7foot3 wrote:leadpipe wrote:The balls wound tighter. The umpires changed the zone. I would add sight lines at parks. I would add smaller ballparks. Hell, I would add the fact hitting a baseball is understood and taught much better than 40 years ago.
An offensive boon is not why I called. The "steroid era" is filled with guys that got better at ages never seen before - and won't be seen again if they keep the game clean. Forget Bonds and McGwire hitting 70, it's that they were hitting their career bests well into the historical age of decline. Roger Clemens velocity dropped at a rate consistent with age - until the period reports and alledged eye witness accounts claimed he started to use - than a miracle of miracles, all of the sudden he's back up to 98.
Show you these curves? Just peruse Baseball Reference. Barry Bonds had his best years of his life beginning at age 36. As Bill James has said - and shown several times over, in the real world you can expect this to begin about age 27. And, if you compare the "stars" of the past - any era, to the "stars" of the steroid era, you'll see that Barry. Mark, Sammy, Roger and other chief "alledged" users miraculously did what nobody else in the history of the sports was able to do - which was be the best they ever were in their late thirties.
By the way, since the increased crackdown - with HR numbers decreasing from the highs of that era, does that mean the umpires have decided to open up the strike zone just a tiny bit?
I understand I'm not legit in your eyes cause I'm not linking 25 scientific articles. But Christ, you'd have to be blind not to see what was going on, and how guys simply stopped aging in regard to performance - and how they'll start aging once again.
So the main factor is that you are skeptical of their performance at an elder age. What about Aaron's career high in HR coming at age 37? How does that fit with your perception? Numbers 2, 4, and 5 on the list of HRs hit after age 30 are Ruth, Aaron and Mays. All-time, top-of-the-leaderboard, type players put up astounding numbers in their late 30s. That's what makes them so special. But not until the power numbers shot up in 1994 did we blame above-average to excellent late career results on steroids, despite the fact that PEDs existed and were fairly prevalent in athletic circles in the 50s and 60s.
The link I sent you describes how the strike zone has been opened up, but thats just over the past couple years. Also, the HR totals seemed to have peaked around 2000, and started to decline before the steroid crackdown, though they did shoot back up a bit in 2006, you know, the year after that MLB finally got a real anti-PED policy in place, so it's pretty hard to use HR numbers to explain steroid usage.
And I'm not asking you to link 25 scientific articles, stay away from that strawman, but you haven't shown anything at all besides some anecdotal data.
One would assume that the guys who hit the most HR's after the age of 30, would also be some of the top home run hitters of all-time. Not sure what the point is.
But I'll entertain guys like Mays, Ruth and Aaron for a second. Cause anyone who saw Willie Mays bumblimg under fly balls at the age of 40. Anyone who saw Aaron as a Brewer down at Municipal.....well, anyone who saw them pretty much had a feeling of pity, seeing a great at the end of the line, hoping they didn't embarrass themselves. Those who saw a guy like Barry Bonds at 40 were seeing the best hitter in the game. And I didn't get a chance to see Ruth, but I assume hanging an average below .200 in his final year at age 40 wasn't a sight to see.
But are we gonna do the stats thing. Yeah, Willie Mays hit HR's after 30. But to my point, he hit damn near 200 of em' from 30-34 - than he dropped of the table - JUST LIKE PRACTICALLY EVERYONE ELSE IN HISTORY COME 34-35. And yes, you can cull some big years here and there from good players, but you'll be picking them out from among thousands of mediocre and bad ones.
And look, age to performance isn't the ONLY thing I saw. Perhaps the most prevalent, but far from the only thing. But why bother, anything I offer on the topic is "antecdotal data." But really, there are the stats from the history of the game that tell us, there are literally hundreds of quotes from guys who were in lockerroms at the time, there are guys who were bigger, faster and stronger at age 37, than at 27.
Clemens goes from 91-92, to hitting 100 on a gun at 40 years old. If the explanation were easy, there wouldn't be hundreds of players wondering what was going on. So, if guys that are in the game are skeptical, why is it so out of line for a guy like me to be? It's so unatural it's ridiculous. Would assume everyone understands this. Perhaps the ball was smoothed down to streamline fastballs - specifically only Clemens fastballs.
You wanna believe what you saw from Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, McGwire and the like was real, go ahead. That is what you're telling us, correct? That performance enhancers played no part in their careers? Really?
Really?
