Some drugs, a bike, and a few Dominicans

When I was ten years old one of the most historic summers in the history of Major League Baseball took place. This was before I could check scores on my cell phone or the internet. Although those Medias existed, I was too young to own a cell phone and did not know too much about the internet. Instead, my dad would come home from work each day and update me on what had happened that day in baseball. He would tell me, “Mark McGwire hit another home run today and so did Sammy Sosa.” I soon became enthralled in the race for Roger Maris’ home run record in the summer of 1998. I was born in St. Louis and although I only lived there for about 6 weeks and do not remember any of it, I had always been a Cardinals fan. I lived in Arizona and until that same summer Arizona did not have a team. It took me a few seasons to warm up to the Diamondbacks so for the summer of 1998, I was still a Cardinals fan. I desperately wanted Mark McGwire to out slug Sosa and not only win the race for most home runs that season, but break all time record for most home runs in a season. I still remember that summer as one of the most exciting sports summers of my life.


On the night of September 8, Fox ran special coverage of the Cardinals vs. Cubs game. This was the game in which Mark McGwire had the chance to hit his 62nd home run of the season and thus pass Roger Maris for most home runs in a single season. It may not have been a pretty, but that night, McGwire hit a line drive into left field which barely cleared the wall. He had broken the record which had been held for 37 years. I was ecstatic. But truthfully, I was too young to really understand the history behind that home run. Like I said, I was 10, all I knew was that home runs = fun! I liked seeing home runs; to me they made baseball more exciting. So can you imagine my devastation when I found out a few years later that Mark McGwire was using steroids when he broke that record? His record only stood for 3 years until another user of steroids, Barry Bonds, was able surpass McGwire.

I do not know why, but cheating really bothered me. Maybe it is because I was taught by my parents to be honest in all I do. I was actually angry and upset that these men who cheated were breaking records. I became a snob about it as if I were some baseball purist who had witnessed Roger Maris or Babe Ruth hit their home runs and wanted McGwire’s and Bond’s names erased from the record books.

My frustration with performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) was later magnified in 2009 when Manny Ramirez was caught and suspended 50 games for using a form of testosterone. Ramirez was coming off of one of his best seasons in the majors. In 2008 he was acquired by the Dodgers and hit 37 homeruns with a total of 121 RBIs. He also finished 3rd in batting average, 2nd in slugging percentage, and 3rd in OPS. But the stat that upset me the most was that he had a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 6 games, which basically means that if the Dodgers were not playing with Manny, they would have lost 6 more games than they did with him in the lineup. In 2008 the Diamondbacks (who by now had been my favorite team for several years), lost the division to the Dodgers by 2 games. In my mind, the math was simple; Dodgers – Manny = Diamondbacks win division.

Last season the Diamondbacks did finally win their division. They finished in last place the season before and somehow, with the help of their manager Kirk Gibson, they were able to win 29 more games than they had the previous season. In the divisional series they met up with the Brewers and the big bats of Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. I watched all five games of that series and it seemed that each time those two came up to bat, they got a hit. In the 3 games the Brewers won against the D-Backs, Ryan Braun was 8 for 11 from the plate and scored 5 runs. He alone sunk the Diamondbacks hopes of winning the series. Braun went on to win the National League MVP that season. But it was not too long before it was announced that Ryan Braun too had failed a drug test. Although due to a technicality Braun was never suspended, the possibility that he used steroids to beat the Diamondbacks upset me.

Now let’s fast forward to today and the past couple of weeks. About two weeks ago Melky Cabrera, the Giants left-fielder was suspended 50 games for using testosterone. He was having a career season and was second in the National League in batting average. At the time of his suspension, the Diamondbacks were about 4 games behind the Giants for first place in the division. Melky’s WAR for this season up to the point of his suspension was 4.5 games. Just as in 2008, the Diamondbacks were indirectly impacted by a player using a PED.

