Steroid-Era Players Should Be in Hall of Fame, Part Two

We will continue on with this piece, starting with the last paragraph from Part One.  Enjoy:

So then it becomes an issue with the extent to which steroids have changed the game of baseball, as it seems people are willing to accept a certain extent of game-changing abilities, but nothing after some phantom line in the sand. So then, we can see that premise No. 3 is little more than a purely subjective, indefinite stance against steroid-era players and users in the HOF, one that's parameters will be ever-changing to suit the goals of whomever is applying them. Thus it is not a meritorious argument to keep steroid users out of the Hall of Fame, and we can move on to No. 2 (repeated here to refresh your memory):

2.) The player(s) used a substance that is both illegal under the MLB's drug policy and not readily available for consumption by every player in their era, therefore, they have "cheated" the game by taking a "shortcut" not available to all players. These acts were unethical as well as immoral, and have granted the player(s) a marked unfair advantage, thus they should be excluded from the Hall of Fame.

The notion of steroid users having "cheated" baseball is a puzzling one, especially for me. On the one hand I have my belief that the sheer number of players using performance-enhancers during the steroid era was so large that steroids would have been available to pretty much anyone affiliated with an MLB organization. On the other hand I know that I can't prove these numbers, and I rely on too much anecdotal evidence as it is. Therefore, let's assume that steroids were not readily available to all players during the era (their legality under MLB policy will come in a bit), and therefore players had to make a conscious choice to seek these drugs out and take them to gain an advantage.

First of all, was that advantage unfair? Undoubtedly, yes. No one should be forced to do something deemed "irregular" in order to keep up with the status quo, and it is also a possibility that players on certain teams with certain trainers and clubhouse staff were granted easier access to steroids and the like, thus furthering the unfairness of it all. But should this unfair advantage some players had exclude them from the Hall of Fame? No, and the explanation as to why is prevalent throughout baseball history.

Indeed, the MLB has been ripe with unfairness and strife, and we can once again look to the integration of baseball for a lesson in unfair advantages brought forth by the institution of baseball, not even the choice of others. Was it not unfair for players to be relegated to the negro leagues up until 1947 simply based on the color of their skin? Or how about the fact that unfairly treated negro league players have virtually no chance to be enshrined in the Hall, with only 22 players from the Negro Leagues being selected despite more than 50 years of history?

And as discussed earlier, the integration of baseball had a decided effect on the game of baseball at the time, meaning that the game was different before integration.  This implies that there were unfair advantages associated with being on a certain side of the racial divide, because the pool of talent that the MLB drew from at that time was severely limited. This situation is eerily reminiscent of the steroid era both in the way it changed the game of baseball and that there were unfair advantages associated with both instances.

This scenario is not without differences, however, as it is obvious that no one chose to be a black baseball player and therefore be relegated to the Negro Leagues. And obviously the white players of the era didn’t institute segregation in the MLB of their own accord, so that unfair advantage is not a result of their choices.

However, the driving force behind the drug policies of the MLB (specifically those dealing with steroids and other performance-enhancers) has been the interest of fairness in the game; everyone should have a level playing field and no one should have an unfair advantage. It shouldn’t matter how the unfair advantage came about, all that matters is that it is there, and those benefiting from it deserve to be punished.

Think of it this way: If Sammy Sosa actually did accidentally grab his practice bat that was corked to give the fans a show, would he have not been thrown out of the game? If Barry Bonds is telling the truth and he actually did not know he was being given steroids, would any punishment he receives in the future or all the scorn he has already received suddenly be wrong or misplaced? The answer is clearly "No," as all that really matters is that an unfair advantage existed and some players were benefiting from it while others were not, much like steroids and pre-integration baseball.

But once again, there has been no outcry against the inclusion of pre-integration players (and their unfair advantage) in the Hall of Fame, only against steroid users. So then, the problem must once again be with the extent to which steroid users have an advantage, and we can see that premise No. 2 has the same subjective, indefinite line that premise No. 3 has, thus its use as an argumentative tool in this context is rendered moot. Now we can move on to the final premise, repeated once again:

1.) The player(s) took an illegal substance—both in the context of the MLB's drug policy and criminal law—in an effort to better themselves in ways not normally available or attainable given their physiological make-up.  This allowed them to perform at a higher level than would be normally possible. Therefore their ability to be even considered for Hall of Fame induction rests more on the shoulders of their steroid use than their normal abilities. They should thus be excluded from the Hall of Fame.

Here is another premise that seems evidently true on its own, but becomes hypocritical or, at least, willfully ignorant when viewed through the lens of the history of baseball. First off, steroids do allow a person to achieve levels of muscle mass and development not attainable under normal circumstances. I do not deny that in the least. And the physical benefits granted to their users are unprecedented on the scale of technologically-aided human development.

