Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy: Performance Enhancement in Black and White

Bruce A. Dixon, BAR managing editor

13 Jun 2007

Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy: Performance
Enhancement in Black and White

by Tim Wise

"All of the records set by white players prior to 1947 are
tainted."

This article originally appeared in http://www.timwise.org/

BaseballBondsWide
Within a
matter of several weeks, it is a virtual certainty that Barry Bonds will become
the all-time home run king of Major League Baseball. When this moment arrives,
survey data suggests that the majority of white baseball fans will yell and
scream at their televisions and curse the Giants' slugger, having concluded,
beyond any doubt that Bonds used steroids for at least a few seasons in the
early 2000s, so as to help obtain the record.

Most
blacks, on the other hand, either doubt that Bonds used steroids, or at least
feel as though the allegations haven't been proven. So while most of black
America cheers Barry on, an awful lot of whites are wishing (often quite
openly) for the aging star to be injured, or for pitchers to deliberately walk
him from now till retirement, just to deprive him of the honor, even if it
would mean walking in the winning run in an important game.

As for me, I have no idea whether or not Barry Bonds used
anabolic steroids, knowingly or otherwise. Circumstantial evidence suggests he
did, yet whatever proof exists is apparently too weak to secure an indictment
for lying to a grand jury about the matter. But having concluded that Bonds is
guilty, evidence notwithstanding, white baseball fans are overwhelmingly
demanding that an asterisk be placed by Bonds' name in the record books. Yes,
he may come to own the record, they'll aver, but only because of
performance-enhancing supplements. As such, he shouldn't be regarded in the
same light, or spoken of in the same breath as Hank Aaron (the current
record-holder) or Babe Ruth.

"White baseball fans are overwhelmingly demanding that an
asterisk be placed by Bonds' name in the record books."

For the
time being, let's put aside the issue of whether Bonds is guilty of having used
steroids. And let's put aside whether or not the steroids he's accused of using
can really help a batter hit a 95-mile an hour fastball (possibly thrown by a
pitcher who was also juiced, given the ubiquity of steroids in the game in the
90s and early 2000s, all with the knowledge of team owners). And let's also put
aside the issue of how many additional home runs Bonds may have hit, which he
wouldn't have hit anyway, but for the steroids.* While all are important
matters, there is a more fundamental issue to address when it comes to how
Bonds is to be viewed in the history books. For how can white Americans call
for Bonds to have his records marred by an asterisk, while continuing to revere
the records and performances of their white baseball heroes of eras past -
folks with names like DiMaggio, Williams, Ruth and Cobb - who benefited from a
much greater "performance enhancement" than that which steroids can
provide: namely, the racist exclusion of black athletes from the major leagues?

Steroids
vs. Segregation: Which One Provides More of an Unearned Advantage?

There is no
denying that anabolic steroids can enhance athletic performance, primarily by
allowing athletes to rapidly rebuild damaged muscle mass, and recover more
quickly from injury. Whether or not they can cause batters to hit balls for
greater distance is an open question, to which no one has provided an answer.
Although home runs increased across Major League Baseball during the era of
unregulated steroid use (and have remained high by historical standards since
the crackdown), there are several factors that could have produced that result,
even without a single batter being juiced. As sports columnist Dave Zirin
notes, in his amazing new book, Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain,
Politics and Promise of Sports, these alternative explanations include
shorter fences in the dozen or so new ballparks built during this period; balls
that many experts believe are being wound more tightly than in the past; better
training equipment (including computer technology that allows hitters to
graphically analyze their swings and make corrections quickly), and much
smaller strike zones. The last of these - imposed on umpires by team owners
around the same time as the steroid boom - has forced pitchers to throw into
prime hitting zones, thereby guaranteeing that good hitters (and everyone
agrees Bonds is one, with or without drugs), are going to hit more home runs.

"Every white baseball player for six decades had been
protected from black competition."

