enjoyed Michael Lewis's book of the same name many years ago.

A lot of people in baseball directly or indirectly contributed to this moment. When Michael Lewis wrote this book, he consulted then-ESPN baseball columnist Rob Neyer, who used to work for Bill James. I don't know if Lewis was reading the usenet rec.sport.baseball.analysis group (or some similar discussion forums), but there was some great stuff being posted there by people who created and operated Baseball Prospectus. Many SABR members were also involved in these discussions. Here's my contribution to a KC Royals discussion, September 11, 1996. Readers might note that the on-line baseball community was giving a lot of attention to on-base percentage and runs scored in 1996. That's because we all read Bill James in the 1980s.

Anyway, in April 2000, inspired by what I was reading in those on-line forums and in some related books, I gave a talk for the Louisville SABR group called "Can Small Market Teams Compete?" I've archived a scan of my presentation on Google Docs, complete with my pre-powerpoint handouts about the size of American cities (census data), the Forbes magazine 1999 list of team values, team payrolls from USA Today, etc.

I thought it was a good talk, though some members of the audience were fairly skeptical about my conclusions. For those who don't want to look at the scans, here's an October 5, 2000, post I contributed to STATLG-L, a baseball discussion list that I used to frequent:

Subject: small market teams
From: Rodger A. Payne
Reply-To: Baseball (and Lesser Sports) Discussion List
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 12:41:08 -0400

At a SABR Regional meeting in Louisville earlier this year (April, iirc),
I presented "Can Small Market Teams Compete?"

I'm a KC fan and have a personal interest in this question for obvious
reasons. However, the team I used as my case study was Oakland.

Much of my presentation was about team finances and population. Teams like
Philly and the Chisox are in big media centers, but media often seem to
consider them to be "small" (and some smaller city teams are considered
"big"). It's interesting stuff, but I'm leaving it out of this post.

Instead, I'm posting about the last portion of my presentation, which was
devoted to strategies that small market teams could use to build discount
winners in today's context. Then, I pointed out that the A's employ
virtually all of them. Here are the 3 most important:

1. Build on youth.

First, teams can set very low salaries until players are arbitration-
eligible, and even then pay below free agent prices for players. This
means, in practice, that most players work on-the-cheap for 3 years and at
well below market for the next 4 years (if they decline arbitration in the
last year, they are on the road to free agency).

Further, data on performance indicates that players tend to reach a high
level of play in this discount period (some research shows that most
players are fully developed around ages 24-25, though the data is better
for hitters), often peak around 27, and decline from age 30 onward--when
free agent market conditions are often determining salaries.

The Indians developed an innovation now sometimes copied by other teams:
offering certain players multiple year contracts to "buy out" years of
arbitration (or even a year or 2 of free agency). With strong choices,
this can really save money and buy good will with a player who might
otherwise get a very low salary in years 2-3 of his major league career.

The A's, as was noted yesterday, take much advantage of this with Chavez,
Tejada, Hudson, etc. Next season, look for Jose Ortiz (a middle
infielder), Eric Byrnes (OF), and Adam Piatt (corner infielder) to play
important roles on the A's--replacing perhaps higher-priced Velarde,
Stairs and Jaha (the A's probably screwed up in resigning Velarde and Jaha
last season).

2. Use "Ken Phelps All Stars" to plug holes.

The minor leagues are filled with veteran baseball players that could be
obtained easily (as minor league free agents or in "minor" trades) and
quite cheaply. Triple A rosters, in particular, are now littered with
these guys (often "failed" prospects). Just look around the AAA rosters
the past few seasons. These players are generally not arbitration eligible
and can be paid peanuts for several years, which is usually during their
peak/pre-decline age 28-30 seasons.

Moreover, many of these veterans are quite capable of playing important
roles on major league teams. The key issue is whether teams will give them
a chance. It might be difficult to find an All Star hitter, or a very
talented SS, CF, or C, but talented LF, 1B, DH, pitchers and probably some
2Bs are readily available. Think Brian Daubach--not a star, by any means,
but quite capable of putting up an .800 OPS and contributing to a winning
team (if not asked to carry too much of the load). Daubach actually had
putrid numbers against LHPers this year (657 OPS in 110 PAs), but fits the
bill versus righties: 794. He was better in 1999 (943 vs. RHPers, when he
got only 50 PAs vs. LHPers). Dave McCarty would be another example.

