Do you think that the steroid problem in baseball was actually encouraged by Team Owners and others.?

Question

Think about it. After the strike, what revived interest in Major League Baseball? Home runs, baby. That's when the juicing got bad. And it kept being swept under the rug until Canseco wrote books, and Congressional hearings were held. Only then did Owners and the League Management decide to do something about it. They had to know about it all along, they had to. Seems to me they were probably encouraging it, and no player wants to come forward and admit it for fear of life and legacy being tainted. A lot of people diss on Canseco, myself included, but it took balls to do what he did. People thought he was a liar, but if you watch those Congressional hearing tapes, I think he was the only one telling the truth. All the other guys were stumbling over themselves and looked like fools. Your thoughts.

Answer 1

Hell yes. But it's bigger than that. For the past 37 years MLB has done everything in its collective power to encourage the home run.
They lowered the mound
They brought in the fences
The made the strike zone the size of a postage stamp
They tried to eliminate the brush back pitch
And agent were allowed to use home runs as the standard by which to judge the value of a player.
because in an ever expanding baseball market ; Home run hitters put fannies in the seats. Nothing complicated about them . The ball comes in . the ball goes out.. If you missed it in real time , you can look at the replays on the scoreboard. This is what the marketing people wanted; baseball without nuance, and they got it.

Answer 2

No,
Key word you used is ENCOURAGED. Were they aware, certainly, did they discourage it, no, but to say they encouraged it is a stretch. The steroid movement began in the late 70's and picked up pace in the late 80's when baseball was losing viewers and needed a spark. Guys like Canseco, McGwire and Bonds then showed up and put on a show during BP and during the game. At first there were a lot of questions asked from the ownership group, but after ratings soared (by comparison) they seemed to ignore the illegal drug use. Bottom line, they weren't encouraging the players, but didn't discourage them either.

Good Question! Leaves lots of open space for debate.

Answer 3

Absolutely. If nothing else, they encouraged it by ignoring it.

The owners and MLB needed scoring and homeruns (remember, chicks dig the longball) to "sex" up the game and bring the fans back.

Then Canseco blew the lid off of it (for personal gain, not the good of baseball) and it snowballed from there. But, ironically, it turns out that Canseco has been the one telling the truth the whole time. Weird.

I like baseball to be played the way it's meant to be played. Strategy, bunts, stolen bases, hit and run. The steroid days of homerun after homerun were boring to me. But that's what it now takes to get the attention of the MTV generation.

Answer 4

Yes, of course. Fans quit coming to games in '95, and stayed away in droves. Suddenly we see a big spike in home runs. Not only were the players juiced, the ball was juiced. The owners knew what was going on. Last year, the owners were absolutely giddy about an up spike in attendence. That's true, it did. But if you look at attendance year by year for all teams combined, last year they ALMOST made it back to the '94 level. Since '94, I've gone to ONE game, and am actually ashamed to admit it. A friend of mine wanted to see Cal Ripkin for the last time. Finally, I relented. It was nice to see Cal, but I could care less about the game. I don't even remember if the A's or the O's won.

Answer 5

Of course. Management was complicit.
However, their dishonesty will keep them from admitting it.
Instead, they're going through the charade of the "investigation".
All they have to do is look in the mirror and in their bank accounts!

Answer 6

yes