Mt. Juicemore

With all of the recent celebrations of some of baseball’s all time greatest players at this year’s All Star Game, one can observe it all and see that there has been good reason to recognize and reward those all time greats that helped create the history and helped make up the fabric of America’s National Pastime. Somewhere, amongst all of the players saluted for their all time greatness, you would likely find the deserving faces that would occupy baseball’s Mt. Rushmore. Who would be on it? Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Honus, Christy, Gehrig, Cobb, The Big Train, Ted Williams, Joltin’ Joe?

However, and unfortunately (for the following), there are a select, different group of players who also put together great careers, but, who happened to do it at the wrong time, the wrong era, and under the wrong circumstances. They played during the time between the late 1980’s and the early 2000’s. They played during the Steroid Era.

Some of those players from that era have been impugned by the baseball establishment for what they allegedly may or may not have done regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs. What these players actually did is not the issue here, because the perception about them is that they did SOMETHING. The purpose here is to talk about the fact THAT they have not been recognized for what they did on the playing field. And there is no “alleged” regarding what they have done. The statistics, however achieved, are what they are. EXTREMELY impressive.

And for that they will be recognized and rewarded (here). There are FOUR players who were from that era who MIGHT not ever make baseball’s Hall of Fame, even though all of them have statistics far better than many players who are already there. In fact, the four players who will be saluted here could actually be carved into the side of their own mountain for their accomplishments during THEIR era.

These inductees might not ever get any recognition any better than this, so, without further ado, today, we will induct four players, four faces on the side of a fictitious “cyber” mountain. We will call it Mt. Juicemore. Congratulations to the charter members:

Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds hit more home runs than any player in Major League Baseball history, 762. That’s MORE than Hank Aaron. MORE than Babe Ruth. That’s a lot. To those who would say, “oh, the only reason he hit all of those home runs was cause he was juiced,” I would say that if that were the reason, EVERYBODY who played enhanced during that time would also have 700 home runs. But they didn’t. Only one man did it that well. Barry Bonds.

You could argue that Barry Bonds was just behind (or is in the category right next to) Babe Ruth as the greatest home run threat in the history of the game. He was so feared, the pitchers of his era simply chose to walk him much of the time to avoid having to pitch to him. They were so scared of Bonds, they even walked him a few times with the bases loaded, preferring to give up one run from a walk, rather than see him hit a slam and get four. He was the BEST player of his era at driving in runs. At scoring runs. He stole bases when he was younger. He was the MVP of the league 7 times.

Bonds may be kept out of the Hall of Fame because of the fact that he did “whatever it is he did” during the Steroid Era. I would say that you would have a tough time saying that what he did ON THE FIELD put him somewhere in the TOP TEN position ballplayers who ever lived. He might not make the Hall of Fame, but he is right there in in the George Washington anchor spot on the side of Mt. Juicemore.

Roger Clemens

There is one statistic that has been the absolute guarantee of a player getting into the Hall of Fame and that is a pitcher getting 300 wins. 24 pitchers have won 300 games or more in baseball history. 23 of those are in the Hall of
Fame. One is not. That would be Roger Clemens. There are a lot of people who were throwing around the term Greatest Pitcher of All Time about Clemens before he started getting associated with being involved with PED’s. Now, he is on the outside of the candy store looking in, as pitchers who could not hold his jock strap are getting into or have gotten into the Hall and he is left wondering what might have been.

Of the modern era pitchers who have won over 300 games, Clemens would be right there in the conversation with names like Greg Maddux, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan,Tom Seaver and or Randy Johnson. His 354 wins would rank third amongst all pitchers not coming fom the first half of the 20th Century or earlier. Clemens had a LOT of premium seasons also, as he
has won 7 Cy Young Awards during his standout career (many of which would have preceded any alleged PED use).

I do not understand the argument that a pitcher using steroids would have any advantages in a game pitching against a lineup of batters using steroids (wouldn’t it kind of be about a draw?), but I do know that baseball not having one of its premier pitchers of all time, a man who notched 354 wins, is a travesty and the Hall is a lesser place due to the absence of Clemens, Bonds and a few of its other all time greats, no matter what their circumstances. Clemens IS getting acknowledged here, however, as he is hereby inducted onto the side of Mt. Juicemore.

Sammy Sosa

It is harder to say Sammy Sosa deserves to be in the Hall of Fame than it is to say Bonds and Clemens. He DID hit a career total of 609 home runs during his career, although most of them occurred during an extremely productive “peak” span of about ten years with the Cubs in which he hit 479 of them.

