The dog days of summer are often the most difficult time to be a sports fan. There is not much going on in the sports world and baseball is the only one of the four major sports that is in season, and it is in these late days in August when the winners begin to separate from the losers. As a fan of one of the ‘losers,’ I find myself in a position where I am just biding my time until football season finally begins, which also signifies that basketball and hockey are to soon to follow. However, I know I am not alone in this boat, so without further ado, I offer you 10 things to do when your team falls out of contention.
1.) Play Madden
It’s no surprise that this incredible football game is in its 21st season of distracting guys from doing work around the house. This year, just like every other year, offers even more improvements. Most notably are weekly roster updates, which allow you to constantly stay up to date with the real NFL rosters. Yes, this means you can have Brett Favre on your team (still no word on if the technology allows Packers fans to mutilate him). And, even more satisfying? Yes, you can play with Michael Vick (insert dog joke here). Perhaps the best part, at least for comedy’s sake, is that Plaxico Burress is still on the Free Agents list, so you could sign him to play with Vick. Throw in Burt Reynolds and you’re well on your way to a Longest Yard remake (without the burden of a slightly depressed Adam Sandler to tank the whole thing). And if all of that isn’t enough for you, nothing cures your team’s suckiness more than laying the hit stick on Giselle’s child-abandoning husband and finding out you knocked him out for 6 weeks with broken ribs.
2.) Research Fantasy Football
Barely edging out Madden in the “Ways to Make Sure No Girl Ever Comes Near You” category is Fantasy Football. Unlike your baseball team, Fantasy Football actually gives you the opportunity to run a team in whatever way you want. However, you’re not the Washington Nationals, so don’t come unprepared, and then wonder why 1 week into the season your team has less of a chance of winning than Paul Walker has to win an Oscar. Take the time to actually do some research. Find some sleepers and look deeper into each of the players, even the ones who are so-called ‘locks.’ Again, you may not impress too many ladies doing this, but let’s be honest, when football season rolls around, sitting on the couch rooting for your Fantasy Team sure beats sitting on the couch rooting for your girlfriend to stop asking if she’s been looking fat the last few weeks.
3.) Watch the Little League World Series
If you’re looking for family dysfunction, don’t bother with Real Housewives of New Jersey, the Little League World Series is just for you. Nothing beats a bunch of 12 year olds with more facial hair than the Unabomber being forced to play 6 innings of baseball against other equally miserable 12 year olds who haven’t really stopped playing baseball in 6 months. Plus, the coaches are forced to wear microphones, allowing us the pleasure of watching them go out and talk to their players while we all sit at home praying the poor guy doesn’t drop an F-bomb and become the next Youtube star. And if all of that isn’t enough, it’s the only sporting event not featuring Adam Morrison where the losers cry. I’m in.
4.) Go to the Movies
The end of summer may not be a good time for sports, but it’s typically a great time for movies. Just as the baseball season is winding down, so too is the blockbuster season. Studios have pretty much trotted out their biggest movies earlier on in the summer, which is good because that means they begin to focus on the ones with some actual substance. Instead of watching Michael Bay blow everything up, we get to watch a Quentin Tarantino movie. True, it’s not Oscar season, so the real quality films are still hanging in the balance, but there’s certainly a little more to be desired in the late-summer movies. Plus, if your team isn’t winning, watching things like soldiers cutting the scalps off of Nazis is a pretty solid alternative.
5.) Watch an entire TV series beginning to end/present
This is probably the most surefire way to have everyone around you hate your guts for a solid two to three weeks. I speak first-hand as someone who spent three weeks catching up on Lost. It’s the best way to watch a show, because it’s basically like watching a week long movie. Sure, there are probably more important things to do, but when you look at your team’s schedule and see there’s three weeks remaining, this is the easiest way to pass the time.
