There’s a particular topic that I was bound to write about
for one of my New Era Cap posts and it definitely appears that today is the
day. The topic: performance enhancing drugs. For those of you who don’t know, I actually tackled this subject in a rather thorough manner back in July for one
of the Web sites I write for, eDraft Sports. In it I detailed the history of
steroids, the political links, where PEDs are today and pretty much why Major
League Baseball turning a blind eye got us to where we are today. My overall
opinion on the matter is that I frankly don’t care if anyone is taking anything
to help their game, but I’ll go into more detail on that throughout this piece.
Sadly though, most people do care, the most important of which are the baseball
writers who have affiliation with the Baseball Writers Association of America
(BBWAA).
Since I was a kid, first honing my writing chops, I had
always dreamed of being a member of this exclusive club of writers. Why? Because
these are the folks that determine who is to be awarded the cache of
season-based accomplishments (Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year), but more
important, this is the group who determines who gets into the National Baseball
Hall of Fame. As an avid fan of the game some of the best conversations
(arguments) I’ve had with other writers and fans is who should have gotten into
the Hall of Fame, who is the best Hall of Famer, who should get in of the folks
still eligible, etc. Of course in all of this mess the question of “should
anyone for the 1990s on (steroid era) even be considered?” is always a favorite
of mine when mixed with a fresh pizza and about a bakers dozen of beers… per
person in the discussion. The best part of these moments always comes up about
six to eight beers in when the discussion has somehow become a pissing contest
and a bevy name-calling has entered the mix along with the occasional sack tap.
In the end, no one really wins. All levels of emotion and opinion have been
thrown onto the table and all parties involved have either strengthened their
original viewpoint or, in some cases, had light shed on a perspective they may
nit have though about before. While I don’t doubt that members of the BBWAA
have found themselves in similar situations, in my personal dealings I have yet
to walk away with the feeling of being above anyone and their stance. Based on
what I have witnessed for quite a while on Twitter, I don’t feel that any
member of the BBWAA (who use Twitter) can say the same thing.
I will be the first to admit that I’m not the greatest
writer in the world, nor will I probably ever be. I am more than skilled in the
art of being able to string words together to form sentences which inevitably
form sentences displaying my views, opinions and sides of the story, but I’m
certainly not the greatest at it. Do it I do it with a little more heart than
others, perhaps. At the end of the day I can walk away after putting down the
pen or closing my laptop and feel good about what I crafted because I am a man
of convictions and I stand by my principles. Can my opinion be swayed or
altered, of course, I am human. Free thought is one of many traits that
separate us from other members of the animal kingdom, just as accountability
and reason are as well. By now you’re all probably wondering what any of this
has to do with this Baltimore Orioles cap on my head. Well, it has everything
to do with it.
Back in December of 2011 my cap collection was respectable,
but still significantly small. I think I was sitting on roughly 18 hats, which
is a slight fraction of the roughly 330 I have in my possession today. Yah, two
years goes by pretty fast. Anyway, I was visiting my best friend/high school
girlfriend Laurin Mitchell in San Luis Obispo, California along with my good
friend/college roommate Jared Clark in the days leading up to the 2012 Rose
Bowl which featured the Wisconsin Badgers and the Oregon Ducks. We hadn’t seen
Laurin since the middle of June when the three of us all took in an Oakland
Athletics game at the Coliseum when they played the Kansas City Royals. During
one of our days of drinking and touring around SLO we happened to walk past a
sports store called The Sports Forum which inevitably peaked my interest as
they quite possibly could have had a few caps that I wanted to add to my
collection. What I didn’t know at the time was that every baseball item in
their store was 40% off for the end of the season closeout special. The only
reason I ended up finding out about the sale was because Jared and I went to Pismo Beach
on our final day at the coast where one of the store’s other locations are. I
of course broke the bank buying hats then, but the location in SLO had a lot
more that I really wanted to get my hands on. The one hat that they did have,
which happened to be 50% off was this Orioles cap as they were discontinuing it
for the 2012 season. Just so you know, this particular cap was used from
2009-2011 for both home and road games, and no, I’m not mistaken when I say
this. The Orioles had quite a few caps that featured an oriole that looks
similar to this, but I assure you, they’re not the same. For this cap the
oriole’s head is lower and the appearance of any kind of a neck is nearly
non-existent. The placement of the feet is also another indicator as this logo
features the curdled up toes. From 1989-2008 the Orioles went through three
previous changes to the logo, all of which I will write about in the future
just as soon as I can track any of them down. I have a few leads, but they are
incredibly hard (expensive) to find. Getting back to the story, The Sports
Forum in SLO happened to have one left in my size so of course I had no
objection to paying $17.50 plus an 8.25% sales tax to purchase it. Boom! This
cap, for some crazy reason, became one of my favorite caps to wear. I’ve always
enjoyed the paring of black and orange, but my loyalty to the Athletics always
steered me away from wearing a San Francisco Giants cap. Even though it’s one
of the newer caps used by the Orioles, there’s something about the design of
the logo that gives it an old-timey kind of feel that I wish was incorporated
into more caps.