In other words, it is impossible to know whether or not
Bonds' home run spree in the years from 1999 to 2003 was due to steroid use, or
whether he may have hit the same number even without them. But we do know one
thing for certain: from 1887, when blacks were run out of white-dominated
professional baseball leagues, until 1947, when Jackie Robinson first stepped
onto a field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, every white baseball player for six
decades had been protected from black competition. And protection from
competition is the most profound form of artificial performance enhancement
imaginable.

BaseballSharpNegroLeague
It was none
other than Joe DiMaggio who said - having once faced Negro League great,
Satchel Paige in an exhibition game - that Paige was the greatest pitcher he'd
ever come up against. But of course, in DiMaggio's 1941 season, during which he
hit in 56 consecutive games for the Yankees (still a record), he wouldn't have
to face Paige, or any other black pitching legends. Though Paige would go on to
play in the major leagues, it would only be after reaching his 42nd birthday,
and a full fourteen years after his legendary 31-4 record in 1934, during which
season he pitched sixty-four consecutive scoreless innings and won twenty-one
games in a row.

That black
players were fully the equals of their white counterparts is hard to deny.
Throughout several exhibition games, involving each league's All-Stars, the two
leagues split games roughly fifty-fifty. Considering that the Negro League
teams had fewer resources to develop players, and typically carried smaller
rosters (with weaker benches), this was no small feat. Had certain players been
allowed in the majors, there is little doubt but that white record holders,
then or now, would have faced longer odds when it came to recording their
feats. Pitchers like Smokey Joe Williams (who shutout the 1915 National League
champion Philadelphia Phillies in an exhibition), or Paige (who was able to
pitch three shutout innings in the major leagues at the age of sixty, in a
special 1965 appearance with the Kansas City A's), would have wreaked havoc
with the bats of white players, had they been given the chance.

By the same token, sluggers like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard
and Oscar Charleston (who hit .318 with eleven home runs in fifty-three exhibitions
against white major leaguers, and is considered the fourth best player in
history by baseball historian Bill James) would have easily vied for many of
the records set by whites, some of which stand to this day. This would have
been especially true had they been able to play in homer-friendly Yankee
stadium, which originally had home run fences down the right and left field
lines that were less than 300 feet from home plate, so as to accommodate the
likes of Babe Ruth. (As a side note, it's interesting how no one ever suggests
Ruth's accomplishments should be looked at skeptically because he was swinging
at fences that I was able to reach routinely at the age of fifteen).

"Pitchers like Smokey Joe Williams or Satchel Paige would
have wreaked havoc with the bats of white players, had they been given the
chance."

And
speedsters like Cool Papa Bell, given the chance, would certainly have
challenged Ty Cobb's record of stolen bases, long before Lou Brock ultimately
obliterated it in 1978 (since eclipsed by Rickey Henderson). Not to mention,
had players like Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Roy Campanella or Don Newcombe - who
ultimately played major league ball but got their start in the Negro Leagues -
been able to start their big league careers earlier, who knows what records
they might have set?

One thing
is certain: all of the records set by white players prior to 1947 are tainted.
Any time that someone is protected from competition (be that someone an athlete
or a corporation), the one who is protected gets to shine, without having to
prove themselves against the full range of possible talent. Barry Bonds, on the
other hand, even if juiced by steroids, had to compete against the best (many
of whom were no doubt also using such medicinal enhancements), and as such,
enjoyed far less of a relative boost in his career than white players did for
nearly half of the twentieth century.**

And No,
It's Not Different: The Absurdity of the "Segregation Was Legal"
Excuse

Confronted with the argument that maybe Williams,
DiMaggio, and especially Babe Ruth wouldn't have been as good, had they been
required to play against black players, most white folks fall back on what they
consider their trump card, which, to them seems to differentiate the
performance enhancement of steroids from the performance enhancement of white
privilege and institutionalized favoritism. Namely, they suggest, Barry Bonds
broke the rules, while Ruth and company merely played within the boundaries of
the rules, as they existed at the time. While most everyone acknowledges that
racism in baseball was a shameful stain on the game, you'll often hear it said
that segregation was "just the way it was." The implicit argument
here is that we shouldn't lower our estimation of white players due to
segregation, since they weren't the ones who enforced the color barrier, but
rather, just played by the rules as they found them.

