BASEBALL’S GREAT HITTING BARRAGE OF THE 1990S (AND BEYOND)

REEXAMINED

By Benjamin G. Rader and Kenneth J. Winkle

In an article published in NINE in 2002, we examined what we called “Baseball’s

Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s.”1 In addition to offering statistical support for the

claim that there was an unusual amount of offensive productivity in the 1994 through

1999 seasons, we also considered explanations for why the hitting revolution had

occurred. With regard to the latter, we questioned some of the popular theories for the

offensive outburst—namely the “juiced-ball” hypothesis, the belief that the ballparks

were cozier in the late 1990s than they had been earlier, and the role of league expansion

in diluting the quality of pitching. But, at the same time, we lent support to the arguments

that lighter bats, physically stronger hitters, and a new style of hitting (with the assistance

of a smaller de facto strike zone) contributed significantly to the great hitting barrage of

the late 1990s.

Now is an especially opportune time to reexamine and update our earlier findings.

Not only do we presently enjoy the benefit of a longer historical perspective on the

1990s, but we are also able to extend our analysis from the 2000 through the 2006

seasons. Furthermore, recent disclosures of the widespread use of performance-enhancing

drugs by the players and the implementation of a major-league drug testing program in

2003 make it possible to employ statistics to speculate more knowingly about the effects

of drugs on the great offensive barrage. Equally if not more important to a

reconsideration of the recent offensive outburst was the decision of the major leagues

(beginning in 2001) to enlarge the de facto (that called by the umpires) strike zone and to

try to impose on the umpires a more uniform strike zone.

We reach three major conclusions. First, that the great hitting barrage peaked

during the 1999 and 2000 seasons. While remaining far above the two-divisional era

(1969-1993 seasons) in offensive productivity, the 2001 through 2006 seasons fell below

the peak achieved in 1999 and 2000. Based on batting averages, runs per game, home

runs per game, and on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, we posit three eras of

offense in recent baseball history: (1) the two-divisional era of low productivity (1969-

1993), (2) the great offensive barrage (1994-2000 seasons), and (3) the new equilibrium

(2001-2006 seasons). Second, while it is impossible to offer quantifiably direct evidence

of the relationship between drug use and the offensive explosion, we conclude that player

use of performance-enhancing drugs did contribute to the hitting barrage. When the threat

of exposure and then drug testing increased, some measures of offensive productivity

began to decline, though not approaching the depths of the 1969-1993 era. Third, it is

possible to offer more quantifiably direct evidence of the relationship between the strike

zone and the offensive explosion than it is the relationship between drugs and offense.

We conclude that the size of the de facto (that called by the umpires) strike zone was an

equal and perhaps even more important variable in explaining the coming of the hitting

revolution as well as its modest decline after the 2000 season. When the major leagues

decided to try to impose a more uniform strike zone on the umpires in the 2001 season,

seasonal batting average and runs per game (but not home runs) fell, though not back to

earlier levels.

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THE CASE FOR THREE ERAS OF OFFENSIVE PRODUCTIVITY

[FIGURE 1, FIGURE 2, FIGURE 3, and FIGURE 4 inserted approximately here]

Figures 1-4 provide the basic statistical support for dividing the offensive

productivity of recent baseball history into three eras. In Figure 1, notice the sharp ascent

in major league batting averages for the 1993 and 1994 seasons; averages leveled off

slightly for the 1995 through 1998 seasons, and then they lurched upward again for the

1999-2000 seasons. In 2001, batting averages began a sharp descent and remained below

the 1994-2000 seasons until the 2006 season. Figures 2 and 4, which show runs per game

and on base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS) respectively, follow a similar

season-to-season trajectory.

In Figure 3, notice that home runs per game also jumped sharply in 1994 and

continued upward to their 1999-2000 record highs. In terms of fan involvement in the

hitting revolution, nothing offered more convincing evidence of a new era in baseball

history than the home run. In the four seasons of 1998 through 2001, the 60 home-run

plateau was broken no fewer than six times. During every season from 1995 through

2002, at least one player hit 50 home runs, including four players in 1998. Home runs

began a descent after the 2000 season though not as sharp as that of batting averages or

runs scored. Indeed, the 2004 and 2006 seasons exceeded every earlier season in home

runs per game except those of 1999, 2000, and 2001. Also 2006 marked the return of the

50-homer season when two players eclipsed this mark. In terms of home-run

productivity, then, it is safe to say that the hitting revolution of the late 1990s continued

essentially unabated through the 2006 season.

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Offensive productivity in the AAA Pacific Coast and International Leagues

follows a pattern similar to the major leagues. But, while the upturn in hitting in the

majors began in the 1994 season, it did not fully reach the AAA minors until the 1996

season. As with the majors, hitting in the minor leagues has decreased slightly in the

early twenty-first century. Indeed, batting averages and runs for the 2000 through 2006

seasons are below those for the 1990 through 1995 seasons. If measured in home runs,

however, the minor league offensive barrage of the late-1990s continued through the

2006 season.

Table I. Three Eras of Minor League Offensive Productivity in the AAA Pacific Coast

and International Leagues

____________________________________________________________________

Seasons Hits/100 at Bats Runs/100 at Bats Home Runs/100 at Bats

___________________________________________________________________

1990-95 27.4 14.6 2.2

1996-2000 27.5 15.3 2.9

2000-06 27.1 14.0 2.7

___________________________________________________________________

EXPLANATIONS

Given the above data, we sought to zero in on the determinants of the rise and the modest

decline in baseball’s offensive productivity. In doing this, we found no new data or

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evidence to question our earlier rejection of a “juiced” ball2 or a dilution in pitching talent

as important determinants of the hitting barrage of the late 1990s. Furthermore, we have

no reason to believe that either of these factors explain what we call the new equilibrium

in the early twenty-first century. Neither do we have reason to question our conclusion

that lighter bats may have contributed to the offensive revolution of the late 1990s. So, in

this article, we limit our inquiry to a reexamination of how the use of performance-

enhancing drugs, a changing strike zone, and the construction of new baseball parks may

have contributed to the recent rise and modest decline in some important measures of

baseball’s offensive productivity.

The Size of Ballparks. Sportswriters and fans alike frequently suggest or declare

(without statistical proof) that change in the size of the ballparks has been a significant

determinant of the increase in offensive productivity. In our 2002 article, we found that,

while the franchises frequently did tinker with the distances from home plate to the

outfield walls as well as with the height of fences, the average distance to the fences and

their height remained virtually unchanged between the1990 and 1998 seasons. However,

from the 1988 through the 2006 seasons, more than half of the franchises have built new

parks. Following the example of Baltimore in 1992, nearly all the new stadia are

“retroparks.” While in most instances the new parks put the fans closer to the action than

their multipurpose predecessors (thereby encouraging the illusion that the fences are

closer to home plate), we have found that the distances to the fences and the height of

fences have in fact changed little between 1990 and 2006. Nor have these measurements

changed much between 1998 and 2006. (See Table II). Employing regression analysis,

statistical cognoscenti will be interested in learning that the slight increase in average

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fence distance between the 1998 and 2006 seasons (about 2 feet) “explains” about 6.5

percent of the slight decline in home-run productivity for this period.3

Table II. Average Distances to Fences of Major League Parks, 1990, 1998, and 2006

________________________________________________________________________

Season Left Foul Line Left Field Center Field Right Field Right Foul Line Average

