Baseball is a funny sport. “America’s Pastime” -- though perhaps merely in name nowadays -- is often bizarrely slow, filled with many archaic rules and countless more asinine “unwritten rules”, and is marketed poorly to the casual viewer year after year.
Still, like America, many of those who grew up with and understand the MLB for the deeply flawed system that it is can’t ever seem to quit it. Baseball is a comfort food of sorts for sports fans like me who grew up with the game and find joy in its idiosyncrasies, despite being constantly reminded by friends how boring it is.
Photo by: Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports
Of its many faults, though, perhaps the sport’s most baffling is that it is positively riddled with cheaters. And no one ever has any clue what to do about it.
Why exactly Major League Baseball has had so many massive cheating scandals in its history is unclear. Maybe the game’s rules are so poorly written that bad actors can expose their loopholes too easily. Maybe the governing bodies of the sport and the umpires in charge aren’t good enough at their jobs to catch and properly reprimand cheaters. Maybe everyone who likes baseball is just born evil.
Whatever the reason, the damage has been -- and continues to be -- done. The 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” infamously were accused of throwing the World Series for gambling kickbacks. In 1989 Pete Rose, the league’s all-time hits leader with a career .303 average, was handed a lifetime ban from baseball for gambling on MLB games while serving as Cincinnati Reds’ manager. The Wikipedia page detailing instances of collusion by team owners looks like this.
More recently, the 2017 World-Series-winning Houston Astros were found to have used an illegal sign-stealing scheme to decode each pitch that the opposition planned to throw but were ultimately given only minor punishments and were allowed to keep their championship trophy -- a trophy which commissioner Rob Manfred called just “a piece of metal” to justify their keeping it.
All of these ludicrous events serve only to cheapen an already-languishing sport. However, all of these scandals pale in comparison to the effects of the most significant method of cheating in baseball history; steroids.
Some have even attributed the steroid era to “saving” Major League Baseball as a whole. In 1994, after the owners and the players failed to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement the players went on strike. The season ended abruptly on August 12th, meaning that the playoffs -- and the World Series -- were not held. This was only the second time the World Series had ever been skipped and the first since 1904; this includes World War I, World War II, and the COVID-19 Pandemic as years in which the Fall Classic was still held.
When pro baseball returned to America in 1995, attendance dropped 12% per game on average. Enter steroids, and from 1996 to 2001, where at least a dozen batters slugged 40 homers each year, viewership and profits shot up. In 1995, the league’s revenue was $1.4 billion; in 2001 that figure rose to $3.7 billion, representing a 164% increase.
While it’s highly possible the MLB knew of the rampant steroid use during this era and looked the other way, once the news broke of these players using PEDs, the league kicked them to the curb. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and other known cheaters during the steroid era have all been shut out of baseball’s Hall of Fame and have been all but shunned from the sport and its coverage entirely.
For others, though, the cold shoulder from the MLB hasn’t been quite as cold. Nelson Cruz, though once named in and suspended 50 games as a result of the Biogenesis scandal, is still in the league and is now mostly well-liked and respected by fans and the media alike. Alex Rodriguez, easily the most significant player named in the Biogenesis report, was banned for an entire 162-game season in the fallout and was denied access to Cooperstown this past year, his first time on the ballot.
While widely disliked by opposing fans, Rodriguez seems to have a positive perception within the sport itself, serving as a common fixture in media coverage as one of Fox Sports’ main studio analysts and as a color commentator alongside Michael Kay in ESPN’s “KayRod” broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball.
Most interestingly, David Ortiz, though once named in a vague 2003 list from the MLB of players who tested positive for a banned substance, is almost unanimously revered and was just selected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
When looking through the MLB record books, it’s not always clear who cheated, how exactly they did, and what effect it may have had. And while steroid usage has no bearing on a player’s ability to make contact with the ball or to discern between balls and strikes -- two things Barry Bonds was exceptional at, to his credit -- taking such PEDs has a clear and obvious effect on home run power.
As such, the current leaderboard of all-time single-season home run tallies is undeniably tainted. It’s impossible for a player not on steroids to keep up, especially in a period of unprecedented dominance by pitchers coinciding with an all-time low league-wide batting average this season of .232.
Well, almost impossible.
At the time of writing, Judge is on pace for 63 home runs this season, which would tie Sosa’s 1993 mark and would set the new American League record, beating Yankees legend Roger Maris’ total of 61 in 1961. In the modern post-steroid era and during the poorest two-year league-wide offensive stretch in memory, Judge accomplishing this would be simply astonishing -- and perhaps it should be recognized as a record of sorts in its own right.
Should Judge end the season with more moonshots than Maris, the only people above him would all be players who at some point tested positive for steroids. Though those three players have been omitted from the Baseball Hall of Fame permanently, their home run records still stand, and this discrepancy is rather confusing.
Assuming Judge never tests positive for PEDs in his career, how should we judge (no pun intended) a season-end mark of 62 home runs, for instance? Should this figure just be known as an unfortunate victim of previous cheaters? Should we at some point remove home run tallies by known steroid users from the record books? Or should we keep separate “juiced” and “unjuiced” home run records?
