Posted by David Wade on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 10:54 pm

As opposed to many writers, commentators, and fans I find it hard to say how Mark McGwire should have handled the steroid era.  First, I’m not Mark McGwire.  Second, I’m not sure anyone has a complete picture of the culture at that time.  Finally, I can’t muster up enough indignation to condemn every player in MLB that hasn’t played out their career beholden to some contrived idea that baseball past represents all that is pure and just in competition all while serving as a Utopian model for society.

I love baseball and I get the Americana feel, but I guess I’m too cynical to ignore a long history of segregation, spitballs, emery boards, corked bats, rubber ball-filled bats, sharpened spikes, greenies, cocaine, betting on games, throwing games for money, throwing at players’ heads, throwing punches, throwing bats at players, throwing balls in the stands, going into stands to fight fans, fighting umpires, spitting on umpires, stealing signs, and who knows what else to think that the players who’ve always played baseball represent a higher standard than people outside the sport.

Therefore, I’m not going to judge McGwire of wronging those who play the game the right way,  cheating his way past hallowed records, and dishonoring an honored game.  I’m not going to say that he should have stayed away from steroids because articles doing that are everywhere.

Instead, I’m going to try and imagine how I might have handled being a player during the ’steroid era’. 

A few words beforehand.  This requires a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader.  I obviously can not play professional baseball, or I’d still be trying at age 39 and PECOTA would have me pegged for 93 games and a 231/310/409 line. 

More along the lines of disclosure, I have to admit that I’ve done some things that may make me more likely to dabble in something like steroids.  At least, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of and things that many critics must not have done or else they may not be so quick to bash guys like the Bash Brother.  Because, at the worst, steroid users are guys that buy and use prescription drugs without a prescription.  Like college kids do now with Adderall.  Or alcohol before they’re of legal age.  Or marijuana, which outside of California I don’t think you can get a prescription for even if you have glaucoma.

I thought it only fair to let the reader know what kind of person I am.  I have done illegal things here and there (nothing too bad, though the rest of this article will be enough to convince many that I’m an immoral person).  I also once exceeded dosage for weeks on anti-inflammatories so I could play tennis through Achilles tendinitis.  I did this in front of literally tens of people, some of whom were not even related to me.

I know that’s not analogous to athletes that use PEDs.  But, my point is if I’m the kind of person willing to do something like that to play high school tennis, then I’m probably the kind of person who would do much more envelope-pushing to play MLB baseball. 

All that said, here’s how I may have handled baseball during the ’steroid era’.

Most of my baseball up until the early ’90s would have been under instruction from coaches to stay away from weights.  Yes, some in baseball embraced resistance training before then, but the majority feared weightlifting would bulk players up, compromise flexibility, and ruin swings.  So, my first exposure to a system that actually encouraged work in the weight room would likely have come in professional baseball. 

Much like the system Tony LaRussa keeps talking about that they had in Oakland.

As a gifted athlete (and despite John Kruk’s comical quote, baseball players are very gifted athletes) I would have responded very well to lifting weights.  I’d have started at a level most weekend warriors struggle to attain after years of work.  My ‘newbie’ gains, seen in an average gym-rat as a big bump in strength made mostly through improving on the lifts and the body’s quick response to the new stimulus, would have been impressive. 

Bench press, squats, and deadlifts.  They’d all go up to respectable levels quickly.  As these gains came, the transfer to baseball would have been slight, but still apparent.  The bat would feel a little lighter, muscles would feel tighter, and the ball would seem to jump off the bat.  Results on the field and seen in the mirror would have spurred me to work harder, most likely at a good gym. 

Now, I’m not talking about a 24 Hour Fitness where the ‘Lunk Alarm’ threatens to ridicule anyone who is working hard.  I’m talking about a place where many guys can bench over 400 pounds and the squat rack is used for more than just curling.  In addition to a lot of strong guys at places like that, I would have also found steroids.

It likely would have started with orals.  I wouldn’t have been too keen on injecting with needles.  I also may have felt a little dirty buying them in a locker room at Gold’s.  But, justifications would have been aplenty, as I’d have seen guys on my teams that seemed to be using. 