_______________________________________________________________________

1990 330 378 406 375 326 363

1998 331 376 406 374 328 363

2006 331 380 404 378 329 365

_____________________________________________________________________

As we indicated in our 2002 article, the effects of Denver’s extraordinary high

altitude on offensive productivity requires separate attention. According to Yale

physicist, Robert Adair, batted balls travel 9 percent farther in Denver than a ball struck

similarly at sea level. And we found in our 2002 article that “the addition of the Colorado

franchise in Denver—first with Mile-High Stadium in 1993 and 1994 and then the new

Coors Field in 1995—provided an 11 percent boost to the overall offensive outburst in

the NL [to 1999], but the advantages to the hitters playing in Denver apparently arose

from elevation rather than the size of the park.”4 Indeed, during the late 1990s offensive

totals soared in Denver. In the 1999 season, the Rockies and their opponents struck 303

home runs in Coors Field, the most ever hit in one season at one venue with a single

tenant. The average 1999 score in Coors Field was 8-7. With the outburst of hitting in the

new park, sportswriters began to label it “Coors Light Field.” When the Cincinnati Reds

defeated the Rockies by a score of 24-12 on May 19, 1999, Reds first baseman Sean

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Casey exclaimed that “It was like a beer league [slow-pitch softball] game. We should

have walked away with the keg.”5

With the 2002 season, Denver officials began an experiment (initially in secret)

designed to retard offensive productivity in Coors Field. Based on the fact that Denver’s

prevailing low humidity dried out the balls, thus making them more resilient than the

balls used in the low-altitude parks, the Rockies proceeded to store game balls in a

humidity- and temperature-controlled room—a “humidor”—built near the Coors Field

clubhouses.6 Statistics offer strong support for the conclusion that the presumably damper

and slightly heavier balls stored in the humidor reduced offensive productivity in Coors

Field (See Table 3). Indeed, with the use of the humidor, runs fell by more than 2 and

home runs by 1 per hundred times at bat. The sharp decline in offensive productivity at

Coors Field beginning with the 2002 season “explains” 14.9 percent of the overall decline

in home runs, 7.8 percent of the runs, and 6.5 percent of the hits in all of major league

baseball for the 2002 through 2006 seasons. In the parlance of regression analysis, this is

a “significant” relationship. Impressed with the possibility that temperature and humidity

control could provide a ball in every park that would behave uniformly, baseball’s

general managers discussed in 2006 the possibility of installing humidors in all the

parks.7

TABLE 3. Offensive Output at Coors Field (Denver) for both the home team and visitors

before and after the installation of the Humidor

_______________________________________________________________________

Seasons Batting Avg. Runs/100 at bats HRs/100 at bats

_______________________________________________________________________

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Before the humidor (1995-2001) .310 18.5 4.5

With the humidor (2002-2006) .292 16.3 3.5

______________________________________________________________________

Because of Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd’s change in strategy beginning

with the 2000 season, there are those who argue that the decline in offensive productivity

1Benjamin G. Rader and Kenneth J. Winkle,”Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 10 (Spring 2002), 1-17. 2 Unless one takes seriously a claim of Universal Medical Systems Inc (UMS) of Cleveland. According to UMS president David Zavagno, computer imaging of the 1998 ball struck by Mark McGwire for his 70th home run in 1998 “was juiced.” Allegedly computer imaging revealed that the 1998 ball had a larger rubberized core and a synthetic ring than balls (unspecified in the Associated Press story) that met big league standards. Apparently UMS did not test the actual coefficient of resolution of the balls, that is, how far they rebounded upon being pitched against a wooden wall or dropped on a wooden floor at speeds roughly equivalent to those thrown by the typical major league pitchers. Bob DuPuy, major league baseball’s chief operating officer, denied that the core of the ball has been changed in the last several decades. According to DuPuy, beginning with the 2002 season, baseball has sponsored independent testing by James Sherwood of the University of Massachusetts—Lowell and that all the balls during the 2002 through the 2006 seasons have met major league specifications. Associated Press story in http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2719191 (consulted Jan. 5, 2007). In addition, as this article argues, the hitting revolution continued after the 1998 season; indeed, with the single exception of the 2005 season, home run productivity per game has been higher in every season from 1999 through 2006 seasons than it was in 1998. Also home runs per game were higher for the 1997 season than the 1998 season. Hence, to evaluate the claims of UMS, it would be useful to know whether its researchers found that MLB has used the same “altered” ball in 1997 and from the 1998 season to the present. When in 2006 home runs totals soared 25 percent above the first month of the previous season, Commissioner Bud Selig, according to press reports, ordered an additional study by Sherwood. Sherwood found little differences between the coefficient of resolution between the balls used during the 2005 and 2006 seasons. See Michael S. Schmidt, “Baseball: Notebook: As Homers Skyrocket, Baseball’s Put to the Test,” New York Times, April 28, 2006, sec. D, 4.

3 Apparently most the new retroparks have less foul ball territory than their predecessors. If so, the retroparks would give hitters additional opportunities to hit. However, we have found no way of measuring this territory. We found in our 2002 article that foul balls account for about one in 50 outs, leaving us with the conclusion that the size of foul-ball territory would at most be a small factor in accounting for offensive productivity.

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in Coors Field was due to more than the humidior. The Rockies had led the league in runs

scored and home runs for three consecutive seasons (1997-1999)-- before the arrival of

O’Dowd—but the team had played above .500 only once (1997) in those seasons. To turn

around the team’s fortunes, O’Dowd quickly set out to alter the character of the ball club.

He sought to improve its speed, defense, and pitching even if it meant some sacrifice of

hitting prowess. Entering the player market with an enthusiasm unequalled in the past

fourteen years of big-league history, before the 2000 season commenced, he jettisoned

twelve players while acquiring fifteen replacements. In subsequent years, he continued to

be an unusually active trader; and, in 2001, he sought to improve the Rockies’ fortunes

by signing two veteran starting pitchers, Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle.8

The seasons of 2000 and 2001 (before the installation of the humidor) permit the

most direct evidence of how O’Dowd’s emphasis on pitching and fielding affected

offense in Coor’s field. In the aggregate, the new ploy did not work: except for batting

4 Rader and Winkle, “Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s,” 6.

5 Quoted in Baseball America 2000 Almanac (Durham, NC: Baseball America, 1999), 7. 6 See for example, Troy E. Renck, “Few Bombers on Blake,” Denver Post, Sept. 26, 2005, denverpost.com/ (consulted Nov.1, 2006); Pat Rooney, “Macha Knows Cause, Seeks Effect,” Rocky Mountain News, June 22, 2006; Lee Jenkins, “Baseball: Mystery of Coors Field Makes Hitters Paranoid,” International Herald Tribune, Aug. 18, 2006, Mike Klis, “Ball Humidor Helps Tame Rockies Scores,” Denver Post, Oct. 27, 2006, in denverpost.com/ (consulted Nov. 1, 2006). We thank our colleague, Douglas Seefeldt, for these references.

7Troy E. Renck, “Humidors Attract Attention of General Managers,” Denver Post, Dec. 11, 2006, in denverpost.com/ (consulted Dec. 11, 2006). 8 Jon Heyman, “There’s a New Trader in Town—They Call Him Dan,” The Sporting News, Dec. 27, 1999, in findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_52-223ai-5845909 (consulted Jan. 28, 2007); Keith Woolner, “How Much Does Coors Field Really Matter?” in Jonah Keri, ed., Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 297.