When I marked this cap, pretty much a few days after I
purchased it, I already had firm intentions of what was to be showing, which
ultimately leads me back to my rant at the beginning of this piece.
3020/569: If these numbers are unfamiliar to you, don’t
worry; it’s only the fourth time in Major League Baseball history they’ve been
paired together. These are the hits (3020) and home runs (569) that Rafael
Palmeiro tallied throughout his 20-years career. I’m sure by now everything is
starting to make a little bit more sense. Rather than just dive in it’s
probably best to start back at the beginning. Back before everything went
straight to Hell.
Palmeiro was born in Havana, Cuba, but is not considered a defector due to
the age in which he came over the United States, and the label is
only used for those who leave willingly due to political-based reasons. His
family moved to Miami, Florida where he was raised and graduated from Miami
Jackson High School and was drafted by the New York Mets in the eighth round of
the 1982 draft, but he didn’t sign. Instead, Palmieiro enrolled at Mississippi State University,
where he played college baseball for the MSU Bulldogs in the Southeastern
Conference. He is the only SEC player to have ever won the triple crown. On
June 11, 1985, Palmeiro signed with the Chicago Cubs as the 22nd pick in the
1st round of the 1985 draft, the year after Seattle Mariners star Jamie Moyer.
Palmeiro debuted on September 8, 1986 in a game between the Cubs
and Philadelphia Phillies at Wrigley Field as a left fielder. During his tenure
with the Cubs, he normally played left field, though occasionally he would play
other outfield positions or first base. Palmeiro was the runner up to National League batting champion Tony Gwynn in 1988 with a .307 batting average, only
six points below Gwynn's. He also made his first of four All-Star Game
appearances in his career. After the 1988 season, Paleiro was traded by the
Cubs to the Texas Rangers along with Moyer and Drew Hall in exchange for Mitch
Williams, Paul Kilgus, Steve Wilson, Curtis Wilkerson, Luis Benitez, and Pablo
Delgado.
Upon moving to the American League, Palmieiro was primarily used
as a first baseman or designated hitter. Palmeiro blossomed as a hitter while
with the Rangers, leading the league in hits in 1990 and doubles in 1991, the
same year in which he made his second All-Star Game appearance. Palmeiro would
stay with the Rangers until the end of the 1993 season, his first of two stints
with the team. During his time he finished in the top-20 three times for the AL
MVP (1990, 1991 and 1993). He also had time to star in this priceless Coca-Cola advertisement. After he was granted free agency in 1993 he signed with the
Orioles for his first of two stints in Baltimore.
From 1994-1998 he proved to be one of the team’s most consistent power hitters.
Prior to the 1995 season, he had hit more than 30 home runs only once (37 in
1993). Starting in 1995, Palmeiro began a streak of 38+ home run years that
continued through the 2003 season. He hit 373 home runs during this nine-season
span, while also driving in over 100 runs in each of these seasons. However,
Palmeiro never led the league in home runs, and is history's most prolific home
run hitter to have never won the home run crown. Palmeiro finished in the
top-18 for the AL MVP every year he was with the Orioles, locking up his third
All-Star Game appearance as well as two consecutive Gold Gloves at first base
in 1997 and 1998. Despite the numbers he was banging out, he was once again
allowed free agency and was signed by the Rangers.
In 1999 Palmeiro posted the best season of his career: he
hit a career-high .324, career-high 47 home runs, career-high 148 RBI,
career-high 1.050 on-base plus slugging percentage, won his third-straight Gold
Glove, his second consecutive Silver Slugger Awards, fourth and final All-Star
Game appearance and finished in fifth place for the AL MVP as his teammate Ivan Rodriguez took home the prize. Palmeiro’s averaged dipped a bit through the end
of his time with the Rangers, but his home runs and RBI production hardly
slowed down. On May 11, 2003, his final year with the Rangers, Palmeiro hit his
500th home run off David Elder in a game against the Cleveland Indians,
becoming only the 19th player in MLB history to do so at the time.