Doing either of the latter two would undoubtedly open up a can of worms. How strict should we be in labeling individual players as “cheaters”? And if we separate record books by steroid use, should we then further separate record books by eras? Worse still, what do we do if in ten years’ time the “juiced ball” theory turns out to actually have been true? There’s no easy answer to these questions, but no matter how we answer them, if Judge does tie or surpass Roger Maris’ single-season home run record we need to simply stand in awe and acknowledge greatness.
Lots of things about baseball are overly complicated, but this much is simple: what Aaron Judge is doing this season is special, maybe once-in-a-generation type stuff. And maybe that’s just the best way to view his home run count, no matter where it ends up. ■
Of its many faults, though, perhaps the sport’s most baffling is that it is positively riddled with cheaters. And no one ever has any clue what to do about it.
Why exactly Major League Baseball has had so many massive cheating scandals in its history is unclear. Maybe the game’s rules are so poorly written that bad actors can expose their loopholes too easily. Maybe the governing bodies of the sport and the umpires in charge aren’t good enough at their jobs to catch and properly reprimand cheaters. Maybe everyone who likes baseball is just born evil.
Whatever the reason, the damage has been -- and continues to be -- done. The 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” infamously were accused of throwing the World Series for gambling kickbacks. In 1989 Pete Rose, the league’s all-time hits leader with a career .303 average, was handed a lifetime ban from baseball for gambling on MLB games while serving as Cincinnati Reds’ manager. The Wikipedia page detailing instances of collusion by team owners looks like this.
More recently, the 2017 World-Series-winning Houston Astros were found to have used an illegal sign-stealing scheme to decode each pitch that the opposition planned to throw but were ultimately given only minor punishments and were allowed to keep their championship trophy -- a trophy which commissioner Rob Manfred called just “a piece of metal” to justify their keeping it.
Photo by: Matt Slocum/AP Photos
All of these ludicrous events serve only to cheapen an already-languishing sport. However, all of these scandals pale in comparison to the effects of the most significant method of cheating in baseball history; steroids.
Performance-enhancing drugs, or “PEDs”, have existed in some shape or form since sports were invented. The first known use in baseball dates back to 1889, when pitcher James “Pud” Galvin admitted to using Brown-Séquard Elixir, a testosterone supplement derived from the testicles of live animals like dogs and guinea pigs.
Luckily for prospective cheaters, PED synthesis would come a long way in the next 100 years. This eventually led to what is now known as “The Steroid Era” of the MLB, a period of time ranging from around the late 1980s to the late 2000s.
During this time period there was an unprecedented rise in offensive efficiency and, most notably, home run numbers across the league. Between 1961 and 1994, the feat of 50 home runs in a season was only ever achieved three times. Now? The top 6 single-season home run marks are 73, 70, 66, 65, 64, and 63, all attributed to Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa between 1999 and 2001.
All three men -- you guessed it -- have either been named in investigations of, or have outright admitted to, illegal steroid use while playing.
Like everything in baseball, the legacy and treatment of known or strongly-suspected PED users is messy and complicated. The uptick in dingers during the steroid era was undoubtedly beneficial for the viewership of an increasingly unpopular sport, and perhaps as such, though steroids have been banned in the MLB since 1991, the league didn’t actually implement mandatory testing for PEDs until 2003 -- after Bonds, the sport’s most popular player, was named in the BALCO scandal that sunk his legacy.
Luckily for prospective cheaters, PED synthesis would come a long way in the next 100 years. This eventually led to what is now known as “The Steroid Era” of the MLB, a period of time ranging from around the late 1980s to the late 2000s.
During this time period there was an unprecedented rise in offensive efficiency and, most notably, home run numbers across the league. Between 1961 and 1994, the feat of 50 home runs in a season was only ever achieved three times. Now? The top 6 single-season home run marks are 73, 70, 66, 65, 64, and 63, all attributed to Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa between 1999 and 2001.
All three men -- you guessed it -- have either been named in investigations of, or have outright admitted to, illegal steroid use while playing.
Like everything in baseball, the legacy and treatment of known or strongly-suspected PED users is messy and complicated. The uptick in dingers during the steroid era was undoubtedly beneficial for the viewership of an increasingly unpopular sport, and perhaps as such, though steroids have been banned in the MLB since 1991, the league didn’t actually implement mandatory testing for PEDs until 2003 -- after Bonds, the sport’s most popular player, was named in the BALCO scandal that sunk his legacy.
Photo by: Peter DaSilva/The New York Times
Some have even attributed the steroid era to “saving” Major League Baseball as a whole. In 1994, after the owners and the players failed to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement the players went on strike. The season ended abruptly on August 12th, meaning that the playoffs -- and the World Series -- were not held. This was only the second time the World Series had ever been skipped and the first since 1904; this includes World War I, World War II, and the COVID-19 Pandemic as years in which the Fall Classic was still held.