"Babe Ruth once tried injecting himself with sheep
hormones to get an edge on the competition."

But there
are several things about this argument that are wrong, illogical, or ethically
indefensible. To begin with, during the period of Bonds' steroid use, there was
actually no rule against steroids in major league baseball. So, in point of
fact, Bonds - assuming he used steroids - did not break the rules of the game.
Yes, using the substances without a prescription is illegal, but we don't take
records away from players for breaking the law. If we did, we'd have to erase
pitcher Doc Ellis's perfect game in 1970, which he claims to have tossed while
tripping on acid. We'd have to disregard the performance of Keith Hernandez,
who has admitted to using cocaine during his years on the field, and who once
suggested that upwards of forty percent of all players were using blow. Or what
of Willie Mays and Willie Stargell (two of the game's all-time greats), who
were accused in the mid-80s (though, like Bonds, never tried or convicted) of
providing amphetamines to players? Should we erase their records as well? Or
what of Ruth, who once tried injecting himself with sheep hormones to get an
edge on the competition, and who kept right on drinking, even in the age of
prohibition when booze were outlawed? BaseballSharpNegroLeague

Even worse,
the argument that segregation was "just the way it was," implies that
we are not under any obligation to challenge injustice, unless we ourselves
created it, and that if we collaborate with it, we bear no moral responsibility
for its perpetuation. But what kind of moral standard is that? By that logic,
folks who stood by and remained silent during Jim Crow, during lynchings,
during the Holocaust of European Jewry or American Holocaust of indigenous
persons, did nothing wrong. By that logic, we should teach our children that
whenever they see an injustice, so long as it benefits them, they should go
along to get along. But any parent who taught their kids such a thing would be
shirking their responsibilities as a moral guide.

The truth is, had even a handful of the top white players
refused to play until the major leagues were integrated - especially in the
20s, 30s or early 40s, by which time the sport had become "America's
pastime" - it is almost certain that the color barrier would have fallen
more quickly. After all, it was in large part because of the demands of 19th
century great Cap Anson, a player-manager, that blacks were booted from the
game in the first place. Players did have power. They were the ones fans came
to see and for whom they paid good money. There is no way that baseball could
have remained all-white, for example, if Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig had said they
were sitting down until blacks were allowed to play. Had Gehrig ended his
long-standing record of consecutive games played because of opposition to
racism, it would have been one of the most important sports stories of all
time. That he didn't, and that no white players had the courage to take this
step is far from inconsequential, and it calls into question their character,
whether or not white fans are prepared to hear this uncomfortable truth.

"There is no way that baseball could have remained
all-white if Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig had said they were sitting down until
blacks were allowed to play."

In other
words, whites, by knowingly protecting themselves from some of the game's
greatest players, "cheated" every bit as much as Bonds may have, via
the use of anabolics. That the method for cheating was institutionalized, so
that the rules themselves amounted to fraud, and that racial cheating was given
the imprimatur of law hardly provides moral cover for the practice's ethical
failings, and the failings of those who took advantage.

Oh, and not
to put too fine a point on it, but in parts of the country (including most of
the Northeast) the laws of the local communities actually prohibited
segregation by race. Of course, northern cities ignored these laws, and persons
of color were subject to intense racism there, as with the South. But if our
concern is the law, and how the law was for segregation (and how therefore
players can't be accused of having broken the rules), we should remember that
teams like the Yankees were essentially breaking local and state law by keeping
blacks off their squads. So perhaps we should erase the records of the Yankees,
erase the Babe, erase Ted Williams' 1941 season in which he hit .406 for the
Red Sox: another team in a Northern city, with laws against segregation, but
which remained segregated anyway (and in Boston's case, they were the longest
holdout against black players due to the legendary racism of their owner).

But is
it Racism? Demeanor and Double Standards in the White Imagination

Of course, there is still the question of whether or not
those whites who root against Bonds, or who want to see that asterisk by his
name, feel the way they do because of racism. On this point, honest people can
truly disagree. After all, many of the white fans who disparage Bonds love
other black athletes, including the man who Bonds is poised to overtake. That
Aaron set the mark of 755 homers without any enhancements, without short
fences, without juiced balls, and despite the hostility often dispensed to
black players during his heyday, suggests to many (myself included) that
Aaron's accomplishments are, in many ways, more impressive.