The A's have been quite good at acquiring and using these players:
Geronimo Berroa, Matt Stairs, Olmedo Saenz, Sal Fasano, Gil Heredia
(arguably) and perhaps Jeff Tam fall into this category. Jeremy Giambi
may as well.

3. Value walks.

I think a good argument can be made that major league teams dramatically
undervalue on-base skills. Players who walk a lot don't seem to reach the
majors in proportion to their real value. I'm not confident that there's
systematic study of this (yet), but it seems apparent to me. The cliche
repeated about players from the Dominican Republic is that "you don't walk
off the island." Similarly, players seldom "walk" their way through the
minors to the majors.

Yet, walking is a vital part of OPS. Players who walk more than other
players contribute a great deal to scoring runs. That's a huge positive
and some teams obviously don't get it. Sadly, KC is one of those teams.

The A's, however, are well known for appreciating the base-on-balls. The
major league team has been near the top for a couple of years now, GM
Billy Beane has said in interviews that the organization looks for players
that walk, and their minor league affiliates from top to bottom are at or
near the top of their leagues in walking/OBA. I used numbers from 1998-99
in my presentation to demonstrate this point. These walking teams are also
very good at scoring runs.

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

Teams should, of course, combine these strategies. Since KPAS are mostly
1B/LF/DH-types, it makes sense to focus scouting and other resources on
developing SS/C/CF/3B. KC, of course, has mostly failed at this, while
Oakland has Tejada, Hernandez, T. Long and Chavez. NYY has Jeter, Posada,
Williams and soon Soriano/Jimenez.

This would also mean getting KPAS who know the strike zone. Detroit should
be rewarded for finally giving Billy McMillon a chance. The IL walk
leaders this season included Ozzie Timmons (TB), McMillon, and Morgan
Burkhart (Bos). Three of the top 8 in the PCL were A's players (Mark
Bellhorn, Bo Porter and Steve Decker), but the list also included Mike
Neill and Brian Lesher--potential KPAS hitters. It's interesting to me to
see former KC non-walking prospect Phil Hiatt just barely in the top 20.

Well, this is pretty long so I should stop. Comments would be appreciated.
I'm also interested in how few walks a team surrenders to its opposition
(I think pitchers with great control are often undervalued) and potential
gains from developing talent with an inflated value and trading it for
players of *real* value. Swap that stolen base king or proven closer for
someone who can really help a team win.

One point that I didn't discuss, and neither did Michael Lewis, is the use of steroids. Those Oakland teams a decade ago featured Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada. That's two MVPs linked to steroids -- and that's not even counting prototypical moneyball players like late-career David Justice and Jeremy Giambi.


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Books of 2009

Last year, as I have annually since 2005, I posted a complete list of books I read in the preceding year. This is certainly a blog tradition worth preserving.

As usual, I will not list books that I reviewed, unless those reviews were published. In my academic job, I chair a committee that awarded $200,000 to the best "ideas for improving world order." Most of the nominees have written books and I read my share of the nominations. It is probably safe to acknowledge that I read the winning book, though I didn't read it until after the international jury had promoted it to the final round of our process.

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of many books pertinent to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list those here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure? (Some of the recommended books include a link to Powell's books; the blog receives a 7.5% commission on sales that begin via these links).

Non-fiction

Positively Fifth Street by James McManus.

The Film Club by David Gilmour.

Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States by Trita Parsi. This book won the 2010 Grawemeyer Award.

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier.

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria.

21: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrick.

Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren by Joseph Dimento and Pamela Doughman.

American Empire by Andrew J. Bacevich

Seven Sins of American Foreign Policy by Loch K. Johnson.

Global Environmental Governance by James Speth and Peter Haas.

Poker Nation by Andy Bellin.

A Theory of Poker by David Sklansky

Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez

Read 'Em and Weep by John Stravinsky (ed.).

Zen and the Art of Poker by Larry Phillips

Sandy Koufax, A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy

Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

Big Book of Baseball Legends by Rob Neyer.

Saving the Pitcher by Will Carroll

The Fenway Project by Bill Nowlin and Cecilia Tan (eds.)

Uncle Robbie by Jack Kavanagh and Norman Macht

Seasons in Hell by Mike Schropshire

A Short Guide to Writing About Film by Timothy J. Corrigan

I also read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2009, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. It was edited by Steven Goldman.

