Baseball and the Steroid Era

Editor's Note: It has come to my attention that this page is on Google's first page of results for the search term "kenny lofton steroids". As I honestly didn't see this coming, I've decided to do a total rewrite of Electronic Renaissance's first ever article so that it's better than the initial one, which can be found here. Cheers!

In the late 1990s, baseball seemed to be back on top as America's pastime. With memories of the strike of 1994 firmly in the rear-view mirror for just about everyone but the Montreal Expos, baseball found "heroes" to rally around in the form of then-St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire and then-Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa. With the eyes of America - and, indeed, much of the world - watching, these men put on a seemingly Ruthian feel-good chase for the title of baseball's all-time single-season home run king, easily shattering Roger Maris's record of 61 home runs en route to hitting 70 and 66, respectively. Just three years later in 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73, breaking Mark McGwire's record.

At the same time, many pitchers were performing similarly unbelievable feats. Although pitching records mostly weren't shattered like batting records were, the late 1990s saw a resurgence in 20-game winners, as well as quintessential "ironmen" and strikeout pitchers.

Unfortunately, as you probably already know, that feel-good time quickly turned sour in the next decade as allegations - many of them with proof of some kind, be it a testimony or lab results to back them up - of steroid usage to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the game came out against many of the aforementioned players. Many men that had built up reputations as near-immortal ballplayers saw their reputations turn to mud overnight, further tarnished by the aforementioned performance-enhancing drug usage allegations.

I'll admit it: Even I, a guy who has readily defended baseball from just about any and all criticism, from supposed systemic bad umpiring to baseball's antitrust exemption, found baseball rather indefensible at this point. Instead of implementing tougher standards for performance-enhancing drug usage, baseball sat idly by, preferring to sit back and watch the television ratings rise until the evidence for steroid usage became too strong to set aside and ignore. I ended up watching basketball during this period of time, but ended up slowly moving back into baseball's column when it became apparent that the NBA was even more screwed up than the MLB could ever aspire to be. Nowadays, I probably split my time 75-25 between the MLB and NFL respectively.

Thankfully, though, the days of steroids on the playing field seem to be mostly gone, as Major League Baseball has finally gotten around to tougher testing and penalties for steroid usage. However, the damage has already been done for what happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Soon enough, many of the names implicated in the wilder days of the Steroid Era will be eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, many with career numbers that would certainly be thought of as "lock-ins" if those numbers had been achieved through clean playing. Many are already eligible for induction; these men have largely received a cold reception from the sportswriters who vote on inductees so far.

What'll happen when the truly big names from that era become eligible, though?

In my opinion, I'd hope that the Hall continues to receive these "icons" of the steroid era with as cold of a reception as they've given to those already eligible. I'm very strict on steroid usage, myself; hell, if I had my way, players would be given the Pete Rose treatment after failing a performance-enhancing drug test instead of a simple slap on the wrist or suspension.

My greatest hope would be for the Hall to instead look at cases from the 1990s and early 2000s previously thought of as "borderline" in a new light. I'm specifically talking about guys like Kenny Lofton and Larry Walker here. I mean, honestly; the fact that this page is on Google's first page of results for the query "kenny lofton steroids" should be evidence enough that the guy didn't juice, and with a .299 career batting average and 622 stolen bases to his name, I think that he should certainly be given a long hard look when he's eventually eligible, most likely in 2012. Maybe my biased liking of Lofton and Walker factors into my reasoning here, but given that part of my liking for Walker stems from his likely lack of steroid usage, I think it's still valid nonetheless.

Then, of course, there's Maude Ken Griffey, Jr. His awesome "Call Me Junior" rap in Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr. for the Nintendo 64 aside, the man embodies everything a little kid idolizes in a professional baseball player: Honesty to the game, solid work ethic, and a healthy attitude. Let's face it: Whether you like the Mariners and Reds or not, the man's a legend who played by the rules and still came up big time at a point in time when most of his colleagues were cheating. With well over 600 home runs and 2,700 hits to his name, it's a shame he was injured for a few years, or he could've ended up rewriting baseball's record books the right way in his own right. For all baseball has tried to promote themselves as America's decent and honest pastime through the years, guys like Lofton, Walker, and especially Griffey are the real heroes of the 1990s that baseball should hold up as shining examples of the way the game was truly meant to be played. I could go on with more examples - pitchers like Jamie Moyer and Trevor Hoffman, to name two - but you get my point.

I will make one final point, though: If it does ever turn out at some point in the future that Lofton, Walker, or Griffey ever did use performance-enhancing drugs, then my faith in baseball will become irreparably broken. I'll probably end up slowly drifting back to watching sports that are not baseball, and will find it very hard to ever redeem baseball's reputation in my own mind.

For now, though, a long hard look at "borderline" cases coupled with continued cold shouldering to implicated players is the least that baseball could do to bring ultimate closure to a bygone era of big hits and nasty cuts. It's a win-win for the sport and its fans, no matter how painful coming to closure may be.

So, what's your opinion? Write to captainnosebleed (at) electronicrenaissance (dot) com, and your comments could end up in the next edition of Captain's Mailbox.

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