6.) Watch The Real World
Alright, I must confess up until this current season, I had never watched any of the previous 21 seasons of MTV’s The Real World. Honestly, that’s probably a good thing. However, when your team stinks and you don’t know what else to do with yourself, nothing beats watching 8 obnoxious twenty-somethings wander around a random city getting as drunk as humanly possible and saying things they are sure to watch later on with their buddies (though it is hard to assume they actually have buddies in the real Real World) and feel utterly embarrassed by it all. Is it good TV? Absolutely not. Will I watch again next season? Heck yeah. That’s The Real World in a nutshell; it’s less thoughtful than a Pauly Shore movie, but when your team stinks, who needs thinking?
7.) Go to see/read up on your Triple-A team
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that this season is over with. However, that does not mean all hope is lost for your franchise. If you get the chance, find out when the Triple-A affiliate of your ball club is close-by and drive over to see it. It’s incredibly entertaining watching the young kid who’s just waiting for that phone call to play in the big leagues hit off of that old guy who used to be a big shot in those same big leagues until drug testing was implemented and all prior baseball skill diminished. Now, I have never personally witnessed a murder, but I imagine when someone is angry enough to commit such a vile act, they look something in between Michael Corleone when finds out Fredo betrayed the family and talked with Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola, and a minor league baseball player who used to play in the major leagues. If you can’t go, at least find out who’s on the roster. You never know which one will be the next big thing.
8.) Clean House
Just as the sham baseball teams begin cleaning house and shipping away players who offer no value to the team, you too can get rid of all of the useless items in your home. For bonus points, try selling it online. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. In the case of baseball, one trash American Leaguer is a treasure National Leaguer. Just ask Matt Holliday, Julio Lugo, John Smoltz, and anyone else on the St. Louis Cardinals roster. Sadly, however, sale of San Diego Padres players on Ebay is strictly forbidden.
9.) Read a book
Just kidding... kind of. Alright, I’m not saying this is a bad thing but let’s not kid ourselves, if you read the first 8 options and decided this was the best one, well then you probably don’t have/deserve a team anyway. However, I don’t think I could blame you for this. After all, you’re safe. You don’t have to deal with the pain of seeing your team go through the motions for the last month of the season, without any payoff awaiting them. Moreover, you don’t have to be one of those pathetic fools who lounge around all day, don’t do anything, act all depressed, and say things like “There’s always next year.”
10.) ……….
There is no 10.) Screw it. There’s always next year.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
AL vs. NL
O.K. Before we start, you must know how difficult this is for me to write. As a die-hard fan of National League Baseball it absolutely kills me to write this. This would be like asking Bill Maher to write a bad word about marijuana. This is the equivalent of making CNN produce a negative piece about President Obama. This is like telling Kirstie Alley to put down the Twinkie. This is… well you get the idea. No longer will I be Carmella Soprano and ignore what is right in front of me for the sake of the greater good. I must finally accept what can no longer be denied. It’s time we all admit… the American League is a superior baseball league to the National League.
*I wrote this article about a week before Brad Penny was dumped by the Red Sox. I have given it time to play out and I have updated all stats accordingly.*
You may not want to acknowledge it and, aside from ESPN’s Bill Simmons (who you can thank for inspiring me to write this), most of the media is ignoring it. So to prove the point, for all to see plain and clear, let’s start with a little background before we try and find a reason for all of this, and where better to start than 1973, the year when the American League officially adopted the designated hitter into its rules, forever distinguishing it from its inferior little brother, the National League. The designated hitter is the common name for Major League Baseball Rule 6.10 which allows teams to designate a hitter to bat in place of the pitcher. Since the time the rule was adopted, the American League holds the edge in All-Star Game victories 20-16 and World Series Victories 20-15 (there was no World Series in 1994 due to a work stoppage). These numbers are still relatively close and cannot begin to explain what has happened in even more recent times. The American League has won 12 of the last 13 All-Star games, and the one they didn’t win ended in a tie (thanks to Bud Selig who, from that time forward, decided to award the winning league of each All-Star Game home-field advantage in that season’s World Series in one of the biggest overreactions in history, along with A.) the U.S. response to swine flu, B.) Al Gore realizing it was hot outside and making an entire movie about it, and C.) anything Al Pacino has said since ‘Scent of a Woman’. Honestly, this is the equivalent of getting a lap dance at one of the less desirable strips joints and deciding to go get tested for a VD just to be safe. But I digress, that’s my Selig complaint for the day). However, the head-to-head competition only gives cookie cutter examples for an issue that is far deeper than just All-Star Games.