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averages, the offenses of both the Rockies and visitors in the 2000 and 2001 seasons

were above their averages for the 1995-1999 seasons! (See Table 4). Neither has the

strategy been effective in improving the Rockies’ performance relative to the visitors

since the installation of the humidor. (See Tables 3 & 5).

TABLE 4. Offensive Output, Colorado Rockies and Opponents at Coors Field before

and after O’Dowd Became General Manager of the Rockies, but before the Installation

of the Humidor

Batting average Runs/100 at bats Hrs/100/ at bats

Rockies Opponents Rockies Opponents Rockies Opponents

______________________________________________________________________

1995-1999 .326 .295 19.8 16.8 4.7 3.9

2000-2001 .332 .288 20.6 17.7 5.4 4.6

TABLE 5. Offensive Output, Rockies and Opponents at Coors Field before and after

O’Dowd Became General Manager of the Rockies

______________________________________________________________________ Batting Average Runs/100 at bats Hrs/100 at bats

Rockies Opponents Rockies Opponents Rockies Opponents_______________________________________________________________________1995-1999 .326 .295 19.8 16.8 4.7 3.9

2000-2006 .310 .284 18.2 16.1 4.0 3.9

The De Facto Strike Zone. In our 2002 article, we speculated that a new style of

hitting may have been the single most important determinant of the offensive barrage of

the 1990s. “A new convention developed among umpires, pitchers, and hitters that

10

altered the traditional practice of pitchers regularly busting the inside of the plate with

high fastballs. This aided the hitters; they no longer had to worry as much about ‘bailing

out.’”9 Abetting the new style of hitting, we argued, was a smaller de facto strike zone.

The increase in base-on-balls per game provided statistical support for the argument that

umpires were calling fewer strikes during the heyday of the hitting revolution than in the

past.

In an apparent effort to reverse the hitting revolution and to speed up games,

major league baseball authorities decided in 2001 to take steps to ensure that the de facto

strike zone corresponded more closely to the strike zone called for in the rule book. “I

think the conventional wisdom is [that the calling of a higher strike] will take some

offense out [of the game] and speed up the game a bit,” explained Sandy Alderson, Major

League vice president of baseball operations.10 To obtain compliance with the new strike

zone, Alderson first tried to retrain the umpires. Before Spring Training commenced in

2001, he had all sixty-eight Major League umpires take turns calling pitches with minor

leaguers standing at the plate wearing white strips taped across their chests to show the

umpires where the strike zone should be--nine inches above the waist. “It’ll definitely

change the game,” predicted Jim McKean, a major-league umpire for 28 years. “This is

the biggest change I’ve ever seen, without a doubt.”11

9

? Rader and Winkle, “Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage,” 13.

10 Bob Baum, “Umpires Size Up Real Strike Zone,” Lincoln Journal Star, March 2, 2001.11

? Quoted in John Romano, “Baseball Adapts to a New Strike Zone,” St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 27, 2001, in stpetersburgtimes.com/ (consulted Oct. 21, 2006)..

11

Alderson’s second step in retraining and evaluating the performance of the

umpires was the employment of QuesTec, a new pitch-tracking technology, in 2001.

Consisting of a battery of cameras and a computer, QuesTec officials claimed that the

company’s machine called strikes with a margin of error of only one-half inch. (Given

that players varied in height, however, a human operator had to determine the bottom and

top of the strike zone for each hitter). The system created a detailed record of each pitch

as well as the umpire’s verdict, which was then burned onto a CD-ROM with copies

going to QuesTec, the home plate umpire, and Major League Baseball.12 If the home plate

umpire’s calls failed to match those of QuesTec’s more than 10 percent of the time, then

it was rumored that that umpire might be excluded from calling post-season games and

that his job might even be in jeopardy.

Umpires, hitters, and even pitchers greeted QuesTec and the new strike zone with

howls of protests. The World Umpires Association filed a grievance, claiming not only

that the computer was inaccurate but also that the results depended on operators who

were not experienced baseball men. (For unknown reasons, the association dropped its

grievance in 2003.) Not only did hitters now have to cope with the new high strike but

perhaps more importantly they found umpires calling strikes on the inside corner of the

plate that had formerly been called balls. “If we get the strike zone straightened out,

inside and out, up and down, it’ll stop guys from leaning over the plate, [and] striding

into pitches,” predicted umpire McKean.13 Several pitchers, on the other hand,

12 See especially David F. Gallagher, “How It Works; Tracking Missiles Launched from the Mound,” New York Times, March 28, 2002, in nytimes.com/ (consulted Sept. 11, 2006).

13 Quoted in Romano, “Baseball Adapts to a New Strike Zone”

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complained that the high strike did not aid them any. They maintained that unless one had

an overpowering fastball, throwing high strikes could play into the strength of the hitters.

(In 2003, Curt Schilling, star pitcher with the Arizona Diamondbacks, was so angry with

what he considered to be the effects of the machine on umpire decisions that he

bludgeoned one of the QuesTec cameras with a baseball bat: he was fined $15,000 for the

offense.) Pitchers voiced even more objections about umpires no longer calling as strikes

those pitches thrown two or three inches off the outside corner of the plate. This change

adversely affected, it was said, such control pitchers as Atlanta stars Tom Glavine and

Greg Maddux.14 Furthermore, pitchers continued to receive warnings from umpires when

they worked the inside of the plate, thereby permitting the well-armored hitters to

continue stepping into pitches as they had done before the imposition of the new strike

zone.

Whatever credence we give to the complaints of pitchers, it is clear that the

umpires began calling a bigger strike zone in the 2001 season (See Figure 5).

[Insert FIGURE 5 approximately here]

Notice that base-on-balls peaked during 1999 and 2000 seasons, the very same seasons

when the hitting revolution reached its apex. To obtain a visual representation of the

relationship between base-on-balls per game and various offensive measurements over

time, compare Figure 5 with Figures 1 through 4. Confirming the visual comparisons, the

coefficients of determination of base-on-balls per game and offensive output for the

14 See for example, Romano, “Baseball Adapts to a New Strike Zone,” “This Picture’s Worth $15,000: D’Backs’ Shilling Fined $15,000 for Destroying QuesTec Camera,” (2003), SI.com/ (consulted Oct. 26, 2006); Tom Venducci, “Man Vs. Machine,” Sports Illustrated, June 9, 2003, 17.

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1990-2006 seasons is high: .374 for home runs per game, .258 for runs per game,

and .308 for on base percentage plus slugging percentage. Put in simpler terms, the de

facto size of the strike zone was a major determinant of seasonal offensive output for the

1990-2006 era.

The employment of QuesTec apparently contributed to a slightly larger de facto

strike zone. The 2003 season, in which ten parks had QuesTec, can be compared with the

remaining ball parks that had not yet installed the new pitch-tracking technology. Both

base-on-balls and offensive productivity was slightly lower for the QuesTec parks (See

Table 4).

TABLE 4. Comparison of QuesTec and non-QuesTec Parks for 2003 season

________________________________________________________________

Parks BA Runs/100 AB HR/100 AB BB/per game

________________________________________________________________

QuesTec parks* .271 14.04 3.03 6.51

Non-QuesTec .274 14.35 3.28 6.55

_____________________________________________________________

*In the 2003 season, the ten QuesTec parks were in Boston, New York (AL),

Anaheim, Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa Bay, New York (NL), Arizona, Minnesota, and

Houston. Apparently in 2004 Questec was installed in all parks.