Of these non-fiction books, most were worth reading. I started out the year reading McManus's terrific book (recommend by Jeffrey Toobin on a private listserv) about the author's 2000 experience in the World Series of Poker. McManus was covering the participation of women in the event as well as the Ted Binion murder trial, which was indirectly related to the tournament. Ultimately, I found the syllabus for a class he teaches on poker writing and started making my way through some of his required works. Not all the poker books above are on his list and none of them are as good as Positively Fifth Street.

I ended the year reading Gilmour's wonderful memoir about the time he spent watching films with his teenage son -- a condition of father allowing son to drop out of high school. It's terrific reading in a genre I don't usually read.

The Collier book is likewise highly recommended and I adopted it in my fall class on Global Ecopolitics. I previously blogged about Zakaria's fine book and I would recommend it to readers generally interested in global affairs.

I would not place any of the listed baseball books in the pantheon of great baseball writing, but I enjoyed Leavy's bio of Koufax and learned a great deal about the steroids era in baseball from Game of Shadows.

Fiction

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Rabbit Redux by John Updike

Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuik

Forgetfulness by Ward Just.

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene.

Burmese Days by George Orwell.

Lincoln by Gore Vidal

When the Light Goes by Larry McMurtry

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Devil in the Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

The Ivory Grin by Ross MacDonald

Ratking by Michael Dibdin.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Woman in the Dark by Dashiell Hammett

One Fearful Yellow Eye and Pale Gray for Guilt by John D. Macdonald

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley.

New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

The Mexican Tree Duck by James Crumley

A Very Private Plot by William F. Buckley

Of these, I placed the best literature at the top of the list, then the remaining genre fiction with the least entertaining listed last. I really like Graham Greene and Larry McMurtry, generally, and these books are worth reading. In 2010, I'll likely be reading still more about Harry Angstrom, Updike's protaganist. It's unclear if McMurtry has anything left to say about his recurrent character, Duane Moore.

Months ago, I meant to blog about The Road since its post-apocalyptic vision might presume a prior nuclear war or climate calamity -- two frequent topics in my blogging. But I didn't. Forgetfulness was recommended by our new President, allegedly, though I cannot find the link now. The film "Fight Club" is faithful to the excellent book, but Chris Buckley's book is not as good as the recent film.

I read William Buckley's book because I read all his other Blackford Oakes stories years ago and want to complete the series. The last one is on my shelf for 2010 reading. I was fairly disappointed by the Crumley selection and won't be reading any more of Ellroy for awhile.

Thanks mostly to Bookmooch, I continue to read books by a diverse group of crime writers. As I've noted previously, John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee stories provide a pleasant diversion, but Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer books tend to have a harder edge. Both offer up a good measure of amateur philosophy.


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Steroids update: Sosa HR edition

Today, The New York Times is reporting that baseball slugger Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids in 2003. At that time, Major League Baseball's steroid policy was supposed to assure anonymity for players who tested positive.

As I've noted previously, contemporary players appearing on the all-time home run leader board are widely viewed as tainted. Consider this list of men who played in the 1990s who cracked the top 25 HR:

1. Barry Bonds: lots of evidence, apparently.
5. Ken Griffey Jr.
6. Sammy Sosa: 2009 report of 2003 test failure
8. Mark McGwire: 1998 Androstenedione use plus much other innuendo
10. Rafael Palmeiro: suspended in 2005
12. Alex Rodriguez: in 2009 admitted steroid use from 2001-2003
13. Jim Thome
17. Manny Ramirez: suspended in 2009
18T. Frank Thomas
24. Gary Sheffield: named in Mitchell report concerning 2003 usage
25. Eddie Murray

Does this mean Griffey, Thome and Thomas are the real home run heroes of the steroids era?


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Lying to Congress

At last, someone has pleaded guilty to the charge of lying to Congress during the Bush era. CNN:

[Shortstop Miguel] Tejada admitted that he lied to congressional investigators during an August 26, 2005, interview in which he said he "had no knowledge of other others players using or even talking about steroids or other banned substances," according to the [news] release [fom U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor's office].

After the December 2007 Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball, which appeared to contradict Tejada, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Tejada "made knowingly false statements to the committee."

According to court documents, Tejada admitted that he discussed steroids and human growth hormone with a teammate in 2003, while he was with the Oakland Athletics. He also admitted that he bought more than $6,000 worth of HGH from the teammate but added that "he had second thoughts and ... simply discarded them," the documents state.