Matt Holliday. Jeff Suppan (not his cousin, Jeff Soup-pot…….. I apologize, that’s a joke for my mother.) John Smoltz. Julio Freaking Lugo! What do all of these names have in common? They’re just some of the many players who have experienced success in the National League, while playing like Smalls (before he started hanging out with Benny the Jet) in the American League. Matt Holliday hit 128 Home Runs, drove in 483 runs, while hitting .317 in his 5 seasons with the Colorado Rockies, a National League Team. These numbers scored him a big money deal for the Oakland Athletics, a, you guessed it, AMERICAN LEAGUE TEAM! What did he do in Oakland? He hit .286 with 11 Home Runs in 57 RBI in 93 games, causing Oakland to reconsider the 13.5 million dollars they were to pay him and ship him back to the National League where he would play for the St. Louis Cardinals. And, wouldn’t you know it, in just 53 games back in the Fredo Corleone League, he is hitting .358 with 13 Home Runs and 50 RBI while leading the Cardinals to the best record in baseball since the acquisition. Suppan? He never won more than 10 games in a season in the Michael Corleone League until he switched to the NL and won 16, 16, and 12 games with the Cardinals, as well as MVP of the National League Championship Series in 2006. John Smoltz had a 3.23 ERA in 20 seasons with the NL’s Atlanta Braves. His ERA in 8 games with the Red Sox of the AL? A slim and sexy 8.32. Blame it on old age right? Well, you could; until you see he’s posted a 3.21 ERA in 5 games with the Cardinals. The Red Sox also basically told the Cardinals, in regards to Julio Freaking Lugo (who has been so God-awful on any team he has ever played for that he has more than earned that middle name), “We will pay him so long as you take him away from us.” Lugo has added 10 points to his batting average since joining the team.
*And now the Brad Penny update. 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA in 24 starts with the Red Sox in the American League. 3-1 with a 4.01 ERA (largely inflated due to 1 poor outing against one of the few competent NL teams, the Dodgers).*
And these are just a few of the many examples of the phenomenon. I cannot help but also notice that all of these players (except Brad Penny), who are each perfect examples of the difference in play of the leagues, have found success playing in St. Louis. Is St. Louis the only team in the entire National League that has figured this out? They have basically found success, which includes a World Series Championship in 2006, by feasting on the leftovers from the American League. Why is no one making a bigger deal out of this? Better yet, why can’t I play GM for my Houston Astros and run the team.
I don’t know what this means for baseball. I don’t know if it necessarily is a bad thing for the game of baseball. All I know is if you pay close attention, there are plenty of other examples of this same phenomenon. Do we think the Cardinals have actually acquired these players from American League organizations in hopes that they follow this trend in succeeding in the NL? This is where things get interesting. This is probably not a good or a bad thing for baseball, but it certainly is something to take into consideration. Whether or not the Cardinals are actually taking these things into consideration when they acquire these players is unknown. But it is hard to argue with success, and the hottest team in baseball certainly owes a large part of that success to the AL teams that passed on these players. Maybe it’s time for the 15 other National League GM’s to take note. And if they try dipping into the American League’s talent and it works out? Well then, they can mail me my ‘Thank You’ card.
*I wrote this article about a week before Brad Penny was dumped by the Red Sox. I have given it time to play out and I have updated all stats accordingly.*
You may not want to acknowledge it and, aside from ESPN’s Bill Simmons (who you can thank for inspiring me to write this), most of the media is ignoring it. So to prove the point, for all to see plain and clear, let’s start with a little background before we try and find a reason for all of this, and where better to start than 1973, the year when the American League officially adopted the designated hitter into its rules, forever distinguishing it from its inferior little brother, the National League. The designated hitter is the common name for Major League Baseball Rule 6.10 which allows teams to designate a hitter to bat in place of the pitcher. Since the time the rule was adopted, the American League holds the edge in All-Star Game victories 20-16 and World Series Victories 20-15 (there was no World Series in 1994 due to a work stoppage). These numbers are still relatively close and cannot begin to explain what has happened in even more recent times. The American League has won 12 of the last 13 All-Star games, and the one they didn’t win ended in a tie (thanks to Bud Selig who, from that time forward, decided to award the winning league of each All-Star Game home-field advantage in that season’s World Series in one of the biggest overreactions in history, along with A.) the U.S. response to swine flu, B.) Al Gore realizing it was hot outside and making an entire movie about it, and C.) anything Al Pacino has said since ‘Scent of a Woman’. Honestly, this is the equivalent of getting a lap dance at one of the less desirable strips joints and deciding to go get tested for a VD just to be safe. But I digress, that’s my Selig complaint for the day). However, the head-to-head competition only gives cookie cutter examples for an issue that is far deeper than just All-Star Games.
