Holla if you don't give a shit about steroids

I'm going to take a look at the first 10 players listed in the Mitchell Report.

Howie Clark - Career .687 OPS

Chad Allen - Career .710 OPS

Gary Bennett - Career .630 OPS

Mike Bell - Played one season to a .767 OPS

Alex Cabrera - Played one season to a .799 OPS

Mark Carreon - Career .766 OPS

Jason Christiansen - 4.3 career ERA with 5 BB per 9

Kevin Brown - 3.2 career ERA with a 1.2 WHIP

Larry Bigbie - Career .726 OPS

Roger Clemens - no explanation necessary. 

So there's 10 players implicated for performance enchancing drug use. One is a Hall of Famer, one is in the Hall of Very Good, two had decent careers, and six just flat out sucked at baseball.

The rest of the Mitchell Report looks about the same way, except less Hall of Famers per 10 names. For every Clemens, Giambi, Pettitte and David Justice implicated, there are 10 Nook Logan's, Cody McKay's, Daniel Naulty's and Adam Piatt's.

There you have it. Clearly, steroids are the miracle drug. Shoot them in your ass and you're instantly going to hit 40 homers and slug .600. Bonds, Arod, Ortiz... none of 'em were any good. It was all the roids.

Let's make this clear: IF YOU SUCKED TO BEGIN WITH, YOU SUCK WITH THE ADDITION OF STEROIDS.

Some might point to David Ortiz as an exception to this. Yes, Ortiz out of nowhere developed power to turn from a 15 HR per year guy in Minnesota to a 40 HR per year guy in Boston. Because Ortiz has always been an extreme flyball hitter - 1709 fly balls, 1400 ground balls - his steroid use gave him the extra "boost" to power them out. Ortiz started with power. Nook Logan never did. Steroids with Nook Logan did nothing but make him less coordinated and slower. Ortiz conveniently in 2007 fell in line with Bill James' "Live fat, decline young" prediction - probably because of the 2005 banning of Andro - and fell back to around 20 HR per year. Ortiz has always had a good eye, leading to a good OBP, and his steroid use may have helped him turn his patient demeanor into better opportunities for homeruns. Without the skill of a patient eye, the steroids would have done nothing. Like in Nook Logan's case.

Brady Anderson is another ridiculous case of steroid usage affecting a player with skill. He always hovered around a .260 batting average, .350 OBP,  .420 slugging percentage. A decent player. Averaged around 15 homeruns per season. Probably around league average for the mid '90s.

Then came 1996. He used some steroids, improved his batting average to .297, OBP to .396 and slugging to .637. Surprising, sure. Proof of steroids? Nope. Oh wait. He also hit 50 fucking homeruns. He never broke 24 for the rest of his career. Again, had Brady not been a decent player in the first place, steroids would have had no effect. The fact that people use steroids as a trump card for "INSTANT SKILL" like it's a fucking power-up in a videogame is ridiculous.

Enough with the statistical arguments. How about the no one cares argument?

Does ANYONE give a shit? Show of hands? Is anyone less of a fan of baseball because the players roided up? Does anyone think the game is being tarnished and it's no better than the WWE? If you do, I will confidently say that you are retarded. Ok, sure, I'll pretend you actually care for a minute.

It's 1996 and you just broke into AAA Durham. Everyone around you is hulking up like it's nobody's business and you think you're at an unfair advantage because you're the only one not sticking stuff up your ass (unless you're Mike Piazza since he did that for fun). You're being ignored by management and you succumb to the pressure and roid up. Surprise! It didn't help. You still suck. 10 years later the media sees your name on a list of steroid users and they call you a cheat, say you tarnished the game, and ruined history. Sorry, shame on you for trying to level the playing field.

EVERYONE in the '90s was roiding up. Everyone. I wouldn't even be surprised if Griffey was juicing and he's supposed to be the White Knight of the '90s. From the basis alone of "everyone was doing it," how is it any different in the record books from the Dead Ball era, when pitchers doctored the ball routinely and hitters were terrible? 

Remember when ESPN gave a shit about steroids? Remember when they cricified Bonds for it? Even ESPN doesn't care anymore. Even they are over it. And ESPN is the worst thing ever. So please, get over it. And if you don't I'll write another one of these long annoying posts about steroids and nobody wants that.