When pro baseball returned to America in 1995, attendance dropped 12% per game on average. Enter steroids, and from 1996 to 2001, where at least a dozen batters slugged 40 homers each year, viewership and profits shot up. In 1995, the league’s revenue was $1.4 billion; in 2001 that figure rose to $3.7 billion, representing a 164% increase.
While it’s highly possible the MLB knew of the rampant steroid use during this era and looked the other way, once the news broke of these players using PEDs, the league kicked them to the curb. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and other known cheaters during the steroid era have all been shut out of baseball’s Hall of Fame and have been all but shunned from the sport and its coverage entirely.
For others, though, the cold shoulder from the MLB hasn’t been quite as cold. Nelson Cruz, though once named in and suspended 50 games as a result of the Biogenesis scandal, is still in the league and is now mostly well-liked and respected by fans and the media alike. Alex Rodriguez, easily the most significant player named in the Biogenesis report, was banned for an entire 162-game season in the fallout and was denied access to Cooperstown this past year, his first time on the ballot.
While widely disliked by opposing fans, Rodriguez seems to have a positive perception within the sport itself, serving as a common fixture in media coverage as one of Fox Sports’ main studio analysts and as a color commentator alongside Michael Kay in ESPN’s “KayRod” broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball.
Most interestingly, David Ortiz, though once named in a vague 2003 list from the MLB of players who tested positive for a banned substance, is almost unanimously revered and was just selected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Photo by: John Minchillo/AP Photo
When looking through the MLB record books, it’s not always clear who cheated, how exactly they did, and what effect it may have had. And while steroid usage has no bearing on a player’s ability to make contact with the ball or to discern between balls and strikes -- two things Barry Bonds was exceptional at, to his credit -- taking such PEDs has a clear and obvious effect on home run power.
As such, the current leaderboard of all-time single-season home run tallies is undeniably tainted. It’s impossible for a player not on steroids to keep up, especially in a period of unprecedented dominance by pitchers coinciding with an all-time low league-wide batting average this season of .232.
Well, almost impossible.
Before the start of the current season, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge was up for a contract extension. Despite three All Star nods, two top-five MVP finishes, two Silver Slugger awards, and a Rookie of the Year trophy to Judge’s name, the Yankees elected not to pay him the money he was asking for, deferring negotiations to next winter.
Oops! Judge responded to this slight by going absolutely ballistic; as it stands he’s the odds-on favorite to win his first AL MVP despite another season of Shohei Ohtani two-way greatness, and he’s slashing .294/.396/.661,leading the MLB in slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+ (for anyone who attributes his success to the small Yankees Stadium), and RBIs.
The last stat Judge currently leads the majors in is home runs, as he’s mashed a whopping 50 with over a full month of action still to go. Against all odds, Judge has a shot to challenge one of McGwire’s or Sosa’s single-season HR records.
Oops! Judge responded to this slight by going absolutely ballistic; as it stands he’s the odds-on favorite to win his first AL MVP despite another season of Shohei Ohtani two-way greatness, and he’s slashing .294/.396/.661,leading the MLB in slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+ (for anyone who attributes his success to the small Yankees Stadium), and RBIs.
The last stat Judge currently leads the majors in is home runs, as he’s mashed a whopping 50 with over a full month of action still to go. Against all odds, Judge has a shot to challenge one of McGwire’s or Sosa’s single-season HR records.
Photo from: NBC Sports
At the time of writing, Judge is on pace for 63 home runs this season, which would tie Sosa’s 1993 mark and would set the new American League record, beating Yankees legend Roger Maris’ total of 61 in 1961. In the modern post-steroid era and during the poorest two-year league-wide offensive stretch in memory, Judge accomplishing this would be simply astonishing -- and perhaps it should be recognized as a record of sorts in its own right.
Should Judge end the season with more moonshots than Maris, the only people above him would all be players who at some point tested positive for steroids. Though those three players have been omitted from the Baseball Hall of Fame permanently, their home run records still stand, and this discrepancy is rather confusing.
Assuming Judge never tests positive for PEDs in his career, how should we judge (no pun intended) a season-end mark of 62 home runs, for instance? Should this figure just be known as an unfortunate victim of previous cheaters? Should we at some point remove home run tallies by known steroid users from the record books? Or should we keep separate “juiced” and “unjuiced” home run records?
Doing either of the latter two would undoubtedly open up a can of worms. How strict should we be in labeling individual players as “cheaters”? And if we separate record books by steroid use, should we then further separate record books by eras? Worse still, what do we do if in ten years’ time the “juiced ball” theory turns out to actually have been true? There’s no easy answer to these questions, but no matter how we answer them, if Judge does tie or surpass Roger Maris’ single-season home run record we need to simply stand in awe and acknowledge greatness.
Lots of things about baseball are overly complicated, but this much is simple: what Aaron Judge is doing this season is special, maybe once-in-a-generation type stuff. And maybe that’s just the best way to view his home run count, no matter where it ends up. ■
Allegedly, the league itself is complicit during the steroid era. You bring up good points as to how the league continues to hold the bar low for cheating and refuses to reform the game. May be it deserves to be passed over in popularity by NHL, MLS
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