Matt Holliday. Jeff Suppan (not his cousin, Jeff Soup-pot…….. I apologize, that’s a joke for my mother.) John Smoltz. Julio Freaking Lugo! What do all of these names have in common? They’re just some of the many players who have experienced success in the National League, while playing like Smalls (before he started hanging out with Benny the Jet) in the American League. Matt Holliday hit 128 Home Runs, drove in 483 runs, while hitting .317 in his 5 seasons with the Colorado Rockies, a National League Team. These numbers scored him a big money deal for the Oakland Athletics, a, you guessed it, AMERICAN LEAGUE TEAM! What did he do in Oakland? He hit .286 with 11 Home Runs in 57 RBI in 93 games, causing Oakland to reconsider the 13.5 million dollars they were to pay him and ship him back to the National League where he would play for the St. Louis Cardinals. And, wouldn’t you know it, in just 53 games back in the Fredo Corleone League, he is hitting .358 with 13 Home Runs and 50 RBI while leading the Cardinals to the best record in baseball since the acquisition. Suppan? He never won more than 10 games in a season in the Michael Corleone League until he switched to the NL and won 16, 16, and 12 games with the Cardinals, as well as MVP of the National League Championship Series in 2006. John Smoltz had a 3.23 ERA in 20 seasons with the NL’s Atlanta Braves. His ERA in 8 games with the Red Sox of the AL? A slim and sexy 8.32. Blame it on old age right? Well, you could; until you see he’s posted a 3.21 ERA in 5 games with the Cardinals. The Red Sox also basically told the Cardinals, in regards to Julio Freaking Lugo (who has been so God-awful on any team he has ever played for that he has more than earned that middle name), “We will pay him so long as you take him away from us.” Lugo has added 10 points to his batting average since joining the team.
*And now the Brad Penny update. 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA in 24 starts with the Red Sox in the American League. 3-1 with a 4.01 ERA (largely inflated due to 1 poor outing against one of the few competent NL teams, the Dodgers).*
And these are just a few of the many examples of the phenomenon. I cannot help but also notice that all of these players (except Brad Penny), who are each perfect examples of the difference in play of the leagues, have found success playing in St. Louis. Is St. Louis the only team in the entire National League that has figured this out? They have basically found success, which includes a World Series Championship in 2006, by feasting on the leftovers from the American League. Why is no one making a bigger deal out of this? Better yet, why can’t I play GM for my Houston Astros and run the team.
I don’t know what this means for baseball. I don’t know if it necessarily is a bad thing for the game of baseball. All I know is if you pay close attention, there are plenty of other examples of this same phenomenon. Do we think the Cardinals have actually acquired these players from American League organizations in hopes that they follow this trend in succeeding in the NL? This is where things get interesting. This is probably not a good or a bad thing for baseball, but it certainly is something to take into consideration. Whether or not the Cardinals are actually taking these things into consideration when they acquire these players is unknown. But it is hard to argue with success, and the hottest team in baseball certainly owes a large part of that success to the AL teams that passed on these players. Maybe it’s time for the 15 other National League GM’s to take note. And if they try dipping into the American League’s talent and it works out? Well then, they can mail me my ‘Thank You’ card.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Steroids Era
We all love our superheroes. There is just something about an average guy, just like any of us, having the powers to do things we could only dream of. Spiderman could shoot webs and climb buildings faster than Bernie Madoff went from billionaire to jailbait. The Hulk could destroy just about anything, so long as you make him angry. And Superman had the strength of a hundred men. We as a society yearn to see unparalleled strength by average people we deem to be just like us. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that the ‘Steroids Era’ in baseball has gotten to be so out of control.