The feat came roughly a month after Sammy Sosa knocked his 500th
home run of his career with the Cubs.
Granted free agency once again, Palmeiro signed again with
the Orioles and posted decent numbers in 2004, .258/23/88. The most important
thing to take from that season is that he was only 78 hits away from 3,000 for
his career at the age of 40. Palmeiro had a rough 2005 season, but still got
the job done. On July 15th my best friend Samuel Spencer sent me a
text around 6:30 PM saying that he was at that night’s Mariners game in which
they were facing off against the Orioles. The significance of this night is
that Palmeiro was sitting on 2,999 hits and Joel Pińeiro was on the mound for
the Mariners. For those who remember Pińeiro’s time with the Mariners in 2005,
history was pretty much guaranteed to happen. After walking in his first at-bat
and grounding out in his second, Palmeiro walked up to the plate for his third
at-bat in the fifth inning. With third baseman Melvin Mora on second base,
Palmeiro clubbed a screamer down the left field line, scoring Mora and logging
the 3,000th hit of his career. I was watching the game from home on
Fox Sports Northwest and Samuel made sure to take plenty of photos as the
Safeco Field crowd gave him a standing ovation. With a quick swing of the bat
Palmeiro joined Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Eddie Murray as the only players in
MLB history to record 3,000 hits and 500 home runs for their career. No matter
what the rest of Palmeiro’s career had in store for him, there was no doubt
that he was a lock for the Hall of Fame. Well…
Back on March 17, 2005, Palmeiro appeared at a Congressional
hearing about steroids in baseball and, while under oath, denied ever using
steroids and stated, "Let me start by telling you this: I have never used
steroids, period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that.
Never." Here’s the full video in case you forgot. The main reason why
Palmeiro was put in front of Congress in the first place was because former
Rangers teammate José Canseco identified Palmiero as a fellow steroid user in
his 2005 book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How
Baseball Got Big, and claimed he personally injected Palmeiro with
steroids. Needless to say, Palmeiro was a bit vehement about the situation and
willingly denied any wrongdoing.
After Palmeiro recorded his 3,000th hit things
went back to normal... for two weeks later. On August 1, 2005, Palmeiro was
suspended for ten days after testing positive for a steroid. The Washington
Post reported that the steroid detected in Palmeiro's system was a
"serious" one. According to The New York Times, Palmeiro
tested positive for the potent anabolic steroid stanozolol. In a public
statement, Palmeiro disclosed that an appeal of the suspension had already been
denied. He released a statement saying, "I have never intentionally used
steroids. Never. Ever. Period. Ultimately, although I never intentionally put a
banned substance into my body, the independent arbitrator ruled that I had to
be suspended under the terms of the program." According to Palmeiro, all
of his previous tests over the two years including the 2003 sealed test were
negative, and a test he took just three weeks after his positive test was also
negative. While a representative from MLB couldn’t confirm or deny Palmeiro’s
words, it’s a bit surprising that they didn’t, especially since they were
“doing their damnedest” to clean the game up. The House Government Reform
Committee would not seek perjury charges against Palmeiro, although they were
not clearing him.
Palmeiro returned to Camden Yards following his 10-day
suspension; that’s right, 10-day
suspension on August 11, 2005, although he did not play in the lineup until
August 14. Coincidentally, this was the date that had been planned as
"Rafael Palmeiro Appreciation Day" in celebration of his 500-home
run, 3,000-hit milestone. It was canceled after Palmeiro’s suspension. The
Baltimore Sun reported that Palmeiro never offered an explanation for his
positive test to the MLB arbitration panel, which ran contrary to his public
statements. ESPN later reported that Palmeiro implicated Miguel Tejada to
baseball's arbitration panel, suggesting a supplement provided to him by Tejada
was responsible for his positive test. This supplement was supposedly vitamin B12,
though it could have been tainted. Tejada and two unnamed teammates provided B12
samples to the panel, which did not contain stanozolol. However, the committee
did say they found "substantial inconsistencies between Mr. Tejada's
accounts and the accounts of players A and B." Tejada, who said he
received shipments of B12 from the Dominican Republic, was later implicated
for steroid use in the Mitchell Report.
