Quote:
Originally Posted by Runscott
There was a really good SI article a few years ago, that related to this. Steroids didn't turn everyone into all stars, but it made a lot of players perform better - players who shouldn't have made the majors barely made it, keeping non-cheaters in the minors, which is what the article was about. Few were noticing the huge improvement of such players, because they ended up being lower-tier major leaguers;instead, everyone focused on good players who all of a sudden found unreal batting power.
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Scott- I've referred to this article about 3-4 times in other related threads, I'm glad someone else has read it. Don't want to retype the same words over and over, but the general stance I've had for years is that steroids have had a far more negative affect on marginal/fringe players than on stars and fans. Fans/media focus on stars because sacred records are being threatened, but I think many hundreds, if not thousands of fringe players' (and families) lives were greatly and negatively influenced by the widespread use of steriods in the minors/MLB... which I see as a result of Selig and Co's totally lax attitude toward the issue, while they were reaping benefits from the epic HR chase, etc.
You had the 20-40 men on man 40 rosters debating whether to use or not for sake of getting or keeping a job. This was made worse by knowledge that "the guy taking your job" is probably using. You also had guys like the author of that article, who never used but never made a big league roster. While he toiled in the minors, he saw many other marginal talents (guys originally throwing 85, but who'd added 10-12 MPH on their fastball in a single off season) blow right by him
There may be a lot of inflated stats/records up at the top of the steroid era's food chain.. and I agree, that really sucks.. but I think the fact that many many more guys at the lower end of the baseball food chain were robbed of their big league dream, and subsequent paychecks bothers me more.