The Mitchell Report: The question I haven't heard answered.

i think you and your boy's argument is starting to break down at this point, buck.

are you guys really going to compare one freak season to a decade of manipulation? if you are, i'm getting off this train.

 

Nobody's saying the situation's similar, TP. Just that ALL numbers have to be taken in context. The playing field was level in 1930, but not compared to 1931. The numbers have to be looked at differently. In 1961, things were a lot easier in the AL than the NL - expansion gave Maris an edge over, say, Mays and Frank Robby. Not a level playing field when you're comparing the two leagues; again, those numbers have to be taken in context. That's all.

 

ok. just making sure that nobody is tempted to equate the past decade and a half to one season in the past.

 

I didn't know the ground-rule double rule was changed so late. How many homers did Babe bounce over? Were his totals updated after the fact?

 

By everything I've read F_B, none of Babe's HRs bounced over the fence.

 

There were other factors at work, too.

About the time they changed the "bounce over the fence" rule, they changed another important rule.

Home runs used to be determined by where they LANDED, regardless of where they passed what would have been the foul pole.

Thus, for much of Ruth's career, a ball that crossed the plane of the fence fair and hooked foul was . . . foul.

Historians say that rule likely cost Ruth 50-75 home runs.

So we are not talking about "one season." We are talking about entire eras where the rules were different.

Which makes the HR record --- and just about any record --- not worth one ounce of concern.

 

The "sanctity of the records" argument has always been almost as disingenuous the "what about the children!" and "health of the players" arguments. But it was convenient to latch onto for those interested in attacking Barry Bonds. The only one that makes any sense is the "level playing field" argument.

 

I remember in the 70s when some research came out, there was some thought that Ruth did have a couple of ground-rule home runs. He also lost one because the rules in the early days said that if somebody hit a two-run home run in a game tied in the ninth inning, the batter would get credit only for the hit which drove the run across - a double if the runner was on second, a single in the runner was on third. It's just like today in a tie game, if a batter lines a ball off a wall with a runner on third, he gets credit for a single even though it is obvious it would have been a double.

 

If a juiced hitter faced a juices pitcher and hits a ball that is fielded by juiced fielders . . . where is the "unfair" advantage?

Like it or not, the Steroid Era is not a handful of dirty people taking advantage of the clean majority to gain an unfair advantage. It's a dirty majority trying to keep up with their contemporaries and squeeze every ounce of production from their bodies in a business that pays its greatest players $20 million a year to do so.

Bonds is not the cancer on baseball. He's one cancer cell among many.

 

Unless it's your contention that every single player in Major League Baseball is on PEDs, then it's an unfair advantage. Period.

And while I agree Bonds and Clemens are two among many, many players doing it, they aren't ALL doing it. And that means the ones who are have an unfair advantage. There's no way around that.

 

True, the playing field was even, but who knows what the records from that era would be if black players were allowed in the majors.