How will hockey win back its fans? How about steroids for everybody? It worked for baseball.
But now baseball tests for steroids. Ah, baseball. Always ahead of the curve. Five years after everybody else, the sport realizes that if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck and bench-presses 400 pounds with its wings, it might be a duck on steroids.
Here is what slender slugger Fred McGriff told USA Today Sports Weekly:
“I would laugh when I’d see these guys hit long home runs. I mean, basically, we all came up at the same time and had about the same power.
“But before you knew it, they were hitting 50, 60, 70 home runs. Steroids were everywhere.”
McGriff and Mark McGwire were rookies in 1987. By the end of the 1991 season, McGwire had hit 178 homers, McGriff 156.
Barry Bonds was a rookie in 1986. By the end of the 1991 season, he had hit 142 home runs.
McGwire went on to hit 70 in a season, then 65. Bonds hit 73. McGriff never hit more than 37.
Sammy Sosa’s production exploded similarly.
Who was the best player of the last 10 years? We’ll never know. Who from this generation truly deserves to make the Hall of Fame? Voters can only guess.
I keep hearing that fans don’t care about steroids. Well, I think a lot of fans do care. Just because they keep going to the games doesn’t mean they don’t care. I think a lot of fans are angry.
I hope steroid testing works. I hope when we see the best players, we don’t immediately wonder where the inflate button is.
I hope somebody leads the major leagues in home runs with 38.
McGwire famously said: “Chicks dig the long ball,” but traditionalists dig the subtleties of the game. I miss stolen bases. I miss the emphasis on fielding. I miss the hit-and-run.
In 1998, when McGwire and Sosa caught the fancy of the nation, we were told, “Baseball is back.” This year, I hope it really is.