About a week after Cabrera got suspended, Bartolo Colon of the Oakland A’s was also suspended for using testosterone. The similarities between these two players where quite shocking; both players were having surprisingly high statistical seasons, both players were in a contract season, both players were born in the Dominican Republic, and both players were from the Bay Area. To top it all off, it just so happens that I went to see the Giants play the Nationals in what ended up being Melky’s final game before his suspension. A week later I went to see Bartolo Colon it what was his final start before his suspension. Maybe I am bad luck and maybe I should not go see the Diamondbacks when they are in San Francisco next month. Then to top off these past two weeks of baseball suspensions, yesterday afternoon Lance Armstrong, winner of the Tour de France 7 times was stripped of his medals for his involvement with steroids. What kept running through my head was Dave Chappelle’s character Tyrone Biggums saying “Drugs is all around us.” And oh how true it is, drugs are all around us and all around sports.

As per the usual, my initial reaction was to be upset, angry, and like the Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson, demand stronger penalties for those players who are caught using any form of PEDs. But over the past two weeks as I have read many articles and listened to the opinions of several baseball commentators, my feelings on the matter have surprisingly shifted. I would not say that my thoughts on the matter have changed 180 degrees, but I find myself a little bit more sympathetic towards the users of these PEDs. I would love to live in a world where baseball was drug free and every player was using their own abilities and not a drug induced manufactured strength to win ball games. But sadly, that is not the world we live in. But I believe we are headed in the right direction.

Over and over again sports analysts and both current and former athletes have said that the policy in baseball needs to change. I have heard dozens of ideas to change the current policy. Some have said that the moment you test positive you need to be kicked out of the league. Others have said that wins need to be vacated from the team and thus the entire team needs to be punished. Some have even gone far enough to say that these international ball players who test positive need to be banned from the United States and sent back to their home countries. No matter the idea that has been presented, it has been almost unanimous that the current policy is not working and needs to be changed.

My first question is this, have we forgotten what the current policy is? For first time offenders you get suspended 50 games, second time offenders are suspended 100 games, and if you are caught a third time, you are kicked out of the league. To me, this rule sounds a lot like baseball, three strikes and you’re out. Many people have said that the current policy simply does not work because people are still getting caught with PEDs. But I argue that if no one had been caught then the policy would not be working at all. Five people have been caught this season and those five will have to sit out one third of the entire season. And it seems clear to me that those players who get caught once do not make the mistake again because only one player has ever received the 100 game suspension, Manny Ramirez. I am not going to say that the policy does or does not need to be changed, but I think the current policy, although it may go against popular opinion, is truly working.

Although there are many international players in MLB, many who do not speak English as their first language, I have no doubt that each and every current player knows and understands the league’s drug policy. So why would anyone ever risk using a PED knowing that they will get suspended from their team and in the long run, hurt their chances of receiving a big contract in the future? I have thought about this and suddenly, it all makes sense. I had to ask myself, “Have I ever cheated in sports to help me win?” I wish I was the perfect example of integrity, but I have cheated in sports, especially in golf. I have missed putts by an inch or two and went ahead and counted it as a made putt. I have sent balls into the water and just gone ahead and taken a mulligan. Heck, I have even cheated in board games with my family and friends. It is a temptation each time I am the banker in Monopoly to not take an extra 20 bucks. So if I would cheat to beat a friend at golf or my wife at Skipbo, would I cheat in baseball in order to win more games, get a better contract and make millions of more dollars? I sure hope I would not, but until I am put into the shoes of these players, I do not know how I would react to such a temptation.

Let’s run through two different scenarios. In the first scenario, I am an up and coming minor league baseball player. I am in my first season after playing 4 years for my University’s team. I have been the best baseball player on all my teams since I was young. My parents paid for me to play for many different club teams and also receive private lessons. I have moved up from single A ball to double A and have my sights set on the major leagues. But for the first time in my career I am starting to play against other players who are as good as me or even better. My batting average is lower than it has ever been and I am not progressing as quickly as I would have hoped to. Making it up to the big leagues is not as certain as I once believed it to be.

In the second scenario, I am a young man in Latin America. The home I grew up in is made out of cinder blocks and is no bigger than most American kitchens. My parents work each day and live paycheck to paycheck. I have never had a glamorous life but I enjoy playing baseball on the all dirt field in my neighborhood. I started playing baseball with a broom stick as a bat and a bottle cap for the ball. Eventually I have made it big and have the chance to play in the United States. After a few seasons I am not having as much success as I would have hoped for. The game here is different than the game I grew up playing but I need to play well enough to get a new contract and hopefully help my family out back home who is still poor.