The year was 1998. Baseball was still reeling off of a strike-shortened season that cancelled the World Series just 4 years before. Loyal fans were still struggling with the idea that these players, who were already making more money than old Mr. Potter, could completely betray the fans in hopes for even more money. You could make the case that the game was at a lower point than ever before.
Then, as if by some miracle, two players came along that seemed to be the superheroes we had longed for, and despite being from 2 completely different backgrounds, they both offered equal promise to the struggling game. Mark McGwire was the 6 foot 5 mammoth who seemed like he just finished his day shift as a lumberjack to come play a game of baseball that night. On the other side of the tracks was Sammy Sosa, the lovable right fielder from the Dominican Republic whose smile was so infectious it helped you ignore the fact that his head was bigger than a 4th of July watermelon.
And so it went, for the summer of 1998 we did just that, we ignored the obvious signs that something was not right and we joined these 2 men as they took us on a journey towards the infamous single season home run record of 61, which was held by the deceased Roger Maris who set the record all the way back in 1961. We ignored the elephant in the room that these two guys together looked like they could be a tag team in the WWF (that’s what it was called at the time), while the man whose record they were chasing, looked more like ‘that guy’ who works a few cubicles down from you in the office. We ignored this because we felt like the game owed us something, since it bailed on us just 4 years before.
So we all watched, and on that humid St. Louis night on September 8, 1998, it happened. McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season 37 years after Roger Maris had his incredible summer of 61, and who better to be there to witness it than Sammy Sosa in right field. The two hugged after the home run, the game ended, and baseball finally took its place back in the hearts of Americans. Sosa eventually broke the record as well, and the summer ended with McGwire belting out an astonishing 70 home runs, with Sosa right behind with an equally impressive 66.
However, it was something else that happened on that September night that planted the seeds for the trouble that would come over the next decade. The family of Roger Maris was in attendance for the game, in order to symbolically pass the torch of the record their loved one worked so hard to achieve. When McGwire finished his triumphant trot around the bases, he eventually made his way to the family, and it was in this moment that we all should have been alarmed, but were too caught up in the moment to think much of it. During the exchange between McGwire and the family, the Maris family had a look of utter bewilderment on their faces, like they knew something wasn’t right about what was happening. Roger had broken the record simply by smoking more cigarettes than Don Draper. Nothing was too fishy about that. Now, we had two guys who fit in with our superhero culture. Guys we felt we could relate to, except they were doing almost supernatural things on the baseball field. We didn’t care if things didn’t seem all that legitimate because, again, the game owed us something.
Those suspicions that something was wrong came to a head in the summer of 2001. A new ‘superhero’ came along, but he seemed more in the form of a super villain. Barry Bonds, a man with an ego almost as large as his hat size, decided he would take whatever steps necessary to take the record for himself. However, he didn’t have the likability that Sosa and McGwire possessed, and the simple fact that he was chasing a record that had stood for a measly 3 years despite standing for 37 just before, was concerning to say the least. We had all but ignored the chase and written it off, when the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001 occurred, and once again, baseball seemed to be America’s form of escape. We didn’t particularly enjoy watching this egotistical jerk whose personality was about as endearing as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but we felt like it at least gave us something else to watch rather than the awful footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. Still, Bonds finished with 73 home runs and the baseball world seemed corrupt.
Time passed and the taste in our mouths grew more bitter. The 2002 World Series featured Barry Bonds’ San Francisco Giants and the Anaheim Angels. Both teams had numerous players having career years that seem impossible when looking at what became of their careers. Despite the fact that the two teams provided one of the more entertaining World Series in recent memory, it felt tarnished and by 2003 it became apparent that steroids had become too large of a problem in the game of baseball to continue to ignore. After all, the other 3 major sports had already tested for the drugs long before, giving them a greater sense of authenticity in our minds. We began to look back at the 90s in a different light, and it became obvious that many of the accomplishments were tainted. The famous example is Brady Anderson’s 1996 season when he hit 50 home runs, 26 more than he had ever hit before. However, there were other red flags as well, including the same summer of 2001 when Luis Gonzalez hit an incredible 57 home runs while looking more ripped than Apollo Creed. It was clear that this era was tainted, and it even began to be dubbed as ‘The Steroids Era.’
