THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Hank Aaron:

Actually, the 1968 season wasn’t the best time to present my case. It was the first time since my rookie year that I didn’t drive in or score 100 runs. I was so frustrated that at one point I tried using a pep pill—a greenie—that one of my teammates gave me. When that thing took hold, I thought I was having a heart attack. It was a stupid thing to do…

Denny McLain and Bob Gibson:

“A few pills—I take all kinds—and the pain’s gone,” says Dennis McLain of the Detroit Tigers. McLain also takes shots, or at least took a shot of cortisone and Xylocaine (anti-inflammant and painkiller) in his throwing shoulder prior to the sixth game of the 1968 World Series—the only game he won in three tries. In the same Series, which at times seemed to be a matchup between Detroit and St. Louis druggists, Cardinal Bob Gibson was gobbling muscle-relaxing pills, trying chemically to keep his arm loose. The Tigers’ Series hero, Mickey Lolich, was on antibiotics.

“We occasionally use Dexamyl and Dexedrine [amphetamines].... We also use barbiturates, Seconal, Tuinal, Nembutal.... We also use some anti-depressants, Triavil, Tofranil, Valium.... But I don’t think the use of drugs is as prevalent in the Midwest as it is on the East and West coasts,” said Dr. I. C. Middleman, who, until his death last September, was team surgeon for the St. Louis baseball Cardinals.

That last one is from a great Sports Illustrated piece from 1969. Worth the read for those who haven’t seen it.

http://bit.ly/fQHFQl

Another thing… do you think that anyone in the D.R. cares at all about USA media’s views on PED?

Michael Caine had a great line about how they used to do just as bad things as movie stars today, except no one would know about it.  “The paparazzi ruined it for us.”

That’s what the sports media is to athletes.

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=135418480&m=135449919

Go to 3:45

We should go after the movie stars with breast jobs.  Also, I’m sure there are many male movie stars who used/uses PEDs to enhance their muscular look (and take off their shirt in the movies) and get paid multi-millions more because of it.  Shouldn’t we lock those guys up?

"Don’t mess with my daughter, and don’t mess with baseball.”

It’s an irrational philosophy, but that’s how some people want to live it.  Should we give them education… or pity?

#4 - Stallone has admitted to using HGH and other things to help bulk up for certain movies: http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/sylvester-stallone-admits-using-human-growth/

Wait-wait! You mean to tell me that Jim Bouton wasn’t making up all that greenie stuff for Ball Four? Oh my god, I have to prop up my boyhood heroes over these modern louts another way!

I love how Bob Costas carries Mickey Mantle’s baseball card in the same pocket that he carries the Constitution and the Bible.(*)

(*) I’m being facetious about the Constitution and the Bible, but not about Mick.  That part is admitted fact by Costas.(**)

(**) Yes, I know, Costas’ priorities are all out of whack, but that’s what happens when you treat baseball the way Costas does, and you have to make excuses for all your preconceptions to make sure you remain sane.

Tangotiger,
What do you find so objectionable about Bob Costas’ “priorities?”

I know he’s called Bonds’ HR records “bogus and inauthentic” in contrast with Maris’ and Aaron’s records.  Is that so controversial?  Has this become a shibboleth?

Note that Costas also stated: “I think it would have been excessive for Barry Bonds to go to jail. It’s also absurd for people to talk about morality. Hundreds and hundreds of guys used steroids in that era.”

In the past, he’s also expressed support for inducting steroid users into the HOF, but he’d like to simultaneously see plaques introduced to the museum to address how numbers have been influenced by eras of injustice and cheating.  That would apply not just to the steroids era, but pre-integration as well.

People can disagree, but what is “all out of whack” about these positions?

i personally find costas reverence for baseball records more than a little out of whack. i love stats and records but the whole propensity of asterisks or assigning legitimacy to record holders veers far to close to zealotry for me.

I was jsut given this link, and it fits well here:

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a “culture war of fact.” In other words, paradoxically, you don’t lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

This is Costas.  If Mick was the HR king, and was recently found out to be a heavy PED user, would Costas have responded as he did with Bonds?  No, of course not.

He’s set up a narrative for his (Costas) life.  As long as everything fits, then he’ll fit the evidence to fit his life.

If Mick was the HR king, and was recently found out to be a heavy PED user, would Costas have responded as he did with Bonds?  No, of course not.

Let me get this straight: You know Costas has his “priorities all of out of whack”.  Not from anything he’s actually said or done, but because of how you assume he’ll react in a hypothetical situation??