Yes, that's right, I'm blogging about steroids again.

Should we believe that Tejada really tossed aside the performance-enhancing drugs? Major league baseball wasn't even testing for HGH at the time he reportedly bought it. Tejada's stats seem to reveal him to be a power hitting shortstop -- kind of a poor man's version of Alex Rodriguez.

Oh, wait. A-Rod, earlier this week:

I did take a banned substance. You know, for that I'm very sorry and deeply regretful...The culture, it was pretty prevalent. There were a lot of people doing a lot of things...So I am sorry for my Texas years.

It was like the '60s, man, without the paisley and classic rock.




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Evaluating Free Agent Signings at the 1992 Baseball Winter Meetings

This post is tied to a forthcoming SABR publication focusing on the history of baseball's winter meetings. I wrote the chapter on the 1992 meetings held in Louisville, KY, December 3-9. The meetings featured a number of very prominent free agent signings, including two of the biggest stars of the last quarter century.

While I wanted to discuss how well those deals worked out based upon on-field performance of the players, the editors preferred that I focus exclusively on the events of the meeting. This post includes the research I conducted for the chapter that will not be included in the published piece. However, by mutual agreement, the piece will reference this blog post.

These are the prominent player signings, in order they appear in the chapter:

Greg Maddux: In each of the three seasons following his signing by the Braves, from 1993 through 1995, Maddux won the National League ERA title, the Gold Glove for pitchers, and the Cy Young award (the latter two times unanimously). He also led the league in innings pitched during those seasons, as he also had in 1991 and 1992. Put simply, Maddux was the best pitcher in the NL through this period and added to a record that would ultimately position him among the game’s all-time greats. Ultimately, the 2014 Hall of Fame inductee achieved 194 of his remarkable 355 career victories in a Braves uniform. The Braves won their division title in 1993, won the World Series in 1995, and qualified for the playoffs during every season Maddux pitched for the team – save for the 1994 season, which did not include a postseason. During the five years covered by the contract Maddux signed at the 1992 winter meeting, the pitching star remarkably accumulated an average of eight wins above replacement (WAR) per season. Using traditional statistics, he was credited with 89 wins against only 33 losses and posted a 2.13 ERA during the period.

Bobby Bonds: Bonds, of course, is one of the most controversial players in recent baseball history largely because of his eventual association with the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) and the tremendous offensive statistics he accumulated late in his career. A number of high profile successful athletes tied to BALCO were ultimately accused of using designer anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Allegedly, Bonds turned to BALCO after the 1998 season when sluggers Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire both surpassed the single-season home run record. The contract Bonds signed in 1992 extended only through that 1998 season. The left fielder won the MVP for his new team in 1993, was selected as an All-Star in every season covered by the contract, and averaged 39 home runs and 110 RBIs over those six seasons. Bonds also won the Gold Glove in each of those years, other than 1995. He hit for a .307 batting average, attained a .445 on-base average, and slugged .617 during the life of the contract. The 1997 Giants won the NL West, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. During those seasons, Bonds also accumulated a whopping 50.8 WAR, or nearly 8.5 per season. Largely because of his late career association with BALCO and steroids accusations, Bonds has not been elected to the Hall of Fame.  The seven-time NL MVP retired with a major-league-leading 762 home runs.

Andre Dawson: Somewhat disappointingly, Dawson hit only 39 additional home runs in his career, including 29 for the Red Sox. Because of age and declining health, Dawson mostly played as a designated hitter for the Red Sox. He managed 20 appearances in the outfield during 1993 and none in 1994. During this inflated offensive era, over 70 major-league players hit more home runs than Dawson managed during those two seasons. Boston finished fifth and fourth in their division during the two contract years.

Paul Molitor: During the first two years in Toronto, the 36 year old Molitor paid immediate dividends, compiling batting averages of .332 and .341, on-base averages of .402 and .410 and a slugging percentage of .509 and .518. Molitor finished second in the MVP voting in 1993 and was named World Series MVP. Molitor retired after the 1998 season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004.

Kirby Puckett: Puckett played three more All-Star seasons for the Twins, hitting over .300 through the contract and leading the league in RBIs in 1994. Unfortunately, Puckett was forced to retire abruptly from the game late in spring training in 1996 when he developed glaucoma and lost vision in his right eye. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001 and died in March 2006 after suffering a stroke.