The Effects of Performance-Enhancing Drug Use. In our 2002 article, we

concluded that it “seems likely that the increasing strength of the hitters…contributed

significantly to the offensive barrage.”15 Not only did we observe that the players were

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heavier than their predecessors, but also that, in seeking to gain greater strength, many

more of them than in the past engaged in systematic weightlifting and the use of dietary

supplements.

The performance-enhancing drugs included androstenedione, an over-the-counter

supplement with metabolic properties similar to steroids that Mark McGwire admitted

having taken during his record-shattering home-run season of 1998. (In 2004, major

league baseball banned androstenedione.) “In addition,” we reported, “locker room lore

holds that anywhere between 15 and 30 percent of the players in the late nineties used

illegal [anabolic] steroids,” synthetic versions of the male hormone testosterone.16 By

increasing endurance and faster recovery from weight training, those in the weight-lifting

subculture believed that anabolic steroids contributed indirectly if not directly to muscle-

building. Furthermore, we quoted Yankee pitching star David Cone who said that “lifting

weights is not going to translate into having better stuff [for the pitchers], not the way

getting stronger can make someone a better hitter.” Hence, we speculated that bulking up

through weightlifting and drugs “apparently helped hitters more than pitchers.”17

Since the publication of our 2002 article, the public has been awash with

revelations, admissions, charges, rumors, and speculation pointing to the conclusion that

baseball had entered a new age, a “Steroid Era,” one in which there was widespread use

of various kinds of performance-enhancing drugs by the players.18 Rather than retelling

15

? Rader and Winkle, “Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s,” 8.16

? Rader and Winkle, “Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s,” 8

17 Rader and Winkle, “Baseball’s Great Hitting Barrage of the 1990s,” 10.

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this complex story here, we seek to sort out the nature of the evidence supporting drug

use and its effects on offensive productivity.

The list of players who have publicly admitted to anabolic steroid or human

growth hormone use is a relatively short one. They include the confessions of Ken

Caminiti, who admitted in 2002 that he used steroids when he won the 1996 National

League Most Valuable Player Award. “It’s no secret what’s going on in baseball,”

Caminiti told a Sports Illustrated reporter in 2002. “At least half the players are using

steroids.”19 (Two years later, Caminiti died from a drug overdose). Also in 2002, Jose

18

? For overviews, see especially Paul D. Staudohar, “Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Baseball,” Labor Law Journal (2005), 139-49; Howard Bryant, Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball (New York: Viking, 2005); Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports (New York: Gotham Books, 2006); Will Carroll and William L. Carroll, The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball’s Drug Problems (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005), and “Who Knew?” ESPN: The Magazine, Special Report, in sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=steroids&num=8. A useful Website, which is regularly updated and includes references as well as lists of admitted users and implicated users of performance-enhancing drugs, is “Baseball’s Steroid Era,” thesteroidera.blogspot.com/. While minimizing the overall effects of performance-enhancing drugs on offensive productivity, Nate Silver, “What Do Statistics Tell Us About Steroids?” in Keri, ed., Baseball Between the Numbers, 326-342, and in www.baseballprospectus.com/artilce.php?articleid+4845 (consulted Jan. 20, 2007) concludes that : “In particular, Power Spikes have become more frequent [in the “steroid era”] among hitters with average power—those guys who will hit more than 10 home runs but fewer than 30 in a typical season. “ Silver defines “Power Spikes” as “ 1. A player is an established major league veteran, at least twenty-eight years old, with at least 1,000 plate appearances (PA) accumulated between his previous three seasons; and 2. The player improves upon his established home-run rate by a least 10 HR per 650 PA, in a season in which he had at least 500 PA.” In assessing the impact of steroids, Silver includes the 1994 through the 2004 seasons, which he calls the “Juiced Era.” Instead of assuming that steroids may have an equal impact on offensive statistics throughout this era, we here offer evidence (namely in terms of weight and injuries to players) indicating that steroid use probably reached an apex at the turn-of-the century and then descended in the twenty-first century.

19 Quoted in Tom Verducci, “Totally Juiced,” Sports Illustrated (June 3, 2002), 37.

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Canseco admitted to using steroids and implicated several other players, including former

Oakland teammate Mark McGwire. In 2004, before a grand jury in the BALCO

investigation in San Francisco, Jason Giambi reportedly testified that he had injected

himself with human growth hormone during the 2003 season and had begun using

steroids at least two years earlier. Before the same grand jury, Barry Bonds admitted that

he may have unwittingly used “the clear” and “the creme,” two anabolic steroid

concoctions of the BALCO laboratory. Others implicated in the BALCO investigation

were Jeremy Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Benito Santiago, Amando Rios, Marvin Bernard,

Randy Verlarde, and Bobby Estalella. Finally, in 2006, Jason Grimsley admitted to using

drugs to federal agents and implicated more than a dozen other players.20

The list of those caught in various drug screening programs is a much longer one.

Initially, a series of arbitrators’ decisions dating back to the mid-1980s prevented the

testing of major league players without the approval of the Major League Baseball

Players Association, but no such restrictions prevented the testing of minor leaguers. A

tantalizing hint about the scope of steroid use among minor leaguers surfaced as early as

2000 when the San Diego Padres released the results of three years of tests of twenty five

of its farm hands. Each year about one-in-five of the them tested positive, according to

the Padres. When officials began recruiting minor league players for the 2000 American

20 For U.S. District Court, Arizona, Affidavits, Case #06-7142MB, see us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/sp/tools/med/2006/06/ipt/1149735814.pdf . (consulted Nov. 29, 2006). The affidavit released to the public blacks out the names of players and others identified by Grimsley, but includes provocative claims and disclosures of drug use by them. See also Jack Curry, “Pitcher Used Human Growth Hormone, Document Says,” New York Times, June 7, 2006, nytimes.com/2006/06/07sports/baseball/07/cnd-drug.htm (consulted Nov. 29, 2006) and Tim Brown and Gary Cohn, “Pursuit of Baseball’s Drug Users Heats Up,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2006, in latimes.com/ (consulted Oct. 28, 2006)..

17

Olympics team, according to Baseball Weekly, one of every three of the players flunked

the Olympics drug test. However, no names were released to the public by either the San

Diego or the Olympics officials.21 In 2004, Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig announced

that baseball had implemented a random steroid-testing program in the minor leagues for

the 2001 season. Without releasing the names of the violators, Selig reported that 11

percent of the minor leaguers in the 2001 season tested positive for steroids.

For the 2003 season, the major leagues obtained an agreement with the Players

Association to implement a sample testing program of big leaguers. Since half of the

players were tested in spring training and the other half during the regular season, and

since a couple of weeks of disuse of steroids made detection unlikely, critics charged that

most of the players could escape detection. Nonetheless, since more than 5 percent of the

1,198 tests were positive, all players were subject to tests during the 2004 season (as

provided by the agreement.). At the conclusion of that season, Selig announced that only

1 percent of the tests were positive.22 No names were released of violators for either the

2003 or 2004 seasons.

Embarrassed by the BALCO revelations and pressured by Congress and President

George W. Bush, the Players Association and major league baseball agreed to a stiffer

testing policy for the 2005 season for anabolic steroids (but not human growth hormones

or amphetamines). As provided by the agreement, the names of violators were released to

the public. Violators included big-leaguers Alex Sanchez, Jorge Piedra, Juan Rincon,

21 James C. McKinley, Jr., “Steroid Suspicions Abound in Major League Dugouts,” New York Times, Oct. 11, 2000, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, the New York Times, A-1; Tom DiPace, “Steroid Evidence Coming Out Into Light,” Baseball Weekly, June 4, 2002..22

? Statement of Donald M. Fehr, businessofbaseball:com/steroidhearings_FehrStatement.htm (consulted Nov. 11, 2006).

