Luis Gonzalez: Asterisk on The Sport of Baseball?

The year 2001 was a magical year for baseball and for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The biggest part of the Diamondbacks' success was left fielder Luis Gonzalez.

Gonzalez had a career year with many career highs.

But with Alex Rodriguez admitting to taking steroids from 2001-2003, it start to make you wonder who else is on the list of 103 other players that tested positive.

As a Diamondback fan, it is hard for me to put Luis Gonzalez into the steroid conversation but his numbers prove otherwise. If it wasn't for Barry Bonds' 73 home runs the same year, Gonzalez would have taken home the Most Valuable Player award with 57 home runs.

But were those number inflated from previous seasons? Lets take a look.

Luis Gonzalez began his career in 1990 with the Houston Astros. He only played in 12 games and had only 21 at-bats, where he got four hits.

His first full season in the Majors was in 1991 for the Astros. He hit .254 with 13 home runs. In 1992 Gonzalez hit 10 homers.

The next season in 1993 he hit 15 home runs, and had his first .300 batting average. In 1995 Gonzalez split time between the Astros, and the Chicago Cubs. In total he hit 13 home runs while batting .276.

The following season, Gonzalez only full season with the Cubs he hit 15 home runs. In 1997 Gonzalez returned to the team that drafted him for one more season. He hit only 10 home runs, however.

The next season, Gonzalez spent he one and only season in the American League with the Detroit Tigers. He hit what was then a career-high 23 home runs while batting .267. In 1999 Gonzalez was traded to Arizona, where he hit a new career high 26 home runs, driving in 111 runs, and batting at a .336 clip which stands today as his career high.

In 2000, Gonzalez once again eclipsed his former career high in home runs by hitting 31, driving in 114 runs and batting .311.

Now we get to the 2001 season. Gonzalez's home run total has went up steadily from the time he was traded to the Diamondbacks in 1999. However, no one could have foreseen what the 2001 season had in store for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez started off the season with a bang, hitting 13 home runs in the month of April. In total he hit 57 home runs, with 142 RBI's, with a .325 batting average and an On Base Percentage of .429. The numbers start to make you wonder—did he take performance-enhancing drugs?

While we will never know if he did indeed take a banned substance, the year following his record 2001 season sure makes you wonder.

In 2002, he decreased down to 28 homers. In 2003, he hit 26. In 2004 Gonzalez hit only 17 home runs.

In 2005, his numbers spiked back up to 24 home runs. But that would be the last time he would hit over 20 home runs in his career.

In his last season with Arizona in 2006, he hit only 15 home runs. He also hit that same total in 2007 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last season in 2008 he went all the way down to 8 home runs.

So let's take one final look at Gonzalez's career averages compared to the 2001 season. Gonzalez averaged 88 runs scored over his 19 Major League seasons, however in 2001 he scored 128 runs.

Gonzalez averaged 22 home runs over his career, and in 2001 he nearly tripled that total with 57. Gonzalez averaged 90 runs batted in during his career, but in 2001 he drove in 142.

And finally, his average on-base percentage was .367, but in 2001 it was .429.

Now I refuse to accuse someone of taking performance-enhancing drugs. But the numbers do show that it is possible, so I'll leave the opinion up to you.