Both of these are obviously made up scenarios and although the details may not be real I believe they are scenarios which present themselves in baseball on a regular basis. Let’s look at the first scenario in which I am playing in the minor leagues and hoping to make it to the majors. It has been my dream to make it to the majors and all of a sudden the competition is getting much better. If I am presented with the opportunity to take a PED and get a lot better than I currently am, would I take the drug? Last I heard there have been over 40 players in the minors this season who have tested positive for PEDs. Obviously there are quite a few players who find themselves in this situation. They are looking at either hitting their plateau in the minors or taking a PED which will hopefully boost them enough to get noticed by their big league club. I have heard reports about how doping began for many players while they were still in the minors. This would clearly be a temptation. But a player in this situation could choose to not take the drugs and instead keep playing, hoping to make it to the top, and if he does not, he can always fall back on his college education.

Scenario two is similar, except for one big difference. If this player chooses not to use a PED and as a result does not have success here in the United States, they will be unable to provide for their family back home and they do not have a college degree to fall back on. I believe if I was in this situation it would be a lot more difficult to turn down a PED if I believed it could lead to me receiving a big contract that could allow my family and me to be set financially for the rest of our lives.

Since 2009 32 times a player has been suspended for using PEDs. Of those 32 suspensions, more than 60 percent of them have been Latin born players. I do not know their circumstances and I do not know where they came from and why they chose to use a PED, but having lived in Latin America myself, I would not be surprised to find out that they believed they needed to use a PED for some of the reasons in the second scenario.

So does that mean I believe these players should be excused for having used a PED? Of course not. No matter who they are or where they came from, they still broke the rules and cheated. All I am saying is that I do not think we should hold ourselves so much higher than them and say that we would never cheat and we would never do what they have done. I am sure all of us have cheated in a sport or in a game at some point in our lives, and the reward for cheating was much less than millions of dollars. We cannot demand that these players be kicked out of the league and deported to their home countries. Although I may stand along in this belief, I think the current system is working. Who knows the reasons behind why they chose to use a PED, hopefully these players who mess up are smart enough to not do it again. But before we brand these players as the devils of baseball, maybe we should ask ourselves, “what would I do in their situation.”

Mr. Perfect

It happened again. The third time it happened this season. 27 up and 27 down, a perfect game. I do not know why I still get so giddy about a perfect game. It seems to be a historic feat that becomes less and less historic each time it happens. I listen to ESPN radio each day at work and all day today all I have heard is that the perfect game does not matter anymore. It happens too much and is no longer exciting. After hearing both analysts and reporters express their feelings on the matter, it got me to thinking, why am I so enamored with the perfect game? Each time I hear one is about to happen I immediately quit what I am doing and search for a way to watch or listen to the game just to catch a piece of history. The truth is that yes, 26 percent of all perfect games in the history of baseball have happened in the past 4 seasons. And those 4 seasons are the equivalent of less than 3 percent of the history of Major League Baseball. So if a person says that the perfect game no longer matters because 26 percent of all perfect games have happened in the last 3 percent baseball’s history, that person probably does have a valid point. But I am here to say that all those people who no longer get excited for perfect games are missing out on one of the greatest accomplishments in all of sports.

I am not a Mariner’s fan. My wife is from Seattle and I have attended a total of two Mariners games in my life and at each of those games I was cheering for the other team. But when Felix Hernandez was about to pitch his perfect game, I became a Mariners fan because I wanted to witness history. My brother-in-law Michael sent me a text in the 6th inning to tell me that Felix was perfect up to that point. I immediately went to MLB.com to listen to the game on the radio. Felix finished out the perfect game by striking out 12 of the 27 batters he faced with a total of 113 pitches. All 12 of his strike outs came on off speed pitches, mostly sliders and curve balls.

Felix had not lost a start in over two months, which is quite a feat playing for a team that is in last place in their division. But even though he had not lost and even though he had come close in the past to a no-hitter, I don’t think anyone could have predicted a perfect game yesterday. Well, except for maybe Felix himself. In his post game interview he said that he realized he was perfect in the third inning and that he kept telling himself over and over again that he had to do it, he had to throw a perfect game. It had been on his mind since April 21 earlier this year while Phillip Humber of the White Sox threw a perfect game against the Mariners in Seattle.