So what does this all mean? We are at a point now when it seems like the steroids are under control and the game is a little bit more pure. The problem is, it seems like about once a month we find out another one of our ‘heroes’ was actually a user of steroids. We learn this because in 2003 a test was administered to the players of Major League Baseball with the understanding that the results would be kept anonymous. However, in ways that no one really understands, names continue to leak from this list.
The most recent duo of names to be leaked was David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, two integral parts of the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox team. This becomes the prime example of how we must view the Steroids Era in a different light. Here we have an example of team who took baseball’s top prize by using players who cheated. Do we simply turn the other cheek the same way we did in 1998 and excuse it by saying ‘everyone else was doing it’? Do we take more extreme measures and place an asterisk next to all achievements that were accomplished during the Steroids Era? Maybe the only thing to do is clean up the game as much as possible and let history decide what to make of the records. After all, when looking back at the times, the ’98 home run chase or the ’04 World Series, along with all of the other achievements of the era, aren’t the questions of legitimacy in the minds of baseball fans punishment enough? Won’t there always be a mental asterisk in everyone’s head when they talk about them? And when the dreaded time comes when they must explain to their children what happened during this era, won’t the pain of explaining how it all played out be torture enough? Can we even fix anything anymore? We are officially at a time when we have more questions than answers.
So who exactly is to blame for all of this? Is it simply the players who disregarded the purity of the game in order to put up superhero-like numbers? Is it Bud Selig, the commissioner who saw all of the corruption but never acted until it was too late? Is it the fans, for turning the blind eye and accepting what these guys were doing, even though we knew it couldn’t be real? Call me crazy, but I cannot place too much of the blame on the players. Sure, we like to believe we would all have respected the game more than these ‘cheaters,’ but I find it hard to believe that if you told the average person they could take something that was NOT BANNED AT THE TIME to improve their profession and, in turn, earn them more money, they would not do exactly the same thing. Again, the majority of steroids were not banned at this time. For this reason, I place the majority of the blame on the commissioner. This man has not really done anything too miraculous during his tenure as commissioner, and this steroids mess sure taints his legacy beyond repair. He was the one who could have put a stop to it before things got out of control and it was too late. Instead, he was reaping the benefits of baseball getting back on its feet after the strike and failed to recognize the problem before it backfired right in his face faster than one of Eric Cartman’s plans. However, not all of the blame falls on the commissioner. We as the fans are not innocent either. We ignored what was right in front of us because we wanted to believe players could actually transform into the superheroes we read about and admire. We actually believed these guys were just more talented than an entire century of players before them, all because they worked hard. However, we are past the point where the blame game means anything. The more important question now is ‘where do we go from here?’
The best solution would be release the list, deal with the legal ramifications (i.e. lawsuits from players over their names being released) and move on. The Players Association would be irate that a ‘confidential’ list would be released publicly, and rightfully so, but the fact that some names have already leaked makes the whole thing incredibly controversial. We have come to a point where sooner or later, the names will get out, it’s just a matter of how long the soap opera will run. The game needs a drastic move, and I believe that starts with finding a new commissioner. The owners love Bud Selig but the problem is he has done more harm to the game than good. With a fresh start up top, the older players who played during the era can play out their careers and we can judge them how we see fit, while the younger talent matures and baseball is restored to its old form.
Ultimately, there is no real explanation for this era, and that is perhaps why it is so sad. No one knows if baseball can ever become America’s true sport again, since football has unofficially taken that crown. However, as long as there is an effort, by the players, the coaches, the owners, the COMMISSIONER, baseball will get its second chance. After all, it may not be America’s sport anymore, but it is still truly American, and in a country full of second chances, the game that has helped Americans through so many difficult times deserves one, if not for any reason other than the fact that we are all humans looking for greatness in its purest, most simple form.
