Since you asked...

Picture it: St. Catharines, 1999. It was a more innocent time. I had a university degree, southern Ontario was treating me well and the Indian Posse hadn't yet taken itself off my Christmas card list.

Around that time was the ascension, near peaking, of a little number we liked to call Kings of the Hill, on CFBU 103.7 FM Radio Niagara. The campus and community station of THE Brock University was the breeding ground for the most influential, cutting edge hour of sports talk to ever came out of an asbestos-filled early-1900s house on the edge of BU's gravel parking lot. In short, it was magic.

The KOTH took on many forms and, much like Regis' search for Kelly, a handful of different hosts graced the booth to bring the Niagara Region its most infectious form of radio ever.

Flash forward to ... what are we in... 2005? ... Well I still keep in touch with one of the previous hosts, Julio Garasa, and he and I have decided to bring the KOTH, ostensibly, back to the masses with a series of email exchanges regarding any issue that springs to mind. The basic idea, and yes it's essentially stolen from the brain of Bill Simmons (like much of what I write), is just a sports talk show via email. He in Ottawa, me in ... ugh... Brandon. So we're going to reprint the emails here in a little segment we called, very pompously, Since You Asked ...

Without further adieu,

Since You Asked: Rafael Palmeiro and the Steroid Era


-----Original Message-----
From: David Larkins [dlarkins@steelersfan.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2005 4:48 PM
To: Garasa, Julio: OPS
Subject: RE: OK ...

i agree with all you've said here, but just have one thing to add: Sammy's corked bat, despite popular rantings, would not be an assistance to him against big league pitching. The cork itself makes the bat too weak to take a 90mph pitch out of the yard. In BP? Sure, because it's just light cracks. But MLB pitchers would saw that thing off, as we saw. Hence, I don't think there was a cork issue in the past. Most people feel it is a booster, when it's actually the exact opposite.


--- "Garasa, Julio: OPS" wrote:

From: "Garasa, Julio: OPS"
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 15:56:37 -0400
To:
Subject: RE: OK ...

True, but no one ever accused professional athletes (especially lately in baseball) of being physics scholars. Just the idea that he (or anyone) would be looking for any type of "edge" (legality, notwithstanding) is enough to question statistics. To ask an obvious question then ... if players have used it in the past for that extra edge in an era when it seemed that only Nolan Ryan could get a pitch in the 90s consistently, and if pitchers are throwing harder today, what's gotten into them (figuratively and literally speaking)?

-----Original Message-----
From: David Larkins [dlarkins@steelersfan.org]
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2005 4:19 PM
To: Garasa, Julio: OPS
Subject: RE: OK ...


yes, undoubtedly there has to be explanations for the amped-up numbers of the past decade and perhaps that is one of the reasons why Raffy is such a contentious pick for the Hall. He did his best work for teams that weren't in contention after the Break, did it in an era where offensive numbers were at an all-time high and did it away from the glaring spotlight fixed on others like Sosa, Bonds and McGwire. Whether it be the watered-down-pitching-caused-by-expansion theory, a tighter-wound ball or angels in the outfield for that matter, it appears the numbers of the past 10-12 years are at the very least suspect. The problem is, as they've suggested for Bonds, putting an asterisk beside a record or a stat isn't as simple as typing Shift-8. Putting that star behind, say Bonds, means adjusting countless other statistics as well for years and
years gone by.

djl.

--- "Garasa, Julio: OPS" wrote:

From: "Garasa, Julio: OPS"
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:58:39 -0400
To:
Subject: RE: OK ...

I'm not sure about that. I think it would be fairly easy to see, more or less, when statistics took some noticeable jumps ... and stayed there.

Knowing what we now know, and will surely know in the not too distant future, you could make asterisking a fairly easy endeavour. In theory. The one major caveat is the indignation by players who have been flagged (they'll deny whether they're guilty or not). And they would be right. No one should be accused without some substantial evidence (although I'm leaning towards having photographic evidence count. "Here's Barry in his strong youth ... and here's Barry in his golden years by the Bay").

So how about this: Do the statistical probabilities, the theoretical matrices, and whatever other mathematical formulae are needed to determine an appropriate start (and presumably, end) to 'The Questionable Years', and asterisk that whole era. Claim that you can't count on the morality of players to come clean but nor can you ignore the ethical standard that should be accorded to the game itself (or some such language). This is a stain on the game and it may have come to the point to stop looking for bogeymen; "rotten apples", if you will, who have tarnished the game's image for all. It may serve the game
better to admit to a failure in conduct by men who simply wanted to be better, stronger, faster than any of their predecessors and chose nefarious means of doing so. I've had enough of this "it wasn't outlawed by MLB. I'm not sure if cocaine was specifically outlawed by the game either but that didn't seem to matter to Steve Howe (among others). And I would suggest that MLB played an implicit role in furthering the use of steroids. How? Remember the logo for the home run derby 2-3 years back? The silhouettes of the ball players used were straight out of a comic book. Behemoths with over-rippled arms, torsos, etc. If there was a home run derby during Aaron's time or Maris' time, they wouldn't have used such a logo ... and those guys had some power.

Just a thought.


-----Original Message-----
From: David Larkins [dlarkins@steelersfan.org]
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2005 5:32 PM
To: Garasa, Julio: OPS
Subject: RE: OK ...

my reference to the difficulting of asterisking an entire decade (if that's the bracket we're putting on it) was more with regard to if you asterisk Barry's numbers, and Raffy's, and Sosa's and Alex Sanchez's for that matter, then it causes a ripple effect down the line. It's not simply a HR issue, it's a team's runs produced, it's a pitcher's ERA, it's a pitcher's IP, it's a team's OBP, it's a player's RISP%, it's a pitcher's K's, etc. etc. Run production would also have to be asterisked, as would runs allowed.

Yes, extrapolating on one small asterisk can go on forever — in that looking-into-two-mirrors-ad-infinitum sorta way — and the further down the line, the smaller the issue is. But one asterisk does invariably affect many other numbers it sits beside, making the asterisk not such a simple thing.

--- "Garasa, Julio: OPS" wrote:

"Garasa, Julio: OPS"
To:  
Subject:  RE: OK ...
Date:  Mon 08/08/05 08:36 AM

But that's my point. You asterisk the decade (for example), qualify/define exactly what you mean by it ("due to the apparent rampant use of performance enhancing drugs, ALL records and unbelievable short-term increases in productivity are subject to suspicion and a furrowed brow "(or words to that effect). My suggestion is not to change anything. Let the records and the rest of the stats stand. But make it clear that they were produced in a "questionable" era. Too simple? Occam's Razor,
my friend. Sometimes the simplest solution is the only one. Doesn't do much for those who weren't juicing up, but then again, we're not talking a couple of bad apples. These are entire rows of trees in the orchard we're dealing with.

JG