18

Rafael Betancourt, Rafael Palmeiro, Ryan Franklin, Michael Morse, Carlos Almanzar,

Felix Heredia, Matt Lawton, and Yusaku Iriki. Altogether for the 2005 season, baseball

suspended 111 players (including minor leaguers) for violating the game’s new drug

policy.23 For the 2006 season, when a more rigorous testing procedure (with far stiffer

penalties for violations) was put into place, the major leagues acknowledged only two

violators, pitchers Yusaku Iriki and Guillermo Mota.24 While still not testing for human

growth hormone (which required blood rather than urine tests), the 2006 program called

for the testing of “Greenies” (the street name for amphetamines) as well as anabolic

steroids.

No one pretends that these confessions and various screening programs netted all,

or even most, of the users of performance-enhancing drugs. Nor do they provide us with

much assistance in estimating the total amount of drug usage in the late 1990s. However,

there are other forms of evidence that are indicative of drug use. They include the

impressions of the players themselves, which may or may not be wildly exaggerated. A

poll conducted by Sports Illustrated of 450 major league players before the start of the

2005 season, a season that was to include more rigorous testing than before, yielded the

following results:25

23 “Players Suspended under Baseball’s Steroids Policy,” June 7, 2006, sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2474192 (consulted Nov. 2, 2006).

24 Ronald Blum, “Baseball: Drug Testing Fallout,” Associated Press, Sept. 16, 2006; “Scorecard,” Sports Illustrated, November 13, 2006, 26. Although he had already been released by Arizona, the major leagues also suspended pitcher Jason Grimsley after government investigators tracked a package of human growth hormone to his home in Phoenix. Although Yusaku Iriki was on the 40-man roster of the New York Mets, he was actually playing for Class AAA Norfolk. For the specific procedures of MLB testing policy, see news.findlaw.com/usatoday/docs/sports/mlbdrugpolicy05.pdf (consulted Jan. 19, 2007).

19

Table 5. Sports Illustrated Poll of Players on Steroid Use, 2005

What Percentage of Major Leaguers What Percentage of the Major Leaguers Use

Steroids? Use Amphetamines?

________________________________________________________________________

Zero…………………………14 percent Zero………………………..16 percent

1-9 percent…………………..45 percent 1-4 percent.………………….9 percent

10-49 percent………………..22 percent 5-50 percent………………..32 percent

50 percent or more……………7 percent More than 50 percent………27 percent

Don’t know…………………. 12 percent Don’t now….……………….16 percent

________________________________________________________________________

Sudden changes in the size and appearance of several prominent sluggers

provides additional subjective clues about possible drug use in major league baseball.

According to a consensus of scientific studies, the use of human growth hormone can

cause an enlarged heart and an increase in the size of the head, the brow (which also

becomes flatter), and the jaw. When accompanied by aggressive weight training, usage

of both human growth hormone and anabolic steroids results in a substantial growth in

muscle mass and weight gain.26 On the other hand, strength coaches assert that, without

using performance-enhancing drugs, it is extraordinarily difficult for a young man

25 “SI Players Poll,” Sports Illustrated, August 15, 2005, 35.

26 See for example Fred Hartgens and Harm Kuipers, “Effects of Androgenic-Anabolic Steroids in Athletes, Sports Medicine 34:8 (2004), 513-54; Michael Bahrke and Charles Yesalis, “Abuse of Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances in Sport and Exercise,” Current Opinion in Pharmacology 4 (2004), 614-20. In pointing us to the research on the physiological effects of drugs on the human body, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Doctors Anne E. Rader and Ken Gatter.

20

between ages 18 and 24 to gain much more than 10 pounds of muscle mass in a year;

older players, if they are in peak condition, will have difficulty gaining more than 2 or 3

pounds.25 Until he had allegedly started taking steroids at the end of the 1998 season,

Barry Bonds, for example, had appeared muscular but long and lean. Then, during Spring

Training in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1999, teammates noted that he had suddenly acquired

much broader shoulders and a much wider chest. Some of them referred to him jokingly

as “The Incredible Hulk.”27 However, after major league baseball implemented tougher

testing standards for the 2005 season, players appeared to downsize almost as quickly.

By Spring Training of 2005, ESPN writer Buster Olney observed that the “scouts and

executives were blown away by the physical changes in some players as the tougher

standard went into effect.”28 In other words, their shoulders and biceps had shrunk in

size. In short, the contrast in physical appearance between the home run record setters of

yesteryear, such as Roger Maris and Henry Aaron, with many of today’s sluggers is

indeed striking but not conclusive evidence of the impact of performance enhancing

drugs.The circumstantial evidence supporting the conclusion that specific players saw

sudden and dramatic improvements in their performances due to the use of performance-

enhancing drugs is equally impressive. Brady Anderson, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa,

Jason Giambi, and Barry Bonds, all of whom have been suspected of using performance-

enhancing drugs, are striking examples of players whose capacities to hit home runs

suddenly shot upward at a spectacular pace. Furthermore, dating back to 1988, 13 of the

34 Most Valuable Player Award winners have been linked in some way—by personal

admissions, grand jury testimony, published accusations, or congressional subpoenas—to

27 Fainrau-Wada and Williams, Game of Shadows, 71-72.

28 Buster Olney, “The Growing HGH Dilemma,” Feb. 2, 2006, sports.espon.go/com (consulted Nov. 29, 2006).

21

performance-enhancing drugs.29 Here we take a quick glance at the charges of drug usage

and their possible effects on the offensive performance of a single player, Barry Bonds.

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams have gathered impressive evidence to

suggest that Bonds began using steroids before the start of the 1999 season.30 At that

time, Bonds was 34 years old and already a sure-fire future member of Baseball’s Hall of

Fame. It was also during spring training of the 1999 season that fellow players and

reporters marveled at Bonds’ sudden change in physical appearance; to them, Bonds

appeared to be much more muscular in 1999 than he had in 1998. When Bonds began his

career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986, his official weight was 185 pounds and he was

six foot and one inch in height; in 2001 he weighed 230 pounds and was six foot and two

inches in height, his jersey size increased from a 42 to a 52, cleat size from 10 ½ to 13,

and his cap size from 7 1/8 to a 7 ¼, even though he now shaved his head. (Overuse of

human growth hormone, medical experts say, can cause the body’s extremities to begin

growing anew, imitating the symptoms of a glandular disorder called acromegly). Bonds

attributed his sudden growth spurt to a new dietary and workout regimen rather than

steroid use.

In 1999 and the four subsequent seasons, Bonds proceeded to embark on a hitting

outburst never before equaled in baseball history. During his historic 2001 season, he had

a .328 batting average, clobbered 73 home runs, and had an on-base percentage of .515.

29 Buster Olney, “Steroid Allegations Overshadow Achievements,” March 12, 2005, sports.espn.go/com (consulted Oct. 30, 2006).

30 Apart from Fainaru-Wada and Williams, Game of Shadows, see Jeff Pearlman, “Great Wasn’t Good Enough,” ESPN: The Magazine, March 27, 2006, 52-58. These writers report that Bonds was infuriated with the media attention lavished on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during their home run duel in 1998. It was then that he turned to steroid-use.

