Many steroid apologists compare them to amphetamines. The difference is pointed out: “greenies” gave you a boost, steroids made you a completely different player. I only started watching baseball in the late 80’s, so I missed the “greenie” era. To those who lived through it, or know more about it, how prevalent were they? From hearing people discuss them, I get the sense they were near universal, while steroids were a relative minority.
Jim Bouton in Ball Four said it was widespread. I think he mentioned Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays among others. He’s backed off a little on it since then I think. The thing they would say was that it was a hangover cure (Mantle may have been justified in saying something like that). But amphetamines are definitely an active performance enhancer.
But where do you get the idea it was near universal use? I’ve heard Olbermann and a few others discuss the issue, but it sounded like they were focused on a few players.
I don’t know the details, but IIRC, doctors could prescribe amphetamines for anything they wanted to back in the 60s. They were commonly used for diet pills, or provided to long distance truckers and pilots on request.
I totally ignorant, just going by my perception of what’s been said.
From a completely personal and anecdotal point of view, I question their value as a performance enhancer. The only thing speed did for me was make me jittery and hyper. I don’t think I could have swung a bat better or run faster.
Hank Aaron admitted he used them, or at least tried them. I think their value was in helping tired players bounce back from long stretches of games or travel, not adding strength or speed itself.
Marley-That was my understaning as well. Gett into CS territory here but, were the pills that Jessie Spano used “greenies”?
In other words, steroids give you a bigger boost. The only difference is effectiveness. Why it’s OK to “cheat” when the effectiveness is marginal while it’s a mortal sin to “cheat” when the drugs work well had never been adequately explained. (And that’s ignoring the question of whether they were cheating to begin with.)
Steroids are real good about helping players bounce back. If this was their only value, would they still be the devil’s work?
It’s my understanding that steroids alter your body chemistry (i.e. anabolics), while “greenies” are more like strong coffee/Red Bull.
Bouton
Bouton in “Ball Four” says he had a conversation with teammate Don Mincher and asked him how many players he thought used amphetamines-maybe half? Mincher said a lot more…most of the guys on Baltimore, Minnesota and St Louis, as well as the Seattle team they played for and that was just the teams he knew about.
Which raises an interesting question. When this conversation took place, Mincher had just come off playing for the Angels for two years and the Twins/Senators for six. So how would he know what Baltimore, let alone St Louis in the other league, were ingesting? Maybe it was different for drugs, but Bouton also says that few players of his era would talk about how much money they made (very few players in 1969 had agents).
Bouton did say he tried greenies but felt they hurt his performance as a pitcher. They made him feel better and think he was throwing harder than he was. The result was he would throw the ball down the middle of the plate with little on it, and the batters would hit it six miles. In those days no teams or stadiums had radar guns.Yes, they do. I’m not interested in debating whether steroids or any other drug are “the devil’s work,” I was explaining the reason ballplayers used amphetamines.
I’m sure players used this rationalization often, and believed it often, but amphetamines are an obvious performance enhancer and most of them would have known it. They are ideal for baseball players in the field who rely on mental alertness and bursts of energy. I’m not convinced they lead to better hitting or pitching, but there’s no consensus on steroids in that respect either.
A. Weren’t those caffeine pills?
B. Seriously? A topic shift like Willie Mays to Saved By the Bell?
Edit :
C.
No, they are amphetamines.
I agree with all of this. Some guys (like Andy Pettitte) have said they only used HGH or other drugs to recover from injuries and things of that sort as if that’s really different from using them to build muscle. It’s a rationalization and it’s a dumb one.
I believe greenie originally meant Clobenzorex - Wikipedia a diet drug sold in Mexico.
Yeah, that was a weird turn on a dime! 
Genuine question: How much stronger than say Red Bull, are amphetamines?