"Race becomes especially interesting as it relates to
white folks' estimation of Bonds."

And of
course, there are reasons to dislike Bonds having nothing to do with his race.
Among the most often cited: his generally churlish, even openly hostile
attitude to the press, and the general public. But here is where the issue of
race becomes especially interesting as it relates to white folks' estimation of
Bonds.

Fact is,
just because whites love certain black athletes, doesn't mean that
racial animosity or racism are not in the equation on the occasions when they
feel decidedly otherwise. Racism can indeed be operating when whites respond
negatively to the "attitudes" of persons of color, if they fail to do
so when encountering the same attitudes from whites. Studies have found that
when people of color act in ways that trigger negative group associations in
the minds of whites, those whites often react in a much harsher manner than
when a white person evinces the same attitude or behavior. The white athlete
who is arrogant or ill tempered is seen through an individual lens, while the
black athlete who does the same is seen as a representative of a larger racial
group, and deemed threatening, angry, maybe even violent.

So Roger
Clemens can deliberately throw at the heads of batters, to either back
them off the plate, or in retaliation for a player on his team being hit by a
pitch, and no one seems to care, let alone accuse him of aggravated assault
with a deadly weapon (which a 97-mile per hour fastball surely is). And pitcher
Randy Johnson can act like an ass, even pushing a New York cameraperson upon
his arrival to the Yankees several years back, and yet have few fans turn on
him. As long as he was producing, his attitude was overlooked, as with
basketball coach Bobby Knight, baseball coaches Earl Weaver and Leo Durocher, or,
for that matter Ruth, Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle, who were - according to pretty
much everyone who knew them - utter bastards. So if there is a racially
differential way in which Bonds's rudeness is interpreted, as opposed to any
number of white athletes (think John McEnroe, as one final example), then there
are few ways to interpret the difference, other than as a racial matter.

Additionally,
if whites respond negatively to blacks whose demeanor is seen as hostile or
arrogant, but respond well to blacks who seem less gruff, it may well be that
the first of these has to do with the way in which certain behavior prompts
negative stereotypes in white folks' minds. Once prompted, white racial
hostility may be triggered in this kind of situation, even though it wouldn't
be deployed against blacks whose behavior ran counter to white folks'
preconceived biases.

Far from mere speculation, it is precisely the difference
in white perceptions of some blacks relative to others, which prompted Branch
Rickey to choose Jackie Robinson as the instrument of integration in baseball,
over other equally or more talented black ball players. Though Robinson was no
sell-out, as is often alleged, he was clearly more accommodating in his style
to the racial taunts it was feared he would (and often did) receive from white
fans. Rickey realized that certain black players would rub whites the wrong
way, thanks to racism, but that Robinson would project the kind of image that
would be less likely to trigger latent biases on the part of white fans.

"If blacks cop a ‘to hell with you' attitude, whites
often see it as a racial challenge."

Whites have
long demonstrated a preference for gregarious and smiling black folks, ever
since the days of slavery, when such characters reinforced white assumptions
about the fairness of the society. If black folks play by the script set up by
whites - don't be angry, don't question authority, don't be arrogant (read:
uppity), don't be political (like John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968
Olympics, or Muhammad Ali, whose reputation with many whites was forever
tainted by his anti-Vietnam war commentary), and don't purposely seek to tweak
white folks' racial fears (as with fighter Jack Johnson who often taunted
whites about his white female companions) - then everything will be O.K. But if
blacks deviate, or cop a "to hell with you" attitude, whites often
see it as a racial challenge (in ways they wouldn't if another white person did
it), and react angrily.

So whites
loved Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson (understandably of course, given their
talent), but detest many of today's younger, amazingly capable, but often brash
black balers - and not only the ones who have been in trouble with the law. For
that matter, whites never much cared for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar either, after he
became a Muslim and changed his name from Lew Alcindor. Kareem was seen by many
(still is) as unfriendly, brooding, and arrogant, and this perception has hurt
his ability to land a much-deserved (and desired) coaching gig anywhere in the
NBA, despite his demonstrated basketball genius.

