Short Stories, Long Odds

So I’m watching some pre-season Red Sox and my extended family - in - law starts talking about the upcoming Congressional subcommittee hearing on steroids. The main thing we discuss is how, of all the players who have been subpoened, one is conspicuously absent: Barry Bonds.

Since I’d never really thought about juicing much before Jose Canseco wrote his book, I was surprised to discover that I’m not entirely opposed to steroid use. Steroids are regularly prescribed by doctors for a variety of things, and under the care and direction of a physician a regimen of steroids for performance ennhancement would, as DJ so capably stated, “put asses in seats.”

Consider the onset of the long ball in the last 20 years. Home runs were rare, players hitting 30 in a season were remarkable, and smallball was the norm. Nowadays, who really knows how to bunt? How often do we see a squeeze play, especially in the American League? Attendance is up and so are scores, and its because chicks dig the longball.

So I have ended up feeling that, if you could regulate, juicing would be a welcome, optional addition to baseball. This also made me wonder if Sammy Sosa made Mark McGwire feel bad about himself.

If you’ve ever seen a picture of McGwire, you know he has forearms the size of tree trunks. Literally. In 1998 he broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record by clubbing 70. During that season, he was in a big race for the record wiith Sammy Sosa. If you’re familiar with baseball at all you know what Sammy Sosa looks like: not exactly diminuitive, but more or less normal. Not anything like the roidmonster McGwire was. Do you think he was bothered by the fact that a comparatively tiny guy was biting his ass in the home run race from May on?

Baseball should either ban people for life for using steroids or allow and regulate steroid use. Corporations are always finding ways to increase productivity, so why not baseball? Diana made the point that Darryl Strawberry was not allowed to keep playing after hitting the crack pipe, and we all agreed that this was because, instead of increasing his productivity like steroids may have, the rock made him noticably less able to shag fly balls. Doc Gooden’s location went to shit after he started riding the horse. If he’d loosed the juice he might have gained another 3 mph on his fastball or another 2 inches’ drop on his curve.

If steroids make baseball more entertaining, in that most people don’t care to see managerial strategy or excellent pitching, and would rather see the bleachers turned into an artillery range, I say what the hell. Bigger muscles don’t make you see the ball any better; Ichiro will never need to bulk up to hit contact. Being huge will not make you any better at hitting, and it may certainly impede your ability and range on defense. So why not? Get juice crazy, baseball! Plug your guys up with as much growjunk as possible! I would like to take my kids to a baseball game someday and watch homeruns get to 600 feet without waiting for cybernetic implants.