22

What is perhaps most remarkable of all is that during Bonds’ alleged “steroid seasons,”

he averaged a home run in every 2.8 games; in previous years he had averaged a home

run in every 4.6 games. If one excludes the 1999 season, in which Bonds suffered from a

painful elbow injury, then his hitting for the 2000 through 2004 seasons) is even more

astonishing. Bonds won the NL’s MVP award for each of the 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004

seasons, when he was 36 to 39 years old.

Table 6. Bonds’ Performance Before and After Alleged Steroid Use

___________________________________________________________________________Seasons Games BA. HRs OBP RBIs HR per AB

_____________________________________________________________

1986-98 avg. 146 .290 32 .411 93 16.11

1999-04* avg. 136 .328 49 .517 105 8.48

2005 14 .286 5 .404 10 8.40

2006 130 .270 26 .454 77 14.1

________________________________________________________________

*Presumed seasons of anabolic steroid use

Because of an injury Bonds, played in only 14 games in 2005, but it may also be safe to

speculate that for the 2005 and 2006 seasons, when baseball had in place a tougher

screening policy for anabolic steroids, he stopped using them. Hence, his offensive

productivity in terms of home runs and batting average in 2006 fell back to averages

close to those of his 1986-1998 era, before he allegedly started using steroids.

If one accepts the consensus of experts that weight gain follows from the use of

performance-enhancing drugs (when accompanied by systematic weightlifting), then the

changing weights of major leaguers suggests not only increased drug usage during the

23

heyday of the hitting revolution but also a decline in drug usage in more recent seasons.

Since the highpoint of average weight in 1998 (200.5 pounds), the average weight of big

leaguers has fallen to 194.6 in 2006, an average drop of almost 6 pounds per player.

[Insert FIGURE 6 approximately here]

The data in Figure 6 suggests that the use of performance-enhancing drugs peaked with

the 1997-1999 seasons (offensive productivity peaked in the 1999-2000 seasons), and

decreased in the subsequent seasons (the same seasons—except 2000--during which the

offensive revolution cooled off). Furthermore, the coefficient of determination for

pounds per inch of height and home runs per 100 at bats is 19.2 percent for the 1969-93

seasons, 20.7 percent for the 1994-2000 seasons, and 14.8 percent for the 2001-2006

seasons.31 Put in other words, the extra gain in weight, whether due to steroids or not,

paid off in increased home run productivity.

As early as 2002, according to ESPN: The Magazine writer, Buster Olney, the

“conventional wisdom” among general managers was “…that players using a substance

like andro may be at a much higher risk for injury because they have more body mass.”32

General managers cited Mark McGwire as a major case in point. Supplements apparently

aided McGwire in gaining size and strength which resulted in his tape-measure home

31 While American males gained an average of one-half pound per year between 1960 and 2002, the major leaguer’s weight changed little until the 1990s when they gained an average of almost a pound a year. Unlike other American males, the major leaguers have steadily lost weight in the early twenty first century. Of course, major leaguers have always weighed more than the typical American male. The mean weight of American males, ages 20-29 in 1960-1962 was 163.9 pounds, the mean weight of the major league baseball players was 189.4 pounds in the same age cohort. In 1999-2002 for all American males the mean weight was 183.4 pounds and for MLB players was 196.9 pounds.

32 Buster Olney, “The Bigger They Are, The More They’re Falling,” March 31, 2002, sports.espn.go.com (Consulted Nov. 9, 2006).

24

runs in 1998, but his body began breaking down two seasons later with patellar tendinitis.

He retired in 2001, amidst speculation that his frame could not sustain his muscle mass.

“Your body is built to carry a certain amount of mass,” said Pat Gillick, general manager

of the Seattle Mariners. “Your muscle size might increase, but your frame stays the same,

and I think sometimes, with some of these players, they get too big for their bodies.”33

The belief that performance-enhancing drugs resulted in more injuries was so widespread

in baseball circles that, according to Olney, general managers by 2002 hesitated to sign

suspected users to long-term contracts.

The numbers of trips to and length of time that players spent on the disabled list

offers striking support to the worries of the general managers. In 2002, Robert Manfred,

vice president of labor and human resources for major league baseball, testified before

the Senate Commerce Committee that the number of trips to, and the length of time

players were placed on the disabled list increased sharply between the 1998 and 2001

seasons. “While the [team] doctors could not scientifically establish a causal connection

between the increase in injuries and steroid use,” Manfred continued, “there was a strong

consensus [among them] that steroid use was a major contributing factor.” [Italics in the

original.] In this regard, the doctors noted a change in the types of injuries suffered by

players, with many of the injuries being associated with a significant increase in muscle

mass.”34 (Parenthetically, we might add that, presuming the players were not on steroids

and were on better diets and were better-conditioned than their predecessors, then there

33 Quoted in Olney, “The Bigger They Are.”

34“Statement of Robert D. Manfred, Jr.,” Hearings of the [Senate] Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, June 18, 2002, 2-3, in http://commerce.senate.gov.hearings/hearings0202.htm. Emphasis added. See also “The Injury Toll,” Sports Illustrated, June 3, 2002, 44.

25

should be fewer injuries than in the past.) Employing the same measures as Manfred, we

examined the disabled list figures for the 2006 season. For the 2006 season, one in which

presumably steroid use was less than in 2001 because of testing, the totals have dropped,

in particular the average number of days players have been placed on the disabled list.

Indeed, the average has fallen to nearly half the figures for 1998 and 2001 seasons! (See

Table 7 ).

Table 7. Disabled Lists, Selected Seasons

____________________________________________________________________

1998 2001 2006

Number of trips to disabled list 402 467 414

Number of days placed on disabled list* 22,100 27,430 11,490

Average # days placed on disabled list* 55.0 58.1 27.8

_______________________________________________________________________Source: For 1998 and 2001 seasons, “Statement of Robert D. Manfred, Jr.,” Hearings of the [Senate] Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, June 18, 2002, pp. 2-3, in http://commerce.senate.gov.hearings/hearings0202.htm (consulted, Oct. 31, 2006); for 2006 season, adapted from “MLB Injury Reports,” http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/injuries/ (consulted Nov. 3, 2006). We were unable to obtain similar data for other seasons.

*Some players are reactivated early, that is, before spending their full allotment of days on the disabled list.

Since neither Manfred’s data nor our 2006 season data disclose the actual number

of days that individual players spent on the disabled lists (i.e., it did not measure

accurately the reactivation of many players), we constructed new data based on the

information furnished in The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. This information not

only allowed us to determine the actual number of days that players spent on the disabled

26

list but also to distinguish between injuries to pitchers and hitters. (See Table 8). In broad

terms, this data supports the conclusions in Table 7. However, while both hitters and

pitchers saw significant increases in the average number of days they spent on the

disabled lists from the 1998 to the 2001 seasons, the average number of days that the

pitchers spent on the disabled list did not change much from the 2001 to the 2005

seasons. On the other hand, not only did the hitters’ average number of days on the

disabled list soar from the 1998 to the 2001 seasons, they also dropped sharply between

the 2001 and 2005 seasons. Also suggestive of steroid use was the fact that for the 2001

season the disabled-list players weighed an average of three more pounds than their

counterparts.

Table 8. Comparison of the Actual Days that Pitchers and Hitters Spent on the Disabled

List for Selected Seasons

_____________________________________________________________________

Season Days on the Disabled List

Pitchers total Pitchers avg. Hitters total Hitters avg.