You reference “motivated reasoning” and pre-conceived narratives.  Have you paused to consider whether you’ve constructed a narrative that pushes you to mock any mainstream reporter that every says anything negative about a PED user?  Regardless of how much substantive common ground they share with you on balance?

sorry, that should read:
that ever says anything negative about a PED user?

"Not from anything he’s actually said or done, “

It’s based on what he has said.

Yes, I have considered my bias toward sportswriters.  Every time I think my narrative is wrong, they say something even worse.  One day, the Davidoffs and the Posnanskis will overwhelm the Costasanistas.  When that day will happen, I’ll gladly, and thankfully, change my tune.

It’s based on what he has said.

For example?

I was referring to his “inauthentic / world is flat” comment.

Your manner of engaging me disinterests me in this discussion. Don’t worry, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I have no ability to move this discussion forward.  If you can’t move the discussion forward, then best to leave the discussion as-is.

Tangotiger, I’m just trying to figure out if there’s anything more than a semantic shibboleth behind your vehement reaction to Costas.

If you examine all the things he’s said about PEDs over the years, I expect you’ll find that on balance his positions are generally thoughtful and closer to your own than to most HOF voters.  You or I may not personally have the same passion as Costas or use the same words he does when it comes to the state of the HR records, but would you seriously dispute the basic premise that those records have been severely cheapened? 

I’m very confident that Bonds would not own the HR records without steroids.  I’m also very confident (given the absence of evidence to the contrary) that Maris’ and Aaron’s HR records were not attributable to any illicit substances.  Does anyone seriously think otherwise?  Or am I completely unreasonable and have my priorities out of whack?

None of this (by itself) makes Maris or Aaron morally superior to Bonds.  And I don’t think Costas has said otherwise.

Michael: no, I’ve got nothing more on Costas.  I don’t really care much about what his position anyway, other than it’s because someone is paying him for his opinions, so I have to be exposed to it, no matter how much I try to avoid him.  He’s like a mosquito bite.

Cheapened records?  I don’t really care actually.  It’s what the players and owners accepted.  Like Lance Armstrong and the rest of the doping scandal in that sport.  So, that’s the landscape.

As for your confidence, it’s really irrelevant, isn’t it?  The players took greenies for something more than a placebo affect.  Whether it’s to let them play at 100% of their body capabilities (you can throw in corticosteroid / anti-inflammatory from Kirk Gibson) or at 110% (like presumably what a PED would give you) is really irrelevant.

or how about costas using bonds’ single guilty verdict of obstruction as an excuse to declare that anyone who doesn’t agree with his preferred narrative of baseball history to be either dumb or ignorant? if there was ever an instance of “holy writer” stereotypical behavior i would point to this.

Is all injustice equivalent?

How dare we go after someone who rigs a vending machine to steal candy bars while others put more $ in their pockets using aggressive (but perfectly legal) tax deductions?

And how dare we go after Madoff unless we went after the fella who stole from the vending machine?

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I don’t expect anyone to give a hoot about cheapened records.  But if you don’t care, why the hostility towards people who do care?

I’m not hostile.  I just have the same reaction as I do with Beck and others.  As much as I want to ignore them, they are in my face.

...anyone who doesn’t agree with his preferred narrative

Overbearing choice of words aside, what part of the narrative do you substantively disagree with?

the part where he considers maris and aaron the hr record holders and not bonds.

So the objection is that he didn’t explicitly add the qualifier “steroid-free” HR record holders?

no, it’s way more than that. for little of what bob costas says do i not object to. he could probably say “i’m retiring” and i would be fine with it.

1. I don’t even know what the hell “authentic” means in the context of baseball records.  Apparently Costas has defined this term very narrowly, and his definition has been forced upon the rest of humanity.

2. Costas feels the need to follow-up his completely rational, unassailable opinion by tossing around pejoratives about anyone who disagrees.

Nope, can’t see how anyone could disagree with his narrative.

We know Bonds took the cream and the clear. There is evidence that Bonds might have taken what are commonly accepted as anabolic steroids, as well as many other players. We don’t know how to quantify the effect of those drugs, and pitchers were using as well as hitters.