Sometimes this premise can be presented as "the syringe hit all those home runs, not the player" and things of the like, but the notion is still the same: The drug was illegal and granted a huge advantage to the player(s) that was not otherwise possible.

This is where the premise starts to fall apart: the implication that steroids are the first illegal substance (here only in the context of the MLB's drug policy) to be used by players for the purpose of enhancing their play on the field. This confuses drug testing with drug policy. Major League Baseball did not start testing for banned substances until 2002, though it had a drug policy as early as 1971.

In 1971, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn stated that players must "comply with federal and state drug laws." So, though this first official drug policy put forth by the MLB didn't explicitly ban any substances, it did so implicitly, as federal law at that time included the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which made illegal substances like cocaine, amphetamines, etc.

Because of this, there are many players who violated the league's drug policy between 1971 and the beginning of the steroid era, and despite the lack of positive tests, there would certainly be enough eyewitness testimony to put illegal substances such as cocaine and amphetamines—both of these being "uppers" that can grant their users short bursts of performance enhancement—in the hands of players before, after and even during games.

These were the illegal performance-enhancers of the time, yet no investigations have been launched, no interview dates set to see if there were any in the ranks of HOFers that partook in the consumption of these illegal drugs. But why then is there such outrage over steroid users? Tell you what, we’ll return to that in a moment.

Another aspect of premise No. 1 is the implied knowledge of a player’s base skill-set and physical ability. Indeed, to say something to the effect of “the steroids hit those home runs” is to not only place the onus of the player’s performance on something other than the player, but is also to comment on what the player would have done without the aid of steroids.

Yet, can anyone really say for sure what a player would have done when removed from some form of aid or advantage? How about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb having to play against African-Americans, or Ron Santo playing without the aid of amphetamines or Tim Raines without cocaine? These scenarios are similar in principle to the current one involving steroids, yet these situations are rarely talked about, and when they are, they certainly not aiming to devalue what an individual player or group of players had done, save for the scenario involving steroids.

While I do not take issue with what steroids are purported to allow a player to do (my only issue is with claiming to know what would happen without them), there is also no doubt that the use of amphetamines and cocaine (as well as other banned substances not available to all players, just like steroids) as performance-enhancers by players allowed them to do things not otherwise possible given their abilities. The very nature of the effects of drugs like amphetamines—one needs only to talk to several past players from the '60s, '70s and '80s to see how widespread the use of amphetamines or “greenies” was—and cocaine means that they were performance-enhancing.

Even if the intended use was not for performance-enhancement, the increased ability to focus, increased alertness, euphoria, and physical effects make drugs like cocaine and amphetamines de facto performance-enhancing drugs, allowing players to do things not otherwise possible after say, a day game following a night game, a long night on the town, or even jet lag from a long flight.

Therefore, when looking at the discrepancy between how amphetamine/cocaine usage is viewed both in the context of baseball history and the Hall of Fame versus steroid usage, the issue, once again becomes something different. No longer is it about strict illegal drug usage, or even that those drugs worked (because amphetamines and cocaine worked too), it is the extent to which they worked that is the core of premise No. 1.

If the extent of the substances’ effectiveness is not the core issue in premise No. 1 (the same goes for No. 2 and No. 3), then there would have been (and still should be) many things talked about when players from other eras were eligible for HOF voting. The simple fact is that those things were not mentioned, not thought about, and the fact that they are being discussed with possible steroid users eligible for the Hall of Fame means that there is some underlying premise at work with these arguments.

I believe I have shown that underlying premise to be some innate dislike of the extent to which steroids have “changed” baseball (they still use bats, balls, and gloves, right?). Because steroid usage in baseball is certainly not the first time the MLB has seen a changing force, be it institutional (segregation, expanding and contracting strike zones, league expansion) or having to do with outside forces and choice (steroid usage, free agency, amphetamine/cocaine usage).

Thus, the problem that most people have with allowing steroid users into the Hall of Fame, though they may not like to admit it and to get them to do so would be a difficult task indeed, is some imaginary threshold of the extent of the change imparted on baseball by some force. This threshold is indefinite, has no foreseeable parameters, instead merely relying on some indefinable trigger in peoples’ baseball sensibilities.

In reality, the issue of steroids in baseball is similar in every way to past instances of change in baseball (things were different before and after this “change”, yet not everyone was able to partake in the new ways of “change”) except for the extent to which it in fact did change baseball. Because of this, it would be unfair to punish players in the steroid era by not allowing them into the Hall of Fame simply because they were a part of a recurring theme in baseball (change), the only difference being that their way “worked” better than others.

Therefore, put them all into the Hall (provided sufficient merit, of course). For they have done little different than probably (certainly, really) many Hall of Fame members before them, the only difference being some ambiguous, indefinable offense to the sensibilities of people that either cannot, or refuse to, ask the correct questions and see the correct answers when looking at baseball history.