One cycle.  That’s what I’d have told myself.  Enough to get results, but not so much that I get brain cancer. 

With the Internet in the infant stage in the early ’90s, people lacked in resources to research steroid use.  Players only had gym-rats and fellow players to consult.  Lyle Alzado came out around that time and admitted that he’d used steroids for years and believed they were the cause of his cancer.  Scary as that thought may have been, Alzado said he’d used for years and years.  I wouldn’t fall into that trap.  That one cycle would have produced incredible results.  Lean body mass would have increased quickly, as well as maxes in the weight room.  I would have felt like a superhero.

It would have been very difficult to quit after that. 

Maybe a way to deal with the guilt of buying from a dude in a locker room would be to play a little winter ball.  AAS was (and is) available over the counter in many (all?) South American countries.  That would have been a great way to ease the conscience.  Play some ball, do a couple of cycles, train like a beast.  Then, when I’d have headed back to spring training, I’d have done an interview with a beat writer noting that I worked hard in the off-season.  Two hours of lifting six days a week.  They could relay to the fans the 20 pounds of muscle I’d added to my frame.  Could have used words like ‘imposing’, ‘hulking’, etc.

And, a lot would have been true.  Yes, lifting heavy 12 hours a week and eating like a teenager will add muscle, but if you’re not a teenager, it’s difficult to recover and keep that up.  Luckily, steroids increase appetite and speed recovery, which enables a person to work out longer and harder.

(By the way, this is one reason I believe guys under suspicion when they say their gains are from hard work.  Of course they were- steroids let you work out harder than people who don’t take them!)

At this point, it would have been fortunate for me to find another player or players who had experience.  Since, despite the unbelievable confidence I’d have felt at the plate and the distance added to line drives, there would have been some negatives.  Like testicular atrophy, acne on the back, and aggressiveness.  I’d have been lucky to stumble across someone that ‘had a guy’.

This ‘guy’ could have been a trainer.  Or, if I was really lucky- a doctor that was essentially a fanboy who would write scrips for me.  Not only for the good stuff like less-toxic injectables and instructions on how to best administer them, but for meds to deal with the side effects as well.  Meds that could kick-start my body’s natural testosterone production after cycles of loading up synthetically.  Meds that could balance out my hormones and limit negative side effects like the aforementioned tiny testicle troubles, as well as gynecomastia (i.e., man-boobs).

Now I’d have felt better about what I was doing.  Relying on someone well-versed in hormone manipulation would make me feel safer with regards to health as well as legalities. 

And boy, would this have translated to the field.  I’d have found the additional strength far from inhibiting my swing.  The power increase would have been incredible and I would have been looking at a huge payday in the near future.  Something that would set up my family for the rest of their lives.

It’s hard to say how much I’d have thought about whether this was cheating or not.  Half of my homers would have been off pitchers that were using.  Some of my would-be doubles would have been robbed by outfielders that were using.  And, a lot of the supplements I took would have come straight from the mall.  GNC carried androstenedione and many other supplements that would enhance performance during the season, while off the ‘gas’. 

And so it would have gone, until the supplements and lifting that made me a better player became necessary, not as a way to improve my skillset, but to maintain.  To keep performing at that higher level, because honestly, how could I have gone back to ‘normal’ even though normal meant being in the top one percentile of baseball players in the world?  Not after feeling that powerful, working that hard, and producing like that.

 Then, after a while longer, they’d be necessary to hang on for as long as possible despite my diminishing skills.  They could have carried me through years when players tend to break down and see their numbers slide quickly.  With the help, my slide would have been slowed considerably. 

It would have taken some discipline to make it through the random survey the MLB put in place during spring training of 2003.  However, had I had a little of that, plus any accumulated knowledge (that I’ve speculated that I would have attained- if nowhere else, then through the Internet at that point, which is an encyclopedic source of information on steroids, as seen in what I’ve been able to throw together for this), then I would have passed the survey with flying colors.  Simply put, I hope I’d have been smart enough to let any and all drugs clear my system before the survey so I wouldn’t inflate the number of positives necessary to institute mandatory testing.

But, after that many bad decisions, it’s hard to say that I’d have been smart enough to do that.