This is nitpicking further, but he’s got a fairly important informal HR record - most 60+ HR seasons: 3, versus 2 for McGwire, and 1 each for Bonds, Maris, and the Bambino.
I appreciate that steroids may have affected whether or not Bonds broke Aaron’s record, but I have to admit that I just don’t understand the “Records have no relevance now” argument. Or, to be more precise, I DO understand where it comes from, but - and I stress that I am not casting personal aspersions, or trying to flame anyone, and mean this honestly and as constructively as possible - I believe this argument stems from a simple ignorance of baseball history.
Baseball’s history of statistical records is now and has always been, for 140 years, affected by differences in context that make simple record comparisons utterly pointless. Roger Clemens has a career ERA of 3.12. This is not the best ERA ever… in fact, it’s not in the top hundred, and (depending on where you set the bar for career length) isn’t even in the top TWO HUNDRED. There are seven pitchers with career ERAs more than a full run better, and 53 who are at least half a run better. But if I were to argue that Ed Reulbach was a greater pitcher than Roger Clemens, you would laugh in my face. Every educated baseball fan would consider such a claim to be utterly insane. Sure, you’d say, Reulbach’s ERA was only 2.28… but that was in the dead ball era. You can’t compare their ERAs that way.
The career record for ERA is held by Ed Walsh, whose 1.82 is lower than any season Clemens has ever had, but 99 out of 100 sane observers would still conclude Clemens is greater. Walsh’s record, which is unbreakable under modern conditions, does not mean Walsh was the best pitcher ever; it’s a reflection of the context in which he pitched. (He was a great pitcher, too, of course.) Does that make ERA meaningless? Walsh also once completed 42 games in a season, which of course is incomprehensible today; does that mean all pitching statistics are pointless?
Or take Hack Wilson’s 191 RBI in 1930 - compiled in a league where the batting average was above .300 and fielders made more than twice as many errors as they do today and coiuldn’t turn the double ploay as well as a good college team today.
Or shit, take all baseball records prior to 1947 when the white boys didn’t have to play against black guys. How do you adjust for THAT? Do you just start counting in 1947? How do you adjust for statistics in 1949, when the color line had been broken but integration was only a little bit underway?
Most baseball records are set in contexts that are unusually conductive to the accomplishment of that particular feat. ALL records are set in contexts different from other ones, and personal statistical achievements are meaningful only in the time and place they occur. Bonds’s records are no different, and in time will be viewed in exactly the same way; people will say “Yeah, Bonds hit X homers, but that was in the 90s and 2000s when they were all on roids. How does that compare to Willie McCovey? Mike Schmidt? So-and-so?”
Personally I think this is one of the cool things about baseball; the numbers are so context-specific that it leads to good arguments over who is or is not worthy. Is Don Drysdale REALLY a Hall of Famer? Whose home run totals are more impressive, Bonds or Mike Schmidt’s? Should Ron Santo be in the Hall of Fame? Who’s the best pitcher of all time? You can’t answer any of those questions with one number, so why pretend the effect of steroids is some new thing that throws records to the winds?
I boycott not just because of the percentage of drug cheats but of the whole IOC culture that lets drug cheating happen.
It is not ignorance of baseball history that makes the steroid argument so compelling. Rather it is knowledge of baseball and its history which is now irrelevant due to the inability to compare players from the same era. How come we all get to hear about how Hack Wilson, an alcoholic who drank himself out of baseball and to an early death, is the poster boy for the live ball era. In 1930 he had 11% more RBI’s than his nearest competitor in the NL, but noone ever suggests that the man who was second in RBI’s for the majors benefitted from this hit inflation. His name was Lou Gehrig. I know it is impossible to say that Ed Reulbach or Ed Walsh or Jack Chesbro or Deacon Phillipe was a better pitcher than Roger Clemens as I also know it is impossiblem to say they weren’t at some point. Noone, to my knowledge ever had the opportunity to compare them. What I do know and what I can compare is Barry Bonds when he was a presumably fit, talented healthy major league All-star and MVP playing in Pittsburgh and the same player in San Francisco. They weren’t the same player and baseball is the worse for it. It is so much the worse that I no longer have any interest in watching. That was the point of the original OP. Frankly I would much rather read a story about Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander, Christy Mathewson or Vida Blue than watch Roger Clemens.
Are you sure?
http://nomas-nyc.com/2006/12/pope-of-dope.html
Do they test? Or might they prefer not to?
As far as I am aware soccer authorities test for drugs.
Drugs may help a soccer player recover from an injury better and may help endurance. But there is no drug that makes you a more skillful player
I think you’re underestimating the impact of that difference. Given two players with equal skills, wouldn’t the one with greater endurance be a better soccer player - not necessarily more skillful, but more effective in the game - than the other?
Performance enhancing drugs aren’t magic. Steroids don’t help people hit a baseball - they help them develop greater strength so that you can hit it harder. They can’t help a pitcher’s control or the amount of break on his curveball, but they do help him recover faster so that his arm is fresh for his next outing. They don’t impart any particular skill; they just make the skills you already have more effective.
…is basically what RickJay’s post was about, and it’s been true forever.
So… he should’ve started in 1986?
I think Rickyjay’s post was about the inability to compare players from different eras, but I could be wrong. Maybe we should ask him.
Not just different eras, but all different contexts. (And 1986 was a substantially different era, in terms of offensive performance, than today.) You can’t evenly compare batting statistics posted by a player who players in Coors Field and a player who plays in Comerica Park. AL and NL statistics must be adjusted somewhat.
There’s just no baseline for baseball performance that works across all years, teams and leagues, even within the short length of a player’s career.
I think you should be put in charge. I suspect that glib comments like this, which suggest that preventing drug cheating is easy, would soon cease.
I am not prepared to summarise andrew jenning’s books. Just go and read them
I’m not sure it really works like that. If you don’t want to pony up the information, don’t expect much notice to be taken. I see far, far too much handwaving in the general direction of cites that don’t actually say what the poster says they say to be impressed by some vague reference to some sensationalist journo who wrote a book.
From your cite:
My emphasis. My original point was that it is not easy to do anything about doping even when you know about it. Your article supports that.