What made yesterday even more exciting for me was that my brother-in-law was at the game. But not only was he in attendance, he was sitting in the “King’s Court,” a cheering section set up specifically for King Felix on the days he starts in which all fans wear yellow shirts with his number 34 on them and hold yellow signs with a giant “K” on them. What a day this must have been for him. He is one of the most devoted fans to any team that I have ever known. Of all the major sports, baseball is the one in which a single game matters the least because there are so many of them. One football game makes a huge impact on the season because there are only 16 NFL games. But there are 162 baseball games and it is hard to argue that every single game is important. But I have no doubt that if he could, Michael would watch all 162 Mariners games. This is quite impressive, but even more impressive considering they are not very good. For him, being in attendance at the first perfect game in Mariners history and sitting in the King’s Court is something that he will be able to tell his kids about. It is one of those events in the life of a sports fan that will be next to impossible to ever top. That is just one reason why a perfect game still matters, but there are so many more.

I believe that there is no other accomplishment by a single player in all of sports that rivals the perfect game. In what other sport can you go 27 for 27? Even when Michael Jordan would score 60 points in a game he still missed some of his shots, he was not “perfect.” Even if a Tom Brady throws 6 touchdowns in a game it is inevitable that he will have a few incompletions mixed in with all his passes. In all other sports, a perfect game does not exist. Perfection is not accomplished in any other sport. A golfer, no matter how great his round was, will still miss a putt. A soccer player will still have a bad pass or a miss shot at goal. I am not saying that these accomplishments by other athletes are not significant and do not matter, I am simply saying that the perfect game in baseball is an accomplishment unlike anything else in sports.

The fact that perfection can be accomplished in baseball is something special because baseball is a sport in which greatness is accomplished through imperfection. If a batter has a game where he goes 2 for 4 from the plate, 50 percent, that is considered a great game. But if a wide receiver only catches 50 percent of the passes thrown his way or a basketball player only makes 50 percent of the shots they take in a game, they have been unsuccessful and would not be celebrated for having accomplished anything. In baseball, if you can get a hit 30 percent of the time you are having a very successful season. Baseball is a game of failures, which is why a perfect game is that much more special.

I can remember the exact moment when I began to fall in love with the perfect game. It was on July 23, 2009. I had been living in South American for two years and had not seen a minute of any American sports. Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. In the top of the 9th inning, only 3 outs away from a perfect game, Gabe Kapler hit a long shot to center field which caused the White Sox centerfielder, Dewayne Wise to chase down the ball. Wise made one of the most spectacular catches I have ever witnessed. He made an over the shoulder catch, ran into the wall and bobbled the ball. Through all that he still hung on to the ball and made the first out of the inning. What made this even more incredible was that Wise has just entered the game to replace Carlos Quentin. He had been sitting in the dugout for the previous 8 innings and was put into the game just in time to make the perfect game saving catch. My only explanation was that it must have been angels. Some foster boy who made a bet with his dad about his team winning the pennant must have prayed for angels to come and they showed up just in time help Wise make that catch. That kid must have seen an angel giving Wise a back rub and waved his arms signaling for the manger to make a switch and put Wise in the game.

When that game was over and I watched the highlights over and over again on Sports Center and online I kept thinking that if only one mistake had occurred that entire game would have been for nothing. If Buehrle had made one mistake or if one member of the team missed a ground ball or if Wise did not track down that fly ball, it would not have been a perfect game. Everything has to be perfect. Even the umpires have to be perfect, just ask Armando Galaraga. For a perfect game to happen, everything must be perfect, and that’s why it’s called a perfect game.

So for everyone who says the perfect game no longer matters, I disagree. It may be happening more frequently than ever before, but in the 143 years of Major League Baseball it still has only happened 23 times. That is still an average of one every 6 years. Baseball goes through fazes. 15 years ago we were in the era of the long ball with Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa. Right now we may be in the era of the No-hitter. We should enjoy it while we can because who knows when this era will end. There was once a span of 13 years from 1968 – 1971 between perfect games. Who’s to say that a drought like that can’t happen again?