Leave the hard stuff for Superman.
The year was 1998. Baseball was still reeling off of a strike-shortened season that cancelled the World Series just 4 years before. Loyal fans were still struggling with the idea that these players, who were already making more money than old Mr. Potter, could completely betray the fans in hopes for even more money. You could make the case that the game was at a lower point than ever before.
Then, as if by some miracle, two players came along that seemed to be the superheroes we had longed for, and despite being from 2 completely different backgrounds, they both offered equal promise to the struggling game. Mark McGwire was the 6 foot 5 mammoth who seemed like he just finished his day shift as a lumberjack to come play a game of baseball that night. On the other side of the tracks was Sammy Sosa, the lovable right fielder from the Dominican Republic whose smile was so infectious it helped you ignore the fact that his head was bigger than a 4th of July watermelon.
And so it went, for the summer of 1998 we did just that, we ignored the obvious signs that something was not right and we joined these 2 men as they took us on a journey towards the infamous single season home run record of 61, which was held by the deceased Roger Maris who set the record all the way back in 1961. We ignored the elephant in the room that these two guys together looked like they could be a tag team in the WWF (that’s what it was called at the time), while the man whose record they were chasing, looked more like ‘that guy’ who works a few cubicles down from you in the office. We ignored this because we felt like the game owed us something, since it bailed on us just 4 years before.
So we all watched, and on that humid St. Louis night on September 8, 1998, it happened. McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season 37 years after Roger Maris had his incredible summer of 61, and who better to be there to witness it than Sammy Sosa in right field. The two hugged after the home run, the game ended, and baseball finally took its place back in the hearts of Americans. Sosa eventually broke the record as well, and the summer ended with McGwire belting out an astonishing 70 home runs, with Sosa right behind with an equally impressive 66.
However, it was something else that happened on that September night that planted the seeds for the trouble that would come over the next decade. The family of Roger Maris was in attendance for the game, in order to symbolically pass the torch of the record their loved one worked so hard to achieve. When McGwire finished his triumphant trot around the bases, he eventually made his way to the family, and it was in this moment that we all should have been alarmed, but were too caught up in the moment to think much of it. During the exchange between McGwire and the family, the Maris family had a look of utter bewilderment on their faces, like they knew something wasn’t right about what was happening. Roger had broken the record simply by smoking more cigarettes than Don Draper. Nothing was too fishy about that. Now, we had two guys who fit in with our superhero culture. Guys we felt we could relate to, except they were doing almost supernatural things on the baseball field. We didn’t care if things didn’t seem all that legitimate because, again, the game owed us something.
Those suspicions that something was wrong came to a head in the summer of 2001. A new ‘superhero’ came along, but he seemed more in the form of a super villain. Barry Bonds, a man with an ego almost as large as his hat size, decided he would take whatever steps necessary to take the record for himself. However, he didn’t have the likability that Sosa and McGwire possessed, and the simple fact that he was chasing a record that had stood for a measly 3 years despite standing for 37 just before, was concerning to say the least. We had all but ignored the chase and written it off, when the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001 occurred, and once again, baseball seemed to be America’s form of escape. We didn’t particularly enjoy watching this egotistical jerk whose personality was about as endearing as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but we felt like it at least gave us something else to watch rather than the awful footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. Still, Bonds finished with 73 home runs and the baseball world seemed corrupt.
Time passed and the taste in our mouths grew more bitter. The 2002 World Series featured Barry Bonds’ San Francisco Giants and the Anaheim Angels. Both teams had numerous players having career years that seem impossible when looking at what became of their careers. Despite the fact that the two teams provided one of the more entertaining World Series in recent memory, it felt tarnished and by 2003 it became apparent that steroids had become too large of a problem in the game of baseball to continue to ignore. After all, the other 3 major sports had already tested for the drugs long before, giving them a greater sense of authenticity in our minds. We began to look back at the 90s in a different light, and it became obvious that many of the accomplishments were tainted. The famous example is Brady Anderson’s 1996 season when he hit 50 home runs, 26 more than he had ever hit before. However, there were other red flags as well, including the same summer of 2001 when Luis Gonzalez hit an incredible 57 home runs while looking more ripped than Apollo Creed. It was clear that this era was tainted, and it even began to be dubbed as ‘The Steroids Era.’
