The Home Run Derby from Monday night was the perfect advertisement for baseball. Busch Stadium in St. Louis was sold out, because fans dig the long ball. This thing has become so popular that it was broadcast live on ESPN. The Home Run Derby even had its own corporate sponsor.
Apparently the sponsor was State Farm.
It should have been Stanozolol.
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| Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were both involved in the juicy Home Run Derby in Boston. (Getty Images) |
What better company to make a buck off this dishonest charade than a steroid? "The Home Run Derby of All-Stars, by Stanozolol, the steroid of choice for Rafael Palmeiro!" Or maybe "The Home Run Derby by Deca-Durabolin." The honorary first pitch could have been thrown by Roger Clemens, who used -- sorry, who allegedly used -- Deca-Durabolin, also known as Nandrolone.
Catching Clemens' ceremonial toss -- in his teeth, preferably -- could have been Bud Selig, who let this whole thing happen.
This is a first for me, blaming Bud. But this Home Run Derby, this perfect advertisement for the monstrosity that baseball has become, got me thinking. And once I start thinking, I start Googling. And I found this little tidbit in my research for this column:
The 1999 Home Run Derby, which featured juiced sluggers like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, also featured juiced baseballs. Rawlings did the trick, stuffing the baseballs with stuff so lively that McGwire was hitting balls nearly 600 feet. Rawlings' illicit involvement, at the behest of Selig and MLB officials of course, isn't just a rumor but an on-the-record accusation by someone who would know: Dan Duquette. He was the general manager of the Boston Red Sox in 1999. The location for the 1999 All-Star Game and Home Run Derby? Boston's Fenway Park.
This is what Duquette told Boston radio station WEEI in May:
"That was something when McGwire was hitting them out. They were going up over the light tower. I'm gonna tell you for a fact, those balls were juiced. We've got juiced balls for the Home Run Derby, I bet you didn't know that ... Rawlings [juiced the balls]. It added to the entertainment value."
Nice message.
Baseball players are little boys. They live in Never Never Land, flying first class around the country without carrying a bag and making crazy money to play a game. They're kids. They don't grow up, because they don't have to. Nice life if you can get it, but you know kids -- they pick up on messages.
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So when baseball is juicing the balls for the Home Run Derby -- and if the 1999 Derby was juiced, it's safe to assume it has happened many times, and might even have happened Monday night -- it sends the message that home runs are good. How they're hit? Irrelevant.
So buy yourself some steroids, 2004 Derby winner Miguel Tejada. You too, 2002 winner Jason Giambi. And Luis Gonzalez, who somehow eluded the Mitchell Report but was fingered by his own owner in Arizona, Ken Kendrick, in 2006 as a guy who probably deserved the "whispers" of steroids abuse considering that Gonzalez was 34 when he nearly doubled his career high with 57 home runs in 2001.
Gonzalez won the Derby that year, you know.
One year after Sosa won it in 2000.
Barry Bonds? He won it in 1996.
This thing is filthy. The symbol of the Home Run Derby should be a syringe. From 2001-06, 48 players took part in the Derby. Almost half of them -- 21 by my count -- were confirmed steroids users or have been linked to steroids by the Mitchell Report or some other form of testimony. That includes Bret Boone, who partook in the Derby in 2003 amid one of the more shocking power trips in baseball history. Boone, a small guy who hit .223 with seven home runs and 46 RBI in 501 at-bats in 1997, was damn near DiMaggio-like in 2001: .331, 37 home runs, 141 RBI. The power surge continued a few more years, and Canseco has said Boone was on the juice at the time. And Canseco, bless him, has been more accurate about the founding fathers of the steroid era than anyone.
Who else are some of those founding fathers? Juan Gonzalez, the 1993 winner. Ivan Rodriguez, a 2005 contestant. Gary Sheffield (1992, '96, 2003), Alex Rodriguez (1998, 2001-02). Manny Ramirez (1995). Canseco himself (1990).
I wonder who will be pegged a cheater from this year's crop ...
Eventually, in months or years, someone from this year's group of eight Derby sluggers will land on the wrong list of names. That's damn near a lock. The most scrutinized player in this Derby is Albert Pujols, whose offensive numbers have been superhuman since he debuted in the big leagues in 2001 ... when the Derby featured Bonds, Sosa, A-Rod and Giambi. And Luis Gonzalez. And Bret Boone. And Troy Glaus, who showed up on the Mitchell Report. That's seven presumably dirty players in the eight-man field of 2001. Who was the lone clean schmuck? Todd Helton. He didn't make it out of the first round. Of course.
So anyway ... the guy from this year's crop could be Pujols. Could be Brandon Inge, who is slugging 100 points above his career average and on pace for 37 home runs, one year after he hit .205 with 11 homers. It'll be somebody, unless the cheaters are finally starting to wise up to the point where they realize they shouldn't be flaunting their ill-gotten power gains at the Home Run Derby, for God's sake. Would a bank robber hang out in the Wachovia parking lot?
For years Sosa and McGwire and Bonds and Giambi and -- well, hell, just name a steroid user, and he has been in the Derby -- flaunted their power in the Derby. And why? Because baseball was rewarding them. Baseball was juicing the balls and looking the other way while the players were juicing themselves. The Home Run Derby was created in 1985 to celebrate the long ball, and it has remained an All-Star Game constant even as the steroid scandals have chipped away at the sport's soul.
It's unseemly, is my point. Baseball has been devastated by its devotion to the long ball, and by the lengths its players have gone to hit them. And still baseball trots out the Home Run Derby every year.
Baseball isn't into irony. Baseball is into cash flow, which is why the tape measure for Monday night's blasts should have been sponsored by Winstrol or Primobolan.
