Are they? What year do you draw the line so we can look at these differences objectively.
Amphetamines were among the most common drugs players were taking but not the only ones.
Players were trying all sorts of things, not just amphetamines. And even if they didn’t work as hoped, the intent was certainly to chemically enhance performance. And that’s been going on since the 19th century.
“They weren’t as effective” is not the comeback some think it is.
If he only hit at Comerica, he’d have 49 right now. If he were a Red or a Rockie, he’d have 70! Park factors are crazy.
That’s impressive considering those two are in comparison to a total of 61.
I suppose Dock Ellis should get an asterisk for pitching while tripping on LSD.
What would be really interesting would be a list of mediocre hitters who took steroids and remained mediocre.
What stopped? Home-runs have gone up since the steroid era. Players who get caught using steroids don’t hit anymore home-runs than the average player and they don’t hit less home-runs when they come back from suspension beyond normal aging attrition. And of course a lot of people who gets caught are pitchers.
Steroids probably helped Bonds, but there isn’t really that much evidence that in general they made a dramatic difference, There were a lot of other changes in baseball at the time that could have had as great an impact.
It is possible that Bonds in particular was an obsessive worker and steroids helped him work harder than normally possibly. Even so, as again steroids weren’t really against the rules at the time, I do not blame him for it.
Steroids may be more effective in developing strength but I think amphetamines provide overall better performance for baseball players. They are particularly effective for maintaining focus in a game that involves only periodic moments of high intensity action and may improve general hitting ability even without a noticeable increase in distance. It also doesn’t matter if Maris used PEDs himself (I don’t believe he did) his record of home runs that year would have to be examined to see if the performance of other players provided him with more home run opportunities through their own performance in the lineup, or for the pitchers on his team to improve their performance allowing more opportunities for batters to swing away. So it’s not about the direct effect of PEDs on clean athletes, and there should be none, but it is about the overall effect on the game when other players performances are unfairly enhanced.
I look at it this way: the advantage the steroids gave Bonds was made up for by all of the intentional walks the pitchers gave him.
I wonder if the pitchers were steroid-enhanced.
They were.
Does anyone think Bonds hits 73 in a season without PEDs? I sure don’t.
It’s akin to all those sprinters smashing records. PED users all.
Nobody who has hot 60+ homers ever failed a steroid test.
The problem with this approach is that it’s ridiculous. The most home runs a person has ever hit in an MLB season is 73. It just is. If you want to pretend the record is whatever Aaron Judge hits this year (and hope he doesn’t fail a steroid test) then go ahead, but the team states for the San Francisco Giants in 2001 will show that Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs. A record is exactly that - it is a recording of something that happened in the past.
I just wonder why the OP is so sure Judge isn’t on the juice.
All players are subject to PED testing in Spring Training, and subject to random tests during the season and offseason. That’s why you hear about players getting caught. The testing policies only started in 2004.
You can be far more confident about Judge or any other player than someone playing before those tests were in place.
Less; there haven’t yet been 162 games played. And now I’m curious how many actual games it took Maris and Judge to hit 61. I’m finding it surprisingly hard to Google the answers without actually opening and reading articles, but that seems like a lot of effort.
(For some reason I think Roger Maris hit 61 in the last game of the season, but I don’t know anything about baseball so I have no idea how I would know that. Or was it the last home game? Now I think I’m just making stuff up.)
I’m not a baseball guy at all but I’m rooting pretty friggin’ hard for Judge to get both 62+ and the triple crown. And I don’t even know what the triple crown is; I only know the term from horse racing. Such a fun story, but I hope the pressure isn’t driving him crazy.
Nope, you’re right, it was in the final game. Quoting Wikipedia:
It’s leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Judge is currently leading the American League in home runs (of course) and RBIs, with big leads in both categories. According to Baseball Reference, he is currently tied with Luis Arraez of the Twins for the batting average lead, at .313.
Hey, nice, I knew something about baseball!
Judge just hit 61 the other night, right? How many games were left in the season when he did?
ETA: Google says Ruth hit 60 home runs when seasons were 154 games. I’m pretty sure Judge hit 61 in fewer than 154 games. I really hope he did.
He hit #61 on Wednesday; it was the Yankees’ 155th game of the season. They have seven games remaining on their schedule.
I’ll be pulling for Judge to hit #62 in the remaining games.
A comment about Bonds: how many of the pitchers he faced were juiced?
Undoubtedly some; the ESPN article below, from 2009, lists several dozen of the most prominent players who had been linked to PEDs (either implicated, or admitted). There are several big-name pitchers on the list (Kevin Brown, Roger Clemens, Chuck Finley, Eric Gagne, and Andy Pettite), but it seems like the benefit to PEDs for pitchers is somewhat different than for hitters.
From some articles I’m finding, while hitters used them to bulk up, and hit for power, for pitchers, while they might gain some velocity from stronger muscles, the perceived benefits for them may have been more in faster muscle recovery after a pitching outing.
https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/baseball/article/Pitchers-muscle-in-on-steroids-1172447.php