Reading these excerpts of baseball in the 60’s and 70’s, I can remember well that it was a common occurrence for players to get shots of cortisone in stiff joints. When I read of Bill White getting injections of pain killers (novocaine) and anti-inflammatories (cortisone) or sprained ankles and torn rotator cuffs, and then go back out and play, I have to believe that today those players go on the disabled list. White says he got 73 RBIs in the 2nd half after getting the cortisone for his shoulder. That’s 73 more than he would have gotten on the DL. Those drugs did increase White’s counting stats over what he would have gotten without them. Greenies might not make a player stronger, but the players took them for energy boosts. How many more HRs did Mantle and Aaron get from using uppers? More or less than Binds might have gotten from steroids or HGH?

A sprained ankle is torn tissue. Get a shot of novocaine and keep on playing? How much more, possibly permanent, damage is being done, playing on that numbed ankle? The SI article named two athletes who dropped over dead on the playing field from amphetamines. More recently, Daryl Kile dead in his hotel room from ephedrine. Those things sound at least as dangerous as steroids.

I’m not saying that any of these is right or should be excused, but I don’t want to hear that the ‘steroids era’ needs an asterisks when compared to other time periods. Players have always been seeking whatever advantage they can find.

I agree with most of Brian/#27, but I don’t think Darryl Kile died from ephedrine.  He died of a heart attack, and the autopsy (at least as initially reported) found that drugs were not a factor and that he tested negative for ephedrine.

I stand corrected on Kile...that was my memory, but I should have googled it first.

How many more HRs did Mantle and Aaron get from using uppers? More or less than Binds might have gotten from steroids or HGH?

Is there someone who truly doesn’t have the foggiest idea whether or not Aaron gained more HRs from one greenie pill in 1968 than Bonds did from steroids or the Clear?

People have impugned Costas’s motives (i.e. he’s biased towards the players of his Mantle-era childhood).  One can just as easily question the motives behind the willful ignorance of someone who throws up their hands and says that players have always tried to cheat and it’s hopeless to distinguish them by the scope or success of their cheating.  And besides we shouldn’t even distinguish cheating from legal medical interventions because it’s all so arbitrary anyway.  Are you taking these positions to promote your own heroes?

As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t about moral superiority.  But if some people want to sort through the mess and account for fairly clear examples of massively successful cheating, then what exactly is the problem with that?  If you don’t care for the exercise at all, I get that and I don’t suggest that you need to care. 

If your complaint is strictly about the over-the-top “earth is flat” rhetoric, I get that too.  What I don’t get is the extreme contempt for and rejection of the underlying exercise.  In some ways this strikes me as the mirror-opposite of a classic saber-fan vs. “Triple Crown stats fan” argument.  FIP and WAR aren’t interesting to every fan.  And occasionally, someone who cites FIP or WAR will make an overbearing, condescending, or poorly qualified statement about the superiority of those measures.  But that should hardly detract from the merit of the measures themselves.

"What I don’t get is the extreme contempt for and rejection of the underlying exercise.”

If it was an exercise, I’d be extremely interested.  What we are getting instead are summary opinions and conclusions, with evidence that fits the preconceived narrative.  In other words, we are getting bullsh!t from sports reporters.  That’s where you get (my) contempt.

As a contrast, I have great respect for stuff that Alan does with testing bats.  He tests in a lab, he compares to the empirical, he comes up with conclusions and uncertainty levels.

Now, it’s easier with bats than with people to do this testing.  And so, our uncertainty levels with people has got to be far wider.  Instead, we get conclusions from sports reporters on PED and its effects that are more certain than what you’d get from Alan testing bats.

Costas isn’t a sabermetrician, and he’s obviously not going to approach this with sophisticated mathematical models.  But why is that necessary in this case?

As analysts, we can ask how many SDs above his projected numbers did Bonds perform at after we know he started taking the Clear?  What were his projected odds of reaching various HR totals before that point?

In this case, the before and after contrast is so dramatic that anyone who vaguely understands aging can readily see that something extraordinarily unlikely happened, even if they don’t understand SDs or projection systems.

Is it possible that it was just a mere coincidence and that the contrast had nothing to do with PEDs?  Sure.  In that vein, it’s also theoretically possible (as folks have quipped in other threads) that Willie Bloomquist is the greatest player of all time but has just been hyper-extraordinarily unlucky.

More to the point, some people (myself included) prefer not to give any benefit of the doubt to the player when something extraordinarily unlikely coincides with well documented cheating.  You may prefer to approach the matter differently.  Does that make my approach contemptuous bullsh!t?

Even if I concede that PED is a net gain for a not-insignificant number of players, it does not necessarily follow that we need to be contemptuous toward their accomplishments.

I’ve always said this is a workplace safety issue.  This is an issue among the players mostly, and partly between players and owners.  The owners punish the players, and it ends there.  We, as fans, as historians, don’t need to place further punishment beyond what the players and owners want or agreed to.

