The Last Innocent Man

On Tuesday June 16th Sammy Sosa was found to be on a list of 103 players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003. So now we can include Sosa on another list. The list of fraudulent sluggers. If you look up the all-time home run leaders there are 10 in the top 25 who played during the Bonds-Sosa era. Of those 10, 7 have been found guilty of using performance enhancing drugs. They are, Barry Bonds (#1 all time/762 home runs), Sosa (#6/609), Mark McGwire (#8/583), Rafael Palmeiro (#10/569), Alex Rodriguez (#12/562), Manny Ramirez (#17/533), and Gary Sheffield (#24/507). It was no surprise that Sosa would join this list of cheats. He seemed to check all the suspicious boxes as a player, square head, barrel chest, Paul Bunyan forearms and biceps, and massive increase of his home run numbers. If you were one of those people who thought that Sosa got a lot bigger over the winter of 1997-98, and if you found it curious that his home run total went from 36 to 66 over that span then the 2003 test result simply confirms what you already knew. But enough about this loser.

There are three guys on that list who to the best of anyone's knowledge never tested positive for PEDs. There's the great former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas (#18/521) and current White Sox slugger Jim Thome (#13/553). Two fantastic hitters who couldn't field a lick so they spent most of the back halves of their careers as designated hitters. Which brings us to Ken Griffey Jr and his 618 home runs (#5 all-time).

Griffey has taken a lot of lumps over the last decade. He spent 8 plus star crossed years with his hometown Cincinnati Reds. During his time with the Reds, Griffey had three very good seasons. The other five years he missed 384 games due to a variety of leg injuries. In fact, only once did Griffey end the season on the field instead of the disabled list (2007). When Griffey was playing for the Seattle Mariners (1989-99) it was commonplace to argue whether he or Bonds was the best player of his generation. But then Griffey was traded to the Reds and all those devastating injuries robbed him of his place in that conversation. For his part, Bonds went from being a great all around player and sure fire hall of famer to the greatest hitter in the history of the game (sorry Babe). But how did he do this? Well Bonds will tell you it was flax seed oil that he rubbed on his arms and legs. Which only would have been more ridiculous if he had called it "magic" flax seed oil. I don't know a lot about flax seed but I'm quite sure it doesn't give you "bitch tits," make your head look like an anvil or add thirty pounds to a mature body over one winter's time. But according to Bonds it did.

So why don't I think Griffey used steroids? First of all, there has never been a failed drug test or any hint of suspicion. Secondly, one of the great benefits of performance enhancing drugs is the way it allows the body to recover from injury. Take the example of Mark McGwire who missed 308 games from 1993-95 but suddenly became the picture of durability for the next four seasons. Four seasons where he hit 52, 58, 70, and 65 homers respectively. If Griffey were using steroids during his 8 seasons with the Reds he surely wasn't doing it right. Not only did he struggle to recover from those injuries but his head stayed round, his biceps sinewy, and he didn't grow breasts. His productivity dropped due to the injuries that robbed him of his athleticism as well as all those games. But as far as we know he was clean. He played hard all the time and fought vigorously to return from his injuries. In fact, in the off season of 2004 Griffey underwent an experimental tendon reattachment surgery after his hamstring had torn away from the bone. An injury that would have sent most players to retirement. But come back he did to have his best season with the Reds.

There was great hoopla made when Griffey was traded from the Mariners to the Reds. The Reds had just missed the playoffs the year before and many expected Griffey's arrival to be the ingredient that would put them over the top. However, it wasn't to be. The Reds only managed one winning season with Griffey (his first) and never came close to contending. As a lifelong Reds fan it was crushing to watch him hobble through those 7 winless seasons with only occasional stretches of his former greatness. But as I said before, he was clean.

Still, even with all those struggles over the last 9 years, Griffey is a certain first ballot hall of famer. Those 7 other cheaters will probably only enter Cooperstown if they buy a ticket. Which I actually disagree with. I think all those guys should get in. They should have a whole separate wing for those charlatans. Why? Because baseball should own that indignity. Between the owners and the players union they had there own "don't ask, don't tell policy" and keeping these clowns out will only allow them to ignore that great shame. They didn't care because "chicks dig the long ball" as one Major League Baseball commercial claimed during this tainted period. Baseball was still recovering from the devastating strike of 1994 when Sosa and McGwire made their run in 1998 at Roger Maris' record. And the powers that be, Commissioner Bud Selig and Union Chief Donald Fehr, rejoiced in the skyrocketing attendance figures that the home run chase brought. Indeed, the chase brought baseball all the way back. But at the cost of its soul (if a sport can have such a thing).

So the Commissioner and the Union sacrificed what was right for the sake of expediency. Something that an injury prone former superstar, toiling away in near obscurity never did. So when someone asks you who was the greatest player of the steroid era you can answer in two ways. If you include the juicers then Barry Bonds is the obvious answer. But if you don't, then Ken Griffey Jr is the only answer. And you won't have to feel sick when you answer the question.

Sumo-Pop
June 20, 2009