Ozzie Smith: Smith enjoyed two more years as a regular shortstop and made three All Star teams before his career ended with the 1996 season. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002.

Joe Carter: Carter would continue to be a fearsome slugger and finished 12th and 10th in MVP voting in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Most memorably, Carter hit the 1993 World Series clinching three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Six.

Greg Swindell: Swindell started 84 games for the Astros during the length of that contract, compiling a 30-34 win-loss record and a 4.48 ERA.

Dave Stewart: Stewart went 12-8 as a member of the World Champion Jays team in 1993, with a 4.44 ERA. He was named the MVP of the American League Championship Series after winning two games during that series. Stewart did not pitch nearly as well in two starts in the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies and his 1994 ERA ballooned to 5.87 in just 22 starts.

Todd Worrell: Worrell did not assume the high-profile closer role until the final year of his contract when he recorded 32 saves and had a 2.02 ERA During the first two years, his age 32 and 33 seasons, Worrell saved only 16 games and had seasonal ERA totals of 6.05 and 4.29 in about 40 innings pitched per year.

Randy Myers: Myers had been San Diego’s primary relief ace and he would lead the NL in saves for the Cubs in two of the next three seasons. His ERA also approached 4.00 in two of those three seasons. In his best year, 1993, Myers finished eighth in the National League Cy Young voting.

J.T. Snow: Over the next four years, Snow hit 65 home runs in almost 2,000 plate appearances for the Angels, with an OBA of .330 and a slugging percentage of .410. He would win two gold gloves for the Angels.



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Sugar

"Sugar" may be the best film about baseball that I've seen. It is a realistic story of a young pitcher from the Dominican Republic who is invited to spring training in the USA and then assigned to a low minor league team in small-town Iowa.

The film focuses attention on the agents and leagues operating in Latin America, as well as the immigrant experience in America. Indeed, the film would have been perfect for my "Globalization (and Baseball)" course that I taught during fall 2003. After all, I assigned Stealing Lives by Arturo J. Marcano Guevara and David P. Fidler, which tells the story of sweatshop baseball labor throughout Latin America.

Former Cincinnati Reds ace Jose Rijo plays a fairly prominent role in the movie. Apparently, presuming the film is accurate, baseball has upgraded the facilities in the Dominican Republican because Marcano Guevara and Fidler describe players working and living in squalor.

As you might expect, the film gives some attention to steroids. Most importantly, it emphasizes the precarious position of young men in Latin America pursuing an unlikely dream. The movie also shows the advantages granted to the million dollar draftee ("Brad Johnson") from Stanford. He teaches the main character about the life and work of former Latin star Roberto Clemente, who said: "Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth."


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Books of 2006

Last year, I posted a complete list of books I read in 2005. I'm not sure the post was revisited much, but I decided to make a 2006 list too.

Note that I do not intend to list books that I reviewed, unless those reviews were published. In my academic job, I chair a committee that awards $200,000 annually to the best "ideas for improving world order." Most of our nominees have written books and I read my share of the nominations.

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of lots of books related to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list them here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

Finally, I'm also excluding the books I read aloud to my youngest daughter, even though some of them are fairly substantial.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure?

Non-fiction

The Purpose of Intervention, by Martha Finnemore.

Blood and Oil, by Michael T. Klare.

Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled the Climate Crisis and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster by Ross Gelbspan.

The European Dream, by Jeremy Rifkin

Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby.

The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems, by Will Carroll.

Game Time: A Baseball Companion, by Roger Angell.

I also read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2006, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. It was edited by Steven Goldman and Christina Kahrl.

Of these, all were worth reading, though this was not Angell's best book. Carroll's writing is rough around the edges, but I learned from his look at steroids in my favorite sport. Rifkin's work is overlong, but parts of it would be great for an American student audience. Klare and Gelbspan were used in class last spring.

Fiction

A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby.

The Quiet American, by Graham Greene.

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad.

The Hot Kid, by Elmore Leonard.

Hombre, by Elmore Leonard.

The Simple Art of Murder, by Raymond Chandler.

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler.

Deep Blue Good-by, by John D. Macdonald.

Nightmare in Pink, by John D. Macdonald.

A Purple Place for Dying, John D. Macdonald.

Meet Me at the Morgue, by Ross Macdonald

Baseball and Benevolence, by Mark Valenza

The Seventh Babe, by Jerome Charyn.