Gaylord Perry admitted to cheating, and *no one cares*.  The rules for cheating were in place.  If the rule was lifetime ban, then it’s lifetime ban.  If the rule was 8 games, then it’s 8 games.

The owners punish the players, and it ends there.

Are you opposed to people who communicate their own judgments about Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe?  Or to those who honor players who never played MLB because of the color of their skin?

Rules are slow to change to adapt to new realities.  And they aren’t necessarily crafted with an eye to anticipating every possible circumstance.  Is there a rule against lacing the opposing team’s water cooler with sleeping pills?

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I’ve always said this is a workplace safety issue.
I largely agree with that.

This is an issue among the players mostly...

This I can’t quite agree with.

Even the most ardent “make steroids legal” advocate will admit that one steroids side effect is pretty much 100% universal: sterility.  (This is often accompanied by frat-house humor suggesting that this is a bonus feature)

As the proud father of a toddler, I can’t imagine a workplace where my wife or I would be pressured to choose between our fertility or our jobs.  (Leaving aside for the moment any other health risks).

In 2011, do we really need to have a discussion as to whether or not employees can consent to a workplace that discriminates in favor of workers who agree to become sterile?  No less by taking illicit substances that would subject the worker to a felony if they are caught in possession of it?

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Gaylord Perry admitted to cheating, and *no one cares*

I can only speak for myself when I say that:
1) I do care and I would weigh this if I compare him to other pitchers
2) I’m inclined to give MUCH more slack to cheating that doesn’t involve “workplace safety” as you call it.  Ball doctoring is more akin to a fielder pretending he caught a ball that was trapped than to a player taking illicit drugs.
3) His career was mostly before my time, but from what I’ve read, Perry’s cheater persona was 98% an attempt to psyche out opponents and 2% real.  I could be wrong about that.

Maris went through his own “authentic” situation with the HR record. 162 v 154 games or whatever it was.

There is also quite a bit of desparity between Aaron’s and Bond’s PED use, even if we cannot accurately nail it down to an exact %.

I do get tired of numerous fans bringing up Aaron’s use of a greenie as justification for Bonds use.

In 6th grade I stole a can of Skoal. Technically Madoff and I are both thieves. If God were running the HoF, Bonds and Aaron would be equally “cheaters”. God isn’t running the HoF*.

* I cannot prove that God isn’t running the HoF. Feel free to argue the point.

Ok, I’ll take Aaron at his word that he only took a single greenie. I was making a general example. It’s really hard to quantify these things over the years because we lack the data. Who used what, and who didn’t? How much of an effect does it have (how many more HRs did Alex Sanchez hit?) Did Bonds hit more HRs because of superior strike zone judgment (don’t swing out of the zone, never let a fat pitch in the zone pass by). Do steroids help center the ball on the sweet part of the bat?

Some guys use steroids in recent years, some used other stuff in previous years. I don’t believe we can single out only one group - either all or none.

I don’t believe we can single out only one group - either all or none.

Agreed, and I’m not aware of even a “holy sportswriter” who has argued to the contrary (maybe it’s because I don’t read enough of them...)

Does that make it unreasonable to express some high-level judgments at least about the few cases where we have pretty convincing information?

"I’m inclined to give MUCH more slack to cheating that doesn’t involve “workplace safety” as you call it.”

Wouldn’t doctoring the ball be a workplace safety issue?  Even worse than steriods?  After all, if Perry happened to put too much vasoline on the ball, he could have a ball thrown at 90MPH that he has no control over.  Potentially going at a batter’s head.  So rather than putting his own health in jeopardy, he’s putting someone else’s.

"I do get tired of numerous fans bringing up Aaron’s use of a greenie as justification for Bonds use.”

I don’t use it to justify Bonds’s use.  However, many of the holy writers, and impassioned fans take a black-and-white approach to steriods.  That is, steriods is cheating, cheating is wrong, therefore, cheaters shouldn’t be in the HOF.  Well, Aaron cheat.  Aaron is in the HOF, and I don’t recall anyone being willing to take him out.

So, now it’s no longer black-and-white.  Now it’s shades of gray.  What level of cheating is too much?  Are greenies okay but steriods not?  Why?

Mike K, Can we agree that practically nothing in life is ever completely black and white if you examine it closely enough?  And can we also agree that it doesn’t follow that therefore all shades of gray must be treated equally?

And that your argument about Perry doesn’t pass the laugh test?