______________________________________________________________

1998 6,167 57.1 5,359 42.2

2001 9,425 69.3 8,446 62.1

2005 8,590 67.1 6,212 50.1

The Effects of Performance-Drug Use on Pitching. The available evidence

suggests that in the late 1990s hitters used performance-enhancing drugs more frequently

27

than pitchers, but then in the first two or three seasons of the twenty-first century large

numbers of pitchers also began to use drugs—perhaps in numbers equivalent to the

hitters. Supportive of this assertion is the overall weight gain of pitchers.35 Presuming that

pitchers and hitters were using drugs in equal amounts, the overall effects of drug use on

baseball “was a wash,” declared Bob Nightengale of USA Today in 2005.36 According to

observers holding this view, anabolic steroids and human growth hormones were

particularly effective in assisting pitchers in recovering from exhausting games and minor

injuries. Many observers also believe that drug use could add two to five miles per hour

to the speed of fastballs.37 Unfortunately, we could not locate any data that would allow

comparisons of pitching speeds over time. It is true that the number of strikeouts per 100

at bats increased sharply during the hitting revolution, the 1994-2000 seasons, but this

could be ascribed to the hitters going for the fences more than they had in the past. More

to the point, the strikeouts per 100 at bats has not declined since the peak of the hitting

revolution and the implementation of drug testing.

The most obvious problem with holding the view that steroid use was a wash is

the fact that hitting (and emphatically) not pitching suddenly improved sharply in the late

1990s. Furthermore, home run statistics remained well above earlier historic highs

35 As with the hitters, the weight of pitchers has fallen in recent seasons, suggesting a possible decline in the use of steroids. In the 2006 season the mean weight of pitchers was 197.6 pounds.

36 Bob Nightengale, “Baseball,” February 18, 2005, http://cg1.usatoday.com/mchat/20050218002/tscrpit.htm. (consulted on Oct 12, 2006). Several baseball bloggers also hold this view.

37 See for example Ron Kroichick, “Pitchers Muscle in on Steroids: Drug’s Recuperative Powers Aren’t Just for Slugging Behemoths,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 4, 2005., and the anecdotal evidence in Buster Olney, “Pitchers Able to Reload, Rearm,” June 22, 2006, sports.espn.go/com (consulted Nov. 2, 2006).

28

through the 2006 season. If performance-enhancing drugs benefited pitchers and hitters

equally (and assuming other determinants were constant), then there would not have been

an offensive revolution in recent baseball history.38

There is also a strong consensus among sports medicine experts that steroids aid

hitters more than pitchers. “The knee-jerk response is they [steroids] will help you throw

faster,” explained Don Catlin, a UCLA molecular pharmacologist and director of the Los

Angeles laboratory that does the drug testing for minor league baseball, “But the

information we have doesn’t support that.” Medical experts agree, according to an in-

depth report of Amy Shipley in the April 30, 2006, in the Washington Post, “that the

muscle growth promoted by steroids does not include a corresponding growth in the

tendons, ligaments and other connective tissue that effectively hold the arm together

when it is catapulted violently during a pitch.”39 Indeed, a serious side effect of steroid

use for pitchers is that the additional muscle mass puts greater pressure on the connective

tissue in the arm and shoulder and hence increases the likelihood of injuries. Notice in

Table 8 that the presumed decline in steroid use after the 2001 season has not affected

the length of time that pitchers spent on the disabled list nearly as much as hitters.

All of this having been said about steroids and HGH, much remains unknown

about their effects on athletic performance. No reputable scientists have been able to

conduct controlled experiments. No one knows to what degree one anabolic steroid or the

other permits an athlete to work out harder or for more sustained periods of time. No one

38

? “Baseball’s Steroid Era,” in thesteroidera.blogspot.com/. (consulted on Nov. 26, 2006).39

? Amy Shipley, “Do Steroids Give a Shot in the Arm? Washington Post, April 30, 2006, in washingtonpost.com (consulted Dec. 2, 2006).

29

knows what dosages are optimum for muscle building. Given what we know about the

effects of other chemicals on the human body, it seems reasonable to assume that a

particular anabolic steroid might help one athlete more than another in building muscles.

In other words, it is likely that some players benefited far more than others from using

drugs. It is even plausible that any given steroid, HGH, and dosage could actually reduce

the performance of a particular athlete.

The Ban on Amphetamines May Have Increased Offensive Productivity. It is an

intriguing possibility that the reduced use of amphetamines resulting from the testing

program instituted in the 2006 season contributed significantly to the increase in

offensive productivity for that season. Amphetamines have long been used in major

league baseball; within baseball’s subculture, they had been as acceptable as cigarette

smoking or beer drinking. In his FBI affidavit, Jason Grimsley stated that, until the 2005

season, each major league clubhouse “had coffee pots labeled ‘leaded’ and ‘unleaded’ for

the players, indicating coffee with amphetamines and without.”40 In 2005, a Sports

Illustrated poll indicated that 27 percent of the players estimated that more than 50

percent of their ranks used amphetamines and a USA Today poll of 700 players indicated

that 35.3 percent reported that at least half of the players used amphetamines.41 Many

players believed that amphetamines, by keeping them more alert and countering tedium,

improved their performances. "You hear stories about guys taking them as soon as they

wake up in the morning and all through the day," said Seattle Mariners pitcher Jeff

40U.S. District Court, Arizona, Affidavits, Case #06-7142MB, http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/sp/tools/med/2006/06/ipt/1149735814.pdf . 41 “SI Players Poll,” Sports Illustrated, August 15, 2005, 35; USA Today results reported in Bob Hohler, “Amphetamines Seen Rampant, But Sport’s Rules Weak” Boston Globe, April 17, 2005 in bostonglobe.com (consulted Dec. 2, 2006).

30

Nelson in 2005. "It just gets to be a habit. They need to pop more of them to get them

more awake."42

Yet experimental research indicates that there is a threshold in amphetamine use,

and that once one exceeds that threshold, it adversely affects one’s motor skills. Whereas

laboratory experiments have found performance-enhancing qualities associated with low

dosages of amphetamines, a study by Norwegian researchers published in 2006 found

that high doses of amphetamines had a positive correlation with reduced concentration

and traffic-related impairment of drivers.43 Presuming that many of the players prior to

the 2006 season had been heavy users of amphetamines, it is certainly plausible that the

reduced use of amphetamines by hitters in the 2006 season actually improved their

offensive output. Apart from the possibility that the heavy use of amphetamines may

have directly reduced offensive output prior to the 2006 season, Denver Rockies

outfielder Matt Holiday observed that, with the new testing program for amphetamines in

42 Quoted in “Amphetamines and Baseball: Pep Pills Still Being Used by MLB Players,” Associated Press Story, May 22, 2005.

43 Ingebjorg Gustavsena, Jorg Morlanda, and Jorgen G. Bramnessb, “Impairment Related to Blood Amphetamine and/or Methamphetamine Concentrations in Suspected Drugged Drivers,” Accident Analysis & Prevention 38:3 (May 2006), 490-95; R. Toomey, M.J. Lyons, S.A. Eisen, H. Xian, S. Chantarujikapong, L.J. Seidman, S.V Faraone, and M.T. Tsuang, “A Twin Study of the Neuropsychological Consequences of Stimulant Abuse,” Archive of General Psychiatry 60:3 (March 2003), 303-10; and National Institute of Drug Abuse, National Institute of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Medications Development Research for Treatment of Amphetamine and Methamphetamine Addiction, Report to Congress, August, 2005. For additional studies supporting a similar conclusion, see K. Ando, C.E. Johanson, L.S. Seiden, and C.R. Schuster, “Sensitivity Changes to Dopoaminergic Agents in Fine Motor Control of Rhesus Monkeys After Repeated Methamphetamine Administration,” Pharmacology Biochemical Behavior 22:5 (May, 1985), 737-43 and H. Homayoun and B. Moghaddam, “Progression of Cellular Adaptations in Medial and Prefrontal and Oritofrontal Cortex in Response to Repeated Amphetamine Use,” Journal of Neuroscience 31 (August 2, 2006), 8025-39.

