The All-Steroid Team

In my mind everything was going to be perfect.

The polls would open early, by 11 a.m. at the latest. Crowds would stream in, a mass of humanity finally asserting, bravely, that digital freedom was on the march.

Hundreds would vote. When it was over, fans of Yankees 2000 would be pictured on the cover of Time magazine, with a triumphant finger drenched in digital purple ink proving the enduring image of the day.

Sip and I would be celebrated among People’s 50 Sexiest Bloggers. The election would go down as a watershed moment in internet history, immortalized by a special edition of the old Life magazine, prompted to come out of retirement by the sheer enormity of the event.

In my mind, the vote was going to be perfect.

But as Phil Collins so eloquently put it, something happened on the way to heaven. The decisive winner of the election was… drum roll… choosing not to vote at all!

Salt.

When all the votes were tallied, fewer than 10% of our readers had voted. I mean, wow. They had better voter turnout in Fallujah last year. Fallujah. You know, burning bodies hanging from bridges? The possibility of death-by-insurgent lurking around every corner?

And yet somehow, in spite of all that, Fallujans voted in higher numbers than our audience, which merely had to click a button on a mouse. You almost wouldn’t have thought it possible.

But even if my hopes for an election day triumph were dashed, I’m not willing to give up on our readers yet.That’s right, the polls will open once more, and this time, I've got a topic that I think more people will have an opinion on: what Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use should mean in terms of his Hall of Fame eligibility. If interested in voting, you can find the poll box under his name on the list below.

So that brings me to the subject of this post. Over the past several years there’s been a lot of talk about steroid use in baseball. There’s been a lot of raised eyebrows, a lot of speculation, a lot of innuendo.

A website like us, our bread and butter is the latter. So with that in mind, I’d like to present you with the official roster for the Yankees 2000 All-Steroid Team. Were all of the players selected below actually on the juice? Do we have concrete proof of it? Not as such.

But steroid transgressions have been suggested for each of the players listed below, and that suggestion was good enough for us. One quick ground rule: outfielders were selected All-Star game style; that is, three outfielders rather than an LF, CF, and RF. So without further ado…

P – Roger Clemens

OK, this one's largely speculative. But ever since a certain well-placed source as CBS-sports began a whisper campaign that Roger Clemens was set to be outed as juicer, well, the idea has stuck with us here at Y2K.

Clemens defies all logic. As regular readers are aware, Young Sip was in New York recently. The night before he went back to San Francisco the two of us watched a little 1986 Mets. As those trumpets set in during the opening sequence, Sip turned to me and said "This whole thing was so ridiculous." Then the shot of Clemens flashed on the screen, and Sip instantly exclaimed, "What's really ridiculous is that he's still the best pitcher in baseball."

Indeed, you wouldn't have thought he had it in him in the early 1990s, when Clemens had 4 straight disappointing seasons en route to a 40-39 record between 1993 and 1996, his final seasons in Boston. Since then, The Rocket has gone 149-61, won two World Series championships, three Cy Young awards, and showed serious 'roid rage directed toward a strapping catcher affectionately known as the Monster.

Clemens is one of the best pitchers of all time. Was he a juicer? It's impossible to know, but the rumor is out there, and that qualifies him for this list.

C – Pudge Rodriguez

You know, in life there are some people you just dislike. There are also people you flat out despise. Pudge Rodriguez always fell into the latter category for me. For a long time the only good thing I had to dislike about Pudge was that he stole the limelight from my boy and yours, Mike Piazza.

But thanks to a syringe, then the introduction of steroid testing, the loss of 20 pounds and virtually all hitting ability, now I’ve got a good reason to look back at the career of Ivan Rodriguez and say, “wow, did I hate that fuck or what?”

Indeed, few things were as comical as the fact that this guy showed up to spring training last year 20 lbs. lighter than he’d been in 2004, and pronounced the loss in bulk was because he wanted to become more agile. "I've got a new program," Rodriguez said. "I'm running a lot of sprints on the track and changed my program a little bit.”

Makes sense. If I were coming off a season in which I’d hit .334 with a .383 OBP and 86 RBI I’d probably change my program too. And then when I proceeded to hit .276 with a .290 OBP and 50 RBI, I’d probably fess up, admit I was a ‘roider, pack up and never be heard from again.

But Pudge didn’t do any of that, and that’s why I hate him.

1B – Mark McGwire

Before Tuesday’s bombshell disclosures about Barry Bonds, perhaps no player was the subject of as much steroid speculation as Mark McGwire. Because of his role in that charmed summer of 1998, back when mammoth biceps were lovingly (not disparagingly) referred to as “Popeye arms”, McGwire’s rumored steroid use has always appeared a violation of the public’s trust.

For whatever reason, probably because he was white, it was McGwire that the country rallied around in 1998. He was the guy we wanted to see break the record. Sammy Sosa was like the sidekick, doing his little hop, putting the pressure on the big guy, but in the end we all knew how we wanted the story to end.