Conclusion:
Letting Go of the Mythology of Baseball's Glory Days

BaseballoldBlackPlayer
As a final
thought, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that at least part of white
America's anger at Bonds's accomplishments, is in keeping with white folks'
general anxiety over the loss of a mythologized past: one in which a supposedly
more innocent, decent society held sway, folks played by the rules, and all was
right with the world. While black folks know this world never existed, at least
for them, white folks' hagiographic history tends to gloss over the racial
injustices of past eras, rather choosing to hold them up as the "good old
days," of mom, apple pie, I Love Lucy, and Radio Flyers zooming
down snow-covered hills.

This
romantic notion of our national past is especially strong when it comes to
baseball. Whites wistfully praise the accomplishments of the 1927 Yankees, even
though, in terms of sheer strength and talent, they would get their clocks
cleaned by even the sub-.500 Yankees of the current season, largely due to
better conditioning routines in the present day. Babe Ruth was an overweight,
out of shape drunk, whose home runs were hit disproportionately in a stadium
with fences that were set at a distance more appropriate for high school kids.
Our glorifying of these faded icons speaks more to the nostalgic tendencies of
whites, adrift in a culture that, although still dominated by folks like us,
isn't completely defined by those like us any longer. [Tim Wise, for those
of you who didn't know, is white - BAR Editors.] As society changes, those
who always benefited most from the traditional arrangement naturally resist the
seismic shifts in national consciousness, to say nothing of demographics. If
you think the falloff in fan support for Major League Baseball isn't related to
the increasing Latinization of the sport at the highest levels, in other words,
then perhaps you'd like to purchase my beachfront property in Missouri.

"White folks' hagiographic history tends to gloss over
the racial injustices of past eras, rather choosing to hold them up as the
‘good old days.'"

In the
final analysis, it is not Barry Bonds who is the problem, but white sports
fans, longing for those olden days, irrespective of the injustices that defined
them. The problem is white folks who want and apparently need black athletes to
pander to our tastes, kiss our asses, and tell us how wonderful everything is
with the system and society in which we live. Too bad for us. Bottom line:
Barry Bonds is a better hitter than any white ball player who ever lived.
Period, end of story. And he is equal to Aaron and Mays even if not better
overall. And if you don't like that, pick up a bat and try to be better. Good
damned luck.

Veteran anti-racist activist, author and lecturer Tim Wise can
be reached through his web site, http://www.timwise.org/.

NOTES:

*Bonds'
critics claim that only steroids could have produced the slugger's 73 home run
season of 2001, since his highest total prior to that time had been 49 in the
course of a year. Yet, what they conveniently ignore is how white ball players
often have remarkable years, unduplicated over the lifetimes of their careers.
So, for instance, Roger Maris (who held the record for single-season home runs,
at 61, from 1961 until 1998, at which point Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa both
surpassed him), had hit only thirty-nine home runs the year before his record.
The year after, Maris hit only thirty-three, and then hit only seventy home
runs over a five year period, beginning in 1963 and ending with the 1967
season. Indeed, roughly one-fourth of Maris's career home runs occurred in that
single magical season, out of a total career that lasted twelve years.

**It
should be noted that steroids would likely be of more direct benefit to
pitchers than to hitters - something to keep in mind since Bonds likely faced
many steroid-enhanced pitchers during the years of his alleged use. After all,
steroids allow players to have shorter down time in the case of injury, which
is especially important to pitchers, who by definition are in on every play
when they're on the field. Wrenching your arm forward 100 times a game, or
throwing utterly unnatural curve balls takes a toll on pitchers, which toll can
be dramatically lessened by anabolic steroids. Which is all to say that Bonds'
use (assuming it happened exactly as alleged) may well have only placed him on
an even keel with many of the pitchers he faced. While the commonality of use hardly
makes it acceptable to use steroids, it does suggest that the comparative
advantage Bonds would have obtained from steroids would have possibly been
quite small.

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