SI.Com steroids story on former Twins' pitchers

[Cris E]

John, back in the 90s I would have bet money that steroids and all the related compounds were running wild in baseball clubhouses. I could not have proven anything, but too much was changing too fast for any simpler explanation and I like simple explanations. (What's more likely: some subterfuge from the head office somehow being kept under wraps by the entire industry, or young, impulsive, competitive athletes latching on to promises of huge increases in performance at little cost?) Look at how the shape and size of the players changed between the 1991 Twins and the 1999 team. Look at how hard pitchers were throwing compared to a decade earlier. Look at the number and distances of HR and ridiculous spikes in what guys were accomplishing. As evidence, I wouldn't take it to court with me, but if any pro athlete tries to tell me he added 30 pounds of muscle by lifting weights and getting his rest I'm not going to believe him. Everyone I know believed they were doing something to get huge, and the only question was where the cheating line was at any given time. Other sports had proven that these drugs worked and baseball was merely catching up. I think everyone on this board thinks there are a significant number of players cheating in the NFL, and in retrospect it's kind of quaint to believe that somehow the guys that played baseball were morally above similar temptation.

[JB_Iowa]

John,

 

I've got a decade or so on you. I don't remember a lot of talk about steroids in the early 90's but I have 2 vivid memories from 1998: the first was related to Mark McGwire and Andro. I just put in "McGwire Andro" and it pulled up an SI story that I recall: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/1998/08/22/mcgwire_supplement/

 

I distinctly recall wanting to discount the effects of Andro and to believe in McGwire because I was enjoying the home run race and I wanted it to be real and not tainted by allegations of steroid use. But this story has stuck with me over the years.

 

The second recollection I have is more of a personal one. I remember a non-baseball fan asking me why I cared about McGwire-Sosa -- because they are "all using drugs anyway."

 

So, while I don't recall much chatter about PED use in the early to mid-90's, I have distinct recollections of it being an issue by 98. But I believe that many fans simply didn't want the game to be disrupted again and wanted to believe that there was a level playing field.

[John Bonnes]

John,

 

I've got a decade or so on you. I don't remember a lot of talk about steroids in the early 90's but I have 2 vivid memories from 1998: the first was related to Mark McGwire and Andro. I just put in "McGwire Andro" and it pulled up an SI story that I recall: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/1998/08/22/mcgwire_supplement/

 

The McGwire story was one of the few times I recall seeing the issue discussed in the 90s, but if others read the link you provided, it points out....

 

1) andro was not banned by baseball

2) McGwire completely admitted to using it.

 

A lot of the commentary on that story made sure to emphasize that there was nothing WRONG with it, it was jsut a little disillusioning that players could get better that way. I feel like it reaffirms my point - the drug culture was still mostly unknown and most were pretty naive about it. It is a huge stretch to say that because Nautly was putting on 10-20 pounds on during the offseason (and by the way, not using at all during the season) that the Twins should have guessed (or passively approved) that Naulty was sticking himself with needles in the offseason.

[tobynotjason]

Good article. Unfortunately it utterly pooh-poohs the notion that anything but steroids could possibly have had anything to do with an ISO explosion that looks, in year-by-year graphical form, like a plateau. Because, you know, everybody started using them at once, then everybody stopped at once. Plus, they didn't help pitchers and/or pitchers didn't use them. Oh wait...

[twinzgrl]

Fascinating, and sad.

[JB_Iowa]

I think it demonstrates that the baseball community as a whole just didn't want to deal with the issue. They failed to deal with it in the CBA and then simply couldn't control its proliferation. The Olympics, NFL and NCAA had already banned Andro before the article. Bud Selig (the gutless wonder), Don Fehr (the player enabler), owners and the players (all of whom wanted the $$$ to keep rolling in) simply did not want to deal with the issue. And although Andro wasn't banned by baseball, I distinctly remember this article opening my eyes and making me uncomfortable. I wanted to believe in McGwire's position that it wasn't illegal but I remember this article giving me a queasy feeling even though I really didn't have any understanding of the impact of steroids at the time.