Double Play, by Robert B. Parker

Spanking Watson, by Kinky Friedman

Saving Faith, by David Baldacci

Of these, I put the best first, then the genre fiction, and then the worst. I really like Nick Hornby's work and this book was very entertaining. John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee stories are a pleasant diversion, but the Pink one is kind of dated -- and none of them were as good as Leonard's latest paperback.

Currently, I'm about halfway through James Ellroy's oddly written The Cold Six Thousand, which I think one reviewer said was narrated by a hopped-up Dr. Seuss, hungry for violence. Also well underway is Richard Ned Lebow's The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, which figures into my latest writing project. More on that soon.



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Statheads vs. scouts

I haven't blogged much about baseball in a long time. But I'm in Boston and the Red Sox get a lot of coverage even in the offseason...

And I've just started reading The Pitch That Killed, by Oklahoman Mike Sowell. I previously read his One Pitch Away.

Plus, Saturday I intend to attend the local SABR chapter meeting at BU...it's scheduled for six hours and will feature Sports Illustrated writer Leigh Montville, among other speakers. One of the presenters is going to talk about steroids and baseball.

Finally, today I read a great piece on the Baseball America webpage featuring a discussion moderated by Alan Schwarz. Two stateheads and two scouts sit down and talk about baseball prospecting.

The discussion includes this quote by the Red Sox stathead:

VOROS McCRACKEN: Certainly, we in Boston are not antagonistic to the concepts in “Moneyball” either. Obviously they hired me as a consultant. When they promoted Theo [Epstein], basically the idea was he was going to try to meld the two approaches and get them to where they were not only getting along, but are complementing one another. The stats can help the scouts zero in on the guys they should be zeroing in on. And the scouts, once the stats are sorting things through, can tell you who exactly are the best guys to go after. The success of that can obviously be overblown because a World Series championship is a big thing, big news. How much it had to do with stats, how much it had to do with improved scouting . . . I think the point is that Boston has at least tried to reconcile the two positions.

It's a great read if you are into those sorts of things.

The Barry Bonds Trial

This week, the press has released a good deal of the federal government's evidence against Barry Bonds in his approaching trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. A federal judge unsealed a 223-page stack of documents that seems quite damning. The SF Chronicle summarized:

-- Positive tests on a urine sample originally collected from Bonds by Major League Baseball in 2003. The government says retesting proved Bonds had been using "the clear," also known as THG, the undetectable steroid distributed by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative of Burlingame.

Also detected in the 2003 sample was Clomid, a drug sometimes used by male steroid users to mask their drug use or to jump-start their natural ability to produce testosterone after prolonged steroid use, the government said.

-- Three private steroid tests, done in 2000 and 2001, that allegedly show Bonds was using steroids at that time. The tests were ordered by BALCO to track Bonds' drug regimen, company Vice President James Valente told a grand jury in 2006.

All three tests showed Bonds was using the injectable steroid methenolone, and two also showed use of nandrolone, prosecutors said.

-- A 2003 recording in which [Bonds personal trainer Greg] Anderson described Bonds' use of an undetectable drug to evade baseball's steroid tests...

-- Testimony from Oakland A's slugger Jason Giambi, his brother and former Athletic Jeremy Giambi, and former Giants Benito Santiago, Bobby Estalella and Marvin Benard. All will acknowledge using banned drugs and identify calendars kept for them by Anderson to track their steroid use, the government said. Prosecutors say the players' calendars are virtually identical to calendars Anderson kept for Bonds.

Because Anderson has long refused to testify against Bonds, however, much of this evidence could be considered hearsay and the judge has already said that she is inclined to throw it out of his trial.

The judge did not threaten to toss out the 2003 conversation taped by Bonds's longtime friend and business manager Steve Hoskins, nor the results of major league baseball drug tests. One test used new methods on an old urine sample to identify a steroid that was not found at the time of the test.

I'm currently reading Game of Shadows by Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who originally reported about the Hoskins tape in 2004 and also revealed most of the other evidence years ago.

What I can report about the book is that the reporters' accusations about Bonds and other athletes matches closely what the federal government has against Bonds. Of course, this should not be especially surprising since an attorney for Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) let them see copies of the secret grand jury testimony years ago.

The book provides a means to get a handle on the full story, though the writing is sloppy in spots. Its message is somewhat depressing and will make readers even more cynical about high-level sports.

Armed with the book's insights, one can use google and ruin many a good story.


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