Enhanced Performance

No, this is not an ad for some new men's product!
Yesterday baseball, with spring training about to start, was greeted with Alex Rodriguez' admission that he used steroids as recently as 2003. Lest you think he had an attack of conscience, reports were all over the media that a list of failed steroid tests included Rodriguez' name (as well as 103 other names). So while I am glad he admitted it and saved us countless stories and exposes which would lead more strained denials, I do not think A-Rod grabbed the moral high ground here.
What he did was make a very calculated and practical decision. Get it out, take the public relations hit and try to move on. He does not have to go to bat tonight in a stadium full of people holding up "A-Fraud" signs or throwing syringes on the field. He will report to spring training in a couple of weeks, no doubt have another few days of questions then state that he just wants to "focus on the coming season and getting the Yankees back to the World Series". If all goes well, by Opening Day everyone has moved on.
Miguel Tejada was kind enough to help out today. Apparently he is going to plead guilt to lying to Congress (I love the irony that lying to Congress is a crime, but lying while in Congress...oh well). Rodriguez had the good fortune never to testify before Congress.
The real question is: what does it mean for baseball? We now have the games greatest home run hitter (although he continues to deny), the greatest pitcher of the past twenty years (although he continues to deny) and arguably the best all around player of the past decade or, so under the cloud of steroids.
In the 1990s the numbers were inflated. I maintain that expansion and the building of bandbox ballparks still contributed to that. Approximately 40 pitchers were on major league rosters who would not have been ten years earlier. Lesser quality pitchers in smaller ballparks are going to produce more home runs.
Steroids are harder to quantify. Were the players who used bigger and stronger? Yes. Is hitting a baseball (or pitching one for that matter) entirely reliant on strength? No. A player must have great eye hand coordination, be able to generate bat speed and be able to make a decision to swing within hundredths of a second. I do not believe steroids impact any of those skills.
That said, the real problem to me is the lack of truth. What is emerging is a story of an era in baseball where the fans were not told the truth. We were first told there was no problem. Then we were told that suspected users were not using. Bit by bit baseball's big lie emerges. The 1998 McGwire-Sosa home run derby now feels more like a movie we saw than something we experienced. Yes it was entertaining, but was it a put on? Maybe pitchers grooved pitches to these guys to help the game. Seems far fetched, but so did a lot of things ten years ago.
No, I don't believe baseball in the 1990s and early 2000s was a screenplay played out on large stages with the results pre-determined, but I don't know what it was I saw in those years. I think it is a shame that Maris, Aaron and others are now lower on the list of "all time" records. We know they were real. Henry Aaron had to overcome incredible odds, racial prejudice. and death threats. Alex Rodriguez tells us he had to overcome the burden of a $25 million a year contract. Sorry Alex, that does not work.
Sometimes when your computer is giving you trouble you can "restore the system" back to an earlier point in time. I wish baseball had that function right now. If it did, and if I got to pick, it would be right before Tommy Lasorda elected to pitch to Jack Clark in the 1985 playoffs. First base was open, walk him!
It felt good to talk about baseball for a moment.