31

2006, players might also drink less alcohol, rest and sleep more, pay more attention to

their diets, and maintain better conditioning than they had done in the “amphetamine”

era.44 In short, the banning of amphetamines may help to account for the 2006-season

spike in offensive output.

It is also plausible that the continuing use, or perhaps even increased use, of

human growth hormone (HGH) contributed to the increase in offense for the 2006

season. As ESPN writer Buster Olney put it before the 2006 season began, “The road

map for players who want to cheat is now clearly defined. You can cheat, and everybody

knows how.”45 Players cheated by using HGH, a hormone banned by baseball but not

detectable by urine tests. (To develop an effective urine test, Major League Baseball is

financing a three-year project led by pharmacologist Don Carlin at UCLA.) Allegedly

HGH permits more strenuous workouts, speeds recovery from injuries, and increases red

blood cells.46 Since Jason Grimsley’s revelation of HGH use among players in the Spring

of 2006, no additional news of HGH use has publicly surfaced. Furthermore, as our data

has shown, the declining average weight and average days spent on the disabled lists by

players since the 2000 season throws in doubt arguments that steroid and HGH use

continues unabated.

44 Jerry Crasnick, “Kicking Amphetamines,” Jan.17, 2006, in espn.go.com/ (consulted on Nov. 4, 2006).

45 Olney, “The Growing HGH Dilemma,” Feb. 2, 2006. See also Seth Mnookin, Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 359n.

46 According to Tom Farrey, “The Case for HGH,” ESPN: The Magazine, Jan. 29, 2007, 48-52, NFL physicians not infrequently prescribe HGH for athletes suffering from physical injuries. We have found no corresponding information about prescriptions of HGH or steroids in baseball. Steroids and HGH prescribed by physicians are of course legal.

32

An additional consideration in explaining the persistence of high offensive output

in recent seasons (i.e. since the apex of the hitting revolution in the 1999 and 2000

seasons and since the implementation of tougher drug testing in 2005 and 2006) may be

the residual effects of steroids as well as simply better nutrition and training by the

hitters. Some authorities maintain that, if athletes continue a rigorous weight training

program after going off steroids, they can retain for several years much of the benefit (in

terms of muscle mass) that they gained via steroids.47 Furthermore, an indeterminant

number of players, according to locker room scuttlebutt, “stack” on steroids and HGH in

the off-season. They enjoy the benefits of additional muscle mass gained via drugs

though they discontinue use early enough before Spring Training to avoid detection.

Locker room scuttlebutt also holds that players, especially pitchers, deliberately go on the

disabled list when fatigued or with minor injuries so that they can use HGH and/or

steroids to achieve full recovery

Finally, apart from the use of performance-enhancing drugs, it would be remiss to

ignore the enormous shift since the early 1990s in the physical training of baseball

players. Whereas only a handful of players engaged in systematic weight training prior to

1990, today nearly all the players are far more conscious of, and involved in, rigorous

training programs. It may well be that these programs aid the hitters more than the

pitchers and hence have contributed, as we argued in 2002, to the increased offensive

output of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries.

47See for example Michael J. Rennie, Henning Wakerhage, Espen E. Spangenburg, Frank W. Booth, “Size of the Human Muscle Mass,” Annual Review of Physiology 66 (March 2004): 799-828.

33

RECAPITUATION AND CONCLUSIONS

A reexamination of offensive data offers strong support for the conclusion that recent

baseball history can be divided into three eras: 1) the two-divisional era of low

productivity (1969-1993), (2) the great offensive barrage (1994-2000 seasons), and (3)

the new equilibrium (2001-2006 seasons). Within these parameters, the offensive

outburst peaked during the 1999 and 2000 seasons. However, the decline in offensive

productivity in the 2001 through 2006 seasons from that peak has been relatively modest.

Put n historical perspective, the offensive output remains well above the two-divisional

era (the 1969 through 1993 seasons). In fact, measures of offensive productivity in the

2001 through 2006 seasons for the most part exceeded the averages for the 1994 through

1998 seasons. It may well be that baseball has entered a new equilibrium that entails a

sustainable long-term trend of greater offensive output similar to that led by Babe Ruth in

the 1920s.

In this essay, we give particular attention to ballpark size, changes in the de facto

strike zone, and performance-enhancing drugs as determinants of offensive productivity.

As the distances from home plates to outfield fences have remained virtually unchanged

for the seasons under consideration, ballpark size has played a negligible role in

explaining changes in offense. However, as we found earlier, Denver, with its

exceptionally high elevation, did contribute to the overall increase in offensive output in

the 1990s. Furthermore, the use of a humidor there (beginning with the 2002 season) has

encouraged a decline of aggregate offensive output for all of major league baseball.

34

The size of the de facto strike zone (as measured by base-on-balls) has been a

major determinant of offensive productivity. The issuance of walks soared during the

high-point of the offensive revolution, the 1999 and 2000 seasons. This statistic not only

meant that hitters no longer needed to protect as large a strike zone as formerly but also

lends strong support to the conclusion that we reached in 2002, namely that the shrinking

de facto strike zone (among other factors) led to a new, more aggressive style of hitting,

one that was more effective than earlier hitting styles. However, efforts by the major

leagues to increase the size of the strike zone (at least for high and for inside pitches) and

impose a more uniform strike zone on the umpires (beginning in the 2001 season) may

have had only a slight influence on offensive productivity. True, base-on-balls did decline

in the aggregate for the 2001-2006 seasons, but pitchers at the same time complained that

the “high strike” did not give them much of an edge on the hitter, that umpires no longer

called as strikes pitches that were slightly outside the plate, and that hitters continued to

crowd the plate.

The widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs also appears to be a

significant determinant of offensive productivity in recent baseball history. A close

examination of the evidence (statistically in terms of weight per inch of height and days

spent on the disabled lists per season) suggests that the use of drugs by the hitters

increased in the late 1990s. Anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, when

accompanied by systematic weightlifting, enabled the hitters to bulk up, that is, to add to

their muscle mass and overall strength. When revelations of drug use began to explode

into the public arena in 2002 and in subsequent years and when the major leagues began

to implement testing and penalties (beginning in 2003), it appears that drug use among

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major leaguers—at least in the case of anabolic steroids—dropped. The fall in the

average weight of big leaguers after the peak season of 2000 and the sharp decline in

average days spent on the disabled list between the 2001 and 2006 seasons offer powerful

statistical support for this conclusion.

What is far less clear is the degree to which the decline in the use of steroids (but

perhaps not human growth hormone) has affected offensive productivity. In terms of the

long-term history of the game, offensive productivity remains high in the early twenty-

first century, indicating the possible arrival of a new equilibrium between baseball’s

offense and defense. Finally, the upturn in offensive output in the 2006 season suggests

the possibility that the ban on the use of amphetamines beginning in that season and the

continuing use of human growth hormones may have aided the hitters.

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