Palmeiro continues to strongly deny ever having used
steroids intentionally, telling The Baltimore Sun in June 2006,
"Yes sir, that's what happened. It's not a story; it's the reality of what
happened", and "I said what I said before Congress because I meant
every word of it." Palmeiro passed a polygraph test in which he was not
asked if he ever used steroids, but in which he did state that he unknowingly
ingested them via a B12 injection. A 2005 New York Times
article expressed one writer's belief that Palmeiro’s story could perhaps be
the truth.
In December 2007, Palmeiro was included in the Mitchell
Report in which it was alleged that he used performance-enhancing drugs during
his career. The report did not provide any new evidence and only recapped
allegations made by José Canseco, Palmeiro’s appearance before Congress, and
his subsequent failed drug test. The report also details a conversation Larry
Bigbie alleges he had with Palmeiro where he claims "Palmeiro asked him
about his source of steroids and human growth hormone (the source was Kirk
Radomski) and how the substances made him feel." Bigbie also stated that
"Palmeiro denied in those conversations that he had ever used performance
enhancing substances himself."
Palmeiro finished out the 2005 season, filed for free agency
for the final time and was never signed again. The cloud of suspicion, the
failed drug test and the fact that he was about to turn 41-years-old proved to
be too much for teams to roll the dice to sign him. With his career now over he
went back to his family in Texas
and loved out the rest of his days, waiting the five-year window until he would
become eligible for the Hall of Fame. Palmeiro played in 2,831 major league
games, the most by any player who never played in the World Series. When 2011
came around, the first year of his Hall of Fame eligibility, his numbers
signified a slam dunk for a first ballot entrance; however, the BBWAA felt the
exact opposite. Needing at least 75% of the vote to get in, Palmeiro received a
shocking 11.0% of the vote. In case you forgot, Palmeiro is one of four guys to
get at least 3,000 hits and crush at least 500 home runs. The other three guys
were already in the Hall of Fame. And yet, Palmeiro received a massive slap in
the face. In 2012 his vote went up to 12.6% and then took a drop to 8.8% this
last January. If the number dips below 5%, he will no longer be eligible.
Palmeiro played 19 seasons without any bit of speculation of
being on PEDs. Hell, the man even starred in a series of commercials for
Viagra; however, after achieving baseball immortality, Palmeiro’s star took an
immediate tumble to Earth. The last two months of Palmeiro’s career was the
only time in which he had been called a cheater. The last two months. Really
think about that. A kid could have been born, graduated from high school and
been in the middle of their second year of college before a problem arose. I
fully understand that going before Congress, wagging his finger and ardently
denying being on the juice really didn’t help his cause when he failed his drug
test, but how can a group of people become some cynical after such a long
period of time without any issue. Palmeiro had already locked his Hall of Fame
career up and had never failed a drug test, nor did he ever fail another one
after the incident occurred after he served one of the shortest suspensions in
MLB history, just to show you how much of a non-issue the incident was to an
unprepared MLB.
I realize that “rules are rules,” but one cannot be so
dismissive as to completely wipe away the career of one of the greatest players
in the history of the game after a small mistake near the end of it. Yes, the
anabolic steroid (stanozolol) was banned under the MLB’s drug policy, bust it
was also one that easy to snuff out. Palmeiro never struck me as a careless
guy, not to mention, how is it that he can go 19 ½ years of taking an
easily-detected substance without getting pinched especially after having taken
multiple drug test in the past, all of which came up clean? Logic has been lost
in crucifixion that has become Palmeiro’s career, a truly sad one at that.
I can only hope that some time down the road the BBWAA will
come to their senses and have a 12 Angry
Men-style discussion over this case. There are way too many holes to simply
ignore. Palmeiro is a Hall of Famer in my eyes, the numbers and the talent
surely proves that he is worthy. As for the players on PEDs as a whole, I
really don’t care. The evolution of what a person can take has changed so
dramatically over the years that until everything is banned, there is no
sure-fire way of saying who is breaking the rules and who isn’t. As for my role in this and my dream of joining the BBWAA, if it happens, it happens. If it does, I can only hope that I can bring a fresh perspective to the discussion, and not just wave the privilege around like some cool kids club membership. I'm looking at you Jon Heyman!!!
Nice post with awesome points! Can’t wait for the next one.
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