The Pop-Morality of Major League Baseball
Here we go again. Alex Rodriguez admits to substance abuse back in 2003, and the Cadre of Crusading Baby Boomer Moralist Sportswriters are again denouncing the current crop of MLB players (and the records they hold) as “tainted.” They are crying to the Baseball Heavens,
“Oh Mercy, Lawd! Take us back! Take us back to a time when baseball was played by the honorable and when records made sense! A time of purity! A time of nobility! We can’t stand the awful sight of these players who have no respect for basic rules and decency! Deliver us, Lawd!”
Let me now disabuse you of the notion that baseball (and its hallowed records) has ever been “pure.”
Exhibit A: The Negro League Era.
Let’s forget, for a moment, that some Hall of Famers like Cap Anson were so virulently racist that they refused to play with colored players. The more important point here is that for 60-odd years of baseball (1880-1947), there were no non-white players in the Majors. Do you think this might potentially skew ALL Major League records from this particular era? I certainly do. World class players like Satchel Paige (who reportedly threw over 50 no-hitters in the Negro Leagues) and Josh Gibson barely got a chance to put a dent in the history of MLB.
Exhibit B: The Black Sox Scandal
In 1919, the Chicago White Sox, considered easily the strongest team in the league, intentionally threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. This story has been well preserved in the media through movies like Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams. This incident was a huge stain on the reputation of the league, and rightfully so. The greater point here, is that this was simply the most famous case of gambling affecting the outcome of an MLB game. Imagine how many dozens, if not hundreds of other games were controlled by the gambling elite and never reported on. This could call into question the results of decades worth of seasons.
Exhibit C: Wacky Stadium Design
It has always been part of the character of the national pastime that every city designs its own park to give it an extra degree of home field advantage. You’ve got the ivy walls in Wrigley Park, the short right field porch in the old Yankee Stadium, the Green Monster in Fenway, the cramped and acoustically weird Metrodome (I once described it as like watching eighteen guys play baseball in a living room). Now, I like that teams do this, and it certainly adds to the flavor of games, but it should cause you can throw stat uniformity right out the window.
Wade Boggs was a .354 career hitter at home (predominantly in hitter-friendly Fenway) and a .302 hitter on the road. So, is he a Hall of Famer, or simply just above-average? Depends on what field you’ve seen him play on.
Exhibit D: The Asterisk
On the final day of the 1961 season, Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, belting his 61st home run into the seats at Yankee Stadium. Baseball purists complained that since Babe Ruth had hit 60 in 154 games, and Maris hit 61 in 162 games, it wasn’t truly a new record. Well regardless of who you side with here, this does sort of pose a consistency problem for all records pre and post 1961 (the first year of the season expansion). Should we add five percent to all of the accumulated statistics of pre 1961 players?
So, I think we’ve established how ridiculous it is to talk about numerical consistency in any two disparate baseball eras. Let’s discuss “performance enhancers” for a bit:
Exhibit E: Maple Bats
For the majority of major league history, most bats were cut from ash trees with the rare exception of a hickory or bamboo selected by a player. Robert Redford crafted Wonderboy from a lightning-struck oak tree in the movie, The Natural.
Barry Bonds broke Maris’s home run record in 2001 with a specialty maple wood bat. Now maple bats are all the rage and comprise perhaps up to 60% of the bats used in the league. Players believe that the maple bats (which tend to be drier than ash bats) can make the ball travel farther. And, Major League Baseball seems content to allow this stat-enhancing change in equipment.
Exhibit F: Tommy John Surgery
Beginning in 1974, doctors found that they could replace a frayed or torn elbow ligament (the ulnar collateral) with another ligament from a knee, foot, or hamstring. Named after the first pitcher to undergo the surgery (who pitched to the age of 46), it has now become commonplace. Most players recovery from the surgery in under a year and can actually become stronger and throw harder after rehabilitation.
What I want to know, is where is the Baseball Purist objection to this? Anyone who believes that a player should get by on his God-given ability, without mechanical, chemical, or scientific help, should object to this procedure. Can you imagine how powerful someone could throw a ball with knee-strength ligaments in their throwing arms?
A Wikipedia article on this procedure reports that an increasing number of parents are requesting the surgery on their uninjured children in the hopes of increasing their performance. If someone can make a moral distinction between steroids and Tommy John surgery (other than that the rulebook allows one and bans the other), I would love to hear it.
Conclusion
And surgery is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. The upcoming revolution in sports science and genetics will create a new breed of professional athlete. Players will grow larger, faster, stronger, and play later into their lives. This trend is inevitable. Are we going to hem and haw every time someone breaks a record because they grew up in a world technologically different from the previous generation’s record holder? Are we going to demand that players subsist on a diet of liquor and hot dogs because that’s all Babe Ruth ate during his epic career? Where do you draw the line?
The point here, Baseball Crusaders, is that there is no line. Any comparison of two generations will be apples and oranges. Circumstances were different, morals were different, nutrition was different, environmental effects were different, ballparks were different, equipment was different, medicine was different. There is no consistency. There is only the ever growing, developing, and evolving game of baseball. It is a great game now and it will be a great game when it is played on the moon.
The only constant is that every generation’s players will do whatever is in their power to win. They will hide emery boards in their back pockets to scuff up baseballs, they will slide with their spikes out, they will take drugs, they will have unnecessary surgeries and transplants. They will do this because there are simply too many people willing to die for the lifestyle that they are afforded. That is the nature of competition. So stop being hung up on steroids, and try to enjoy the artistry in our national pastime.
You make some good points designed to excuse Arod from wrongdoing. It is true baseball was segregated on the day I was born. It is also true that better equipment, training, and medical knowledge have helped players. However, I think using steroids, testosterone, HGH and other substances which make one stronger, and is against the rules of baseball, is cheating and should result in the user being banned from MLB. Also, his records should be removed from the books. Roger Maris holds the single season record for homeruns. Babe Ruth holds the record for a 154 game schedule. Hank Aaron holds the record for career homeruns. Perhaps one day players will be wearing jet packs to circle the bases. When that day arrives, I won’t be watching.
I think its even more simple. We have numerous laws to protect people from themselves. It usually takes awhile, while people make money off of others or hurting themselves, but it will happen. I know I know, Russ: “they’ll just find new ways to do it”…”legalize drugs!”