 

As for Thrylos' assertion about Tom Kelly and the clubhouse attendant, it was in 2000 or 2001 according to the Mitchell Report. So, not in the 1990's but definitely before Ken Caminiti.

 

I don't know whether the Twins should have known something was going on with Naulty. But I do believe that Baseball as a whole -- and that undoubtedly includes the Twins -- deliberately chose to bury their heads in the sand.

[Sssuperdave]

Wow, that was a great article. As others have said, I was definitely not planning on spending that much time reading an article, but I couldn't stop.

[Mike Sixel]

I had forgotten the Kelly thing, much like with greenies though, people just don't care for some reason....

[greengoblinrulz]

People always associated steroid use with superstars with power or 96mph fastballs. There were as many finge players doin them & plenty of average throwers who used em just to get to that point. Lookin back, there were SEVERAL Twins that Im pretty sure were using quite regulary.

[Jim Crikket]

Unlike some of you, I decided I really DIDN'T have time to read the long story (as well as the follow up online post by Verducci) until today, so I'm coming a bit late to the party.

 

For the record, I'm pretty much in agreement with Bonnes on the issue of how widely acknowledged and accepted (or even suspected) the PED use was in the 90s. In fact, even when Congress started conducting hearings in the early 2000s, my general feeling was, "don't those people have more important issues to deal with than this?" Clearly, there WERE people who "knew" much of what was happening in the 90s, but I tend to believe that most people who now claim they "knew" are taking advantage of 20-20 hindsight.

 

As for the comments made by Naulty regarding Joe Torre being more "gracious" than what he was accustomed to in Minnesota, I took that as meaning, "compared to Tom Kelly," and I don't think it would surprise many people to hear that Joe Torre, especially in the late 1990s, came across as a more gracious manager than Tom Kelly.

[Paul]

It's hard to bring any data to this discussion, because I don't know how we would measure the level of attention this issue received. I can only speak from my experience. (And we may have a generation gap here - I don't know how old you are. I'm 45, so I was paying a lot of attention to the baseball media during the 90s.) That's the period of time we were talking about - Naulty was in Ft Myers in 94 and out of the majors by '00.

 

Caminiti's confessions was in October of 2004. Even then, it was viewed as an isolated incident. Canseco's book was in 2005. Steroids were certainly in the news in other sports before that - just look at how many references in the article above reference "body builders" - but they were not viewed as a problem or factor in baseball. That many not seem to be the case considering how huge a story they became, but nobody was talking about this in the 90s. I suppose that doesn't mean that inside baseball it wasn't recognized, but I take a look at the quotes from the other 3 prospects and conclude that was probably not the case.

You're probably right about the generation gap, John. I'm 15 yrs older than you. A bona fide product of the 60's. Good and bad. Baseball was my life until I discovered girls and recreational substances. Then, education/career/business. I got interested in baseball again about the time Johan caught fire. Between the early 70's and then baseball was only periphial in my universe. But even with the cursory look I gave baseball in particular, and sports in general, I could see the PED usage. Remember the SNL skit "Steroid Olympics"? That was late 80's. I don't consider myself particularly wise, but someone who experienced competitive sports, and understood the competitive dynamic, and witnessed PED use in "other sports", and saw the societal acceptance of drugs in general, and could add 2+2+2, well, that person likely would see what I saw too. (I think I approached the record for commas with that there sentence.)

 

I guess I don't find it too surprising that baseball insiders and the media satellites serving them were/are reluctant to acknowledge PED use. There are a lot of factors in play here. Emotionally not wanting to be guilty of, or seen guilty of, a connivace or a crime or cheating. Not "ratting out" your buddies. Not admitting because of the PR hit on yourself. The actual legal liability up the management chain. The finacial rewards for showcasing record breaking.

 

Anyhoo, I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. You're one of the good guys.