So what does this all mean? We are at a point now when it seems like the steroids are under control and the game is a little bit more pure. The problem is, it seems like about once a month we find out another one of our ‘heroes’ was actually a user of steroids. We learn this because in 2003 a test was administered to the players of Major League Baseball with the understanding that the results would be kept anonymous. However, in ways that no one really understands, names continue to leak from this list.
The most recent duo of names to be leaked was David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, two integral parts of the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox team. This becomes the prime example of how we must view the Steroids Era in a different light. Here we have an example of team who took baseball’s top prize by using players who cheated. Do we simply turn the other cheek the same way we did in 1998 and excuse it by saying ‘everyone else was doing it’? Do we take more extreme measures and place an asterisk next to all achievements that were accomplished during the Steroids Era? Maybe the only thing to do is clean up the game as much as possible and let history decide what to make of the records. After all, when looking back at the times, the ’98 home run chase or the ’04 World Series, along with all of the other achievements of the era, aren’t the questions of legitimacy in the minds of baseball fans punishment enough? Won’t there always be a mental asterisk in everyone’s head when they talk about them? And when the dreaded time comes when they must explain to their children what happened during this era, won’t the pain of explaining how it all played out be torture enough? Can we even fix anything anymore? We are officially at a time when we have more questions than answers.
So who exactly is to blame for all of this? Is it simply the players who disregarded the purity of the game in order to put up superhero-like numbers? Is it Bud Selig, the commissioner who saw all of the corruption but never acted until it was too late? Is it the fans, for turning the blind eye and accepting what these guys were doing, even though we knew it couldn’t be real? Call me crazy, but I cannot place too much of the blame on the players. Sure, we like to believe we would all have respected the game more than these ‘cheaters,’ but I find it hard to believe that if you told the average person they could take something that was NOT BANNED AT THE TIME to improve their profession and, in turn, earn them more money, they would not do exactly the same thing. Again, the majority of steroids were not banned at this time. For this reason, I place the majority of the blame on the commissioner. This man has not really done anything too miraculous during his tenure as commissioner, and this steroids mess sure taints his legacy beyond repair. He was the one who could have put a stop to it before things got out of control and it was too late. Instead, he was reaping the benefits of baseball getting back on its feet after the strike and failed to recognize the problem before it backfired right in his face faster than one of Eric Cartman’s plans. However, not all of the blame falls on the commissioner. We as the fans are not innocent either. We ignored what was right in front of us because we wanted to believe players could actually transform into the superheroes we read about and admire. We actually believed these guys were just more talented than an entire century of players before them, all because they worked hard. However, we are past the point where the blame game means anything. The more important question now is ‘where do we go from here?’
The best solution would be release the list, deal with the legal ramifications (i.e. lawsuits from players over their names being released) and move on. The Players Association would be irate that a ‘confidential’ list would be released publicly, and rightfully so, but the fact that some names have already leaked makes the whole thing incredibly controversial. We have come to a point where sooner or later, the names will get out, it’s just a matter of how long the soap opera will run. The game needs a drastic move, and I believe that starts with finding a new commissioner. The owners love Bud Selig but the problem is he has done more harm to the game than good. With a fresh start up top, the older players who played during the era can play out their careers and we can judge them how we see fit, while the younger talent matures and baseball is restored to its old form.
Ultimately, there is no real explanation for this era, and that is perhaps why it is so sad. No one knows if baseball can ever become America’s true sport again, since football has unofficially taken that crown. However, as long as there is an effort, by the players, the coaches, the owners, the COMMISSIONER, baseball will get its second chance. After all, it may not be America’s sport anymore, but it is still truly American, and in a country full of second chances, the game that has helped Americans through so many difficult times deserves one, if not for any reason other than the fact that we are all humans looking for greatness in its purest, most simple form.
Leave the hard stuff for Superman.
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