Since Sosa wasn’t as productive before that span and he wasn’t that outstanding AFTER that span (in other words, his productivity spike was at a time in which MLB steroid use was at its most rampant stages), one can only wonder how a player could have hit more than 60 home runs in three straight years (when in baseball history, it had only been done twice prior to the Steroid Era, and it hasn’t been even close to happening AFTER Major League Baseball made the decision to finally crack down on PED usage) when the feat was seemingly unattainable by normal, baseball playing human beings.

Like Bonds, Sosa had to be good enough to hit all 609 of his home runs over the fence. Like Bonds, Sosa was one of the BEST of the power hitters during his era. But, that’s the problem. He was a power hitter from THAT era. And the numbers of dingers he hit stood out like a sore thumb. Sosa will probably fall off of the Hall of Fame ballot this year when he likely gets fewer than 5% of the votes in the next election. His prodigious home run totals that made him the eighth best of all time (and don’t forget he drove in a LOT of runs also) does however earn him a spot on the side of a certain mountain.

Mark McGuire

Mark McGuire hit a lot of home runs early in his career. He was a big, tall skinny guy on the Oakland A’s, when he became teammates with Jose Canseco, the man who revealed to all that a lot of people (including himself) were taking steroids to improve their baseball strength. McGuire was his teammate. They became famously known as The Bash Brothers. Ergo… you
know where this is going.

He hit a ton of home runs, (583, which is the 10th most of all time) including a historic year where he crushed the former home run record of 61 by Roger Maris. Major League Baseball LOVED it when Sammy Sosa and McGuire both pounded out home runs in 1998 and seemed to ignore the fact that something funny may have been going on chemically with a lot of the baseball power numbers, led most noticeably by Mark McGuire.

McGuire was a great power hitter who also will be kept out of the Hall of Fame due to his being associated with the Steroid Era. His face does, however, get carved onto the side of Mt. Juicemore.

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The players’ union in MLB used to fight tooth and nail with the baseball establishment to NOT allow its players to be tested. During the so-called Steroid Era, performance enhancing drugs were NOT illegal. Maybe they were frowned upon by society and in other sports, but they were not illegal in baseball, and there was no mechanism in baseball to either test the players or to punish them for it. The players were pretty much “allowed” to do whatever they wanted.

Major League Baseball has evolved into an alpha male organization where players know they have to battle to produce, battle to survive and battle to excel. Players succeeded based on their results. Players were paid great sums of money based on their results. That is WHY some people chose to use PED’s.

It was NOT illegal to do what they did IN BASEBALL AT THAT TIME. It was completely tolerated by the MLB power structure while it was happening. Baseball, after a strike a few years earlier, LIKED seeing ballplayers hitting home runs in record breaking numbers. A lot of people may have suspected that something strange was going on to explain why this incredible spike in home run power was going on, but no one really did anything about it.

When someone would suggest that something like performance enhancing drugs might be the explanation for the power surge, the whistle blowers were mostly ignored. The majority of sportswriters wrote great tales about the players of that era and their exploits. Baseball wasn’t acting like it “had a problem” then. But, then EVERYONE started getting down on steroid use.

And then, those same players that produced all of those great statistical performances on the baseball field became the scapegoats for the people who wanted to blame SOMEONE for fooling them. MLB was made a fool of by these players (who broke ALL of these records, while having a union that was preventing anyone from testing to see WHY they were doing so well), and they wanted to make sure those players that did so well were going to get punished for fooling them.

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I have a theory that the use of steroids (which would turn a fly ball hit to the warning track for an out into a ball that sailed into the seats) bumped up the stats of players from that era by a percentage somewhere around 25%. Which would mean that a 66 home run season with steroids would then translate to a 49 home run season without them (49 HAS happened both before and after The Steroid Era). A 40 home run steroid era total would be more like a 30 now. An extraordinary year with 76 home runs would still be converted to a believable 57. Every stat that happened in that era then, but which seems outrageous now, could be converted to a much more believable number if everything were reduced by a steroid conversion reduction factor of 25%.

If every stat by a suspected PED user could be converted to a more believable number, wouldn’t that be a more accurate determiner of a person’s career than a blanket statement we often hear of “he was from that era, he must have been cheating, screw him, punish him for life?”

The four players mentioned today are probably NOT going to make it into the Hall of Fame even though Bonds and Clemens have probably earned it with their exceptional careers, regardless of any alleged ties to PED use. Whatever the case, all four players, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and McGuire, can all be consoled by the fact that they have been immortalized forever, in cyberspace, on the side of Mt. Juicemore.