Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pudge Rodriguez

Amen brother. From what I've been told by some of the guys I played pro ball with, 'roids were at their best by helping you recover from being tired, run down, and recover from nagging aches and pains. They do not help you see the ball better, throw harder, or hit it more often. It takes supreme talent and hard work. Tony Gwynn is probably one of the best hitters to ever play the game. Everyone knows he was clean.

I never said it didn't take talent to hit a baseball.

But roids took Barry Bonds from a 40 homerun guy to one that hit 73.

A guy like Roger Clemens would have been a decent pitcher, but roids made him into a great pitcher. Yes, I believe Roger 'used' his entire career.

I believe that sports at all levels were better in the not-so-distant past when players took the field as their normal "as-created" state rather than in the "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" configuration. I have become very cynical of the weight-training craze; all that it has done is raise the bar and, especially in football, create a situation where the collisions are much more violent and farther along the continium of what the body can withstand - the balance between what a body can dish out and what it can absorb has been altered.

You're right, steroids won't help you hit the ball. They will however, increase your bat speed and/or allow you to use a heavier bat with equivalent bat speed, which will turn some warning track flyballs into HR's, some groundballs getting through the infield, that might have been fielded and some gap shots into doubles that might have been held to a single.

It may have put some AAA talent into the majors for a few years, but mainly it made 20HR guys into 30HR guys and 40 home run guys into 50HR guys.

It is really not debated that steroids effected offensive output during that era. It was also really not a level playing field since the vast majority of pitchers did not "juice". The percentage of pitchers on the Mitchell report is a small fraction of the players tied to usage. Most of the pitchers that did apparently use, were those trying to extend their careers or at least extend their effectiveness in the latter part of their careers. Most pitchers were apprehensive to use steroids because of fears of joint/tendon damage and injury which is far more likely with pitchers than position/DH players.

What really helped the HR totals were all the new ballparks being built with short porches, not just the juice.

Disagree. HR totals have been going down for years now.

Pipsqueek Brady Anderson jacked 50 one year, 1996 I believe. Roids, period.

Not really, those same parks are open today and HR's are down huge since 2006 when the newest testing standards came in.

In fact, most the new parks that came in in the 90's that were considered hitter friendly, were in the AL and yet the Sosa, Bonds, McGwire HR craziness was going on in the NL.

Only 4 new NL stadiums came in in the 90's. Joe Robbie, Coors, Bank One and Turner with 2 of those not coming in until the late 90's and only 2 of those 4 were considered hitters parks (Coors and Bank One).

Ironically both McGwire and Bonds played at historically pitcher friendly parks when they went on their HR tear (Candlestick and Busch).

Matt Williams who was also on track to break Maris in 1994 before the strike, did so in a horrible right handed hitters ball park (Candlestick).

Well in todays world it would have been a hate crime to force Barry out.

Nobody can really deny that juice wasn't a part of the HR explosion, but it is only a part. If it was, the aforementioned Brady Anderson would have hit 50 every year he juiced. There are a multitude of factors that all led to inflated offensive numbers.

1.) New Ball Parks - As JG said, Starting with Camden Yards, MLB left the 1960's vintage multi-use round enclosed stadiums, and built baseball only facilities.

2.) Expansion - Watered down pitching once Fla, Tampa, Colorado, and Arizona joined. Too many arms not ready to be starting pitchers and too many relievers that belonged at AAA.

3.) Questek and the Change in the Strike-zone - MLB mandated a tighter strike-zone, and went to a machine in some parks that would evaluate umpires. This was a result of
a.) The Atlanta Braves with Maddux and Glavine consistently getting the call off the plate
b.) Eric Greg's fiasco in the '97 NLCS where he had a strike-zone of enormous proportions that embarrassed MLB. Umpires would not risk calling a questionable strike in Questek parks, and that forced pitchers to throw belt high down the middle. Hitters can kill that in ANY era.

Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, Albert Belle, etc. hit plenty of homers before they became superhero sized. While juice may have made them stronger, you can't hit 60 or 70 homers without a pitch to hit. I watch baseball from April to October every year. I vividly recall the year that Bonds hit 73. McGuire and Sosa were all the rage, and had 20+ homers by the first part of June. Bonds had half of what they did. Bonds came to Atlanta and hit 4 solo shots in 4 games, and took off from there. Let's also remember that Bonds left Candlestick Park which was windy and dead for hitters for PacBell (or whatever they want to call it this week) that was very hitter friendly. Visiting there, my wife caught Bonds 687th!

His approach at the plate was to crowd the plate (wore a huge elbow pad as protection) to get a good look at the strike zone, choke up to get the sweet spot covering the plate, and to turn and hammer anything in the zone, and lay off the soft stuff on the outside corner because the pitcher never got the call.

Pitchers would get behind in the count, and come in with a fastball and boom! Conversely, he knew when to look for offspeed stuff away and would get all in it when he found a hanger. the most amazing part of that was his concentration - he almost never popped up or fouled off a meatball that I saw all season. Roids didn't give him that concentration, its not brain food.

So let's acknowledge that the Steroid Era produced some artificially strong strong players, but also agree that there were other factors that made the balls fly.

I don't know Pudge or much about the Rangers other than they beat up on the Twins nearly every time they play. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a baseball player that didn't use HGH or steroids from the late 90's through just a few years ago.

Which is really too bad. I love baseball and think it is the most fun to watch. I'm hoping it's cleaned up now, the "juicing" reguard.

Hatari, Pac Bell (AT&T) is considered one of the WORST hitters park in the majors, and not by any stretch a hitters park. Only Los Angeles is consistently worse for hitting home runs.

The year Bonds set the record, Pac Bell had the second fewest home runs in MLB and that's with a guy hitting 73 there by himself.

I agree with pitching being watered down in the mid 90's directly after expansion, but I don't think that was an issue by the end of the 90's.

On the strike zone, some of the most productive offensive years during the height of the roid era, were in the mid 90's. That was right in the middle of when the NL was calling strike zones that VW's could drive through. Take a look at the 1995 WS game 6. Glavine had a strike zone that you could drive a Mack truck through and 1997, as you referenced, was the zenith with the Marlins-Braves championship.

As to the new parks excuse, as I pointed out above, that was a red herring in the NL, where it just didn't exist.

Bottom line, parks and pitching dilution were contributors though I totally disagree on strike zone. However, steroids were the biggest factor.