And for a while there we thought it had ended perfectly. McGwire slugged 70 homeruns, the new decade of numbers almost compensating for how awkward and anticlimactic homerun No. 62 was (easily the least imposing home run he hit all season -- fun fact for Mets fans, he hit it against Steve Trachsel, then a Chicago Cub).

But the story did not end with the close of the 1998 season, and it’s still not quite closed yet. Indeed, something happened on the way to the Hall of Fame. McGwire’s grand jury testimony last March made him a national punch line, and now it’s uncertain whether his 583 homeruns or the role he played in revitalizing baseball’s popularity after the strike of 1994 will be enough to get him enshrined in Cooperstown.

All of which is to say, that "Got Milk?" ad he posed for looks pretty ridiculous right now, wouldn't you say? (Incidentally, if you want a good laugh, run a Google images search of Mark McGwire. The vast majority of the pictures are hysterical.)

2B – Bret Boone

Long before he dyed his hair platinum blond and became entirely useless on the baseball field (and later, a sobbing mess), Bret Boone managed to turn himself into quite a good little ballplayer.

Boone was your typical entirely serviceable, actually better-than-average second baseman during the early part of his career, spanning stops in Cincinatti, Atlanta, and San Diego. Boone was good for 12 home runs a season in his early years, and then by the time he reached his natural prime he became a 20-HR threat.

But nothing prepared us for the offensive onslaught he unleashed in 2001 when he all of a sudden hit 37 homeruns and collected 141 RBI.

To be honest, Boone kind of bores me, but if you look at his career stats, it’s possible that no one benefited from the juice more obviously than this guy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s anyone in baseball who doubts that he was a ‘roider. Jose Canseco devoted a part of his book to calling out Boone specifically, and while it's worth taking much of what Canseco says with a grain of salt, his allegation against Boone we can pretty much take as gospel.

3B – Ken Caminiti

I’m not interested in spitting on this guy’s grave. All that really needs to be said is that for all the joking around about steroids, there’s a serious side to steroid abuse, and no one embodies that more perfectly than Ken Caminiti.

After admitting he was a regular steroid-user in his major league career, Caminiti died in 2004 of a heart attack. He was 41 years old.

SS – Rafael Santana

Alright, it’s true I couldn’t think of a shortstop, but that’s not the only reason Rafael Santana finds himself on this list. I’m not sure what it is, but Santana must have done something really bad in his life. I mean, the guy isn’t even mentioned in the 1986 Mets Tape – even George Foster was mentioned in the 1986 Mets Tape!

Now look, maybe it was his batting line that year that kept him out of the video. His .218 average,.285 OBP, .254 Slugging Percentage, 1 HR, and 28 RBI that year are not the kind of numbers that lend themselves to a highlight reel.

But consider this: in 1987, Santana hit .255 with a .302 OBP, and a .346 Slugging Percentage. He clubbed 5 homeruns (that’s right, five, two more than he’d hit in the previous three years combined), and set a career high with 44 RBIs.

Was Santana an early adopter in the steroid craze? The numbers are pretty damning. For my money, I’m saying Santana was either a juicer or the leader of the cocaine drug cartel that brought down the careers of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, and later threatened the career of Scott Kazmir.

OF – Barry Bonds

By this point everyone's familiar with the case against Barry Bonds. It is a near certainty that Bonds is a juicer, but that doesn't change the fact that he was always an incredible ballplayer. Indeed, in the early 1990s, the discussion was always who would you rather have, Bonds or Griffey? Both were 5-tool superstars who produced year-in and year-out.

But something happened to Bonds around the time of his 35th birthday. Always a great player and a consistent home run threat, Bonds became a home run hitting machine. His slugging prowess reached a peak in 2001, when, at the age of 37, Bonds slugged 73 home runs, 24 more than his previous career high.

Almost more telling than the numbers with Bonds is the dramatic change in his physique over the years. When he broke into the majors he was almost lanky. Over the years he bulked up somewhat, but nothing you wouldn't expect of a man going from his young 20s to late 20s.

Today Bonds sports biceps that aren't quite at McGwire's level, but close. His head size is said to be expanding. His home runs numbers continue to defy logic. As the Hound is fond of saying, baseball's been played long enough that you can know something fishy when you see it. People in their late 30s don't all of a sudden become the greatest home run hitting force the game has ever known (Roy Hobbs not withstanding).

That is of course, unless they use steroids.

Assuming the evidence is conclusive that Barry Bonds used steroids, should he still be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame?
	Yes, because he was Hall of Fame caliber before he is alleged to have started juicing.
	Yes, because it's unfair to single out Bonds.
	Yes, but his plaque should have an asterisk (or a syringe) next to his statistics.
	No, his accomplishments are tainted.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

OF – Sammy Sosa

Ahh Slammin' Sammy. A committed cheater, not only is Sammy Sosa suspected of having used steroids at least throughout the late 1990s and early '00s, he was caught in the act of using a corked bat once the juice started failing him.

Sosa's a lot like Bonds in a way. He certainly was never as good or dynamic as Bonds, but as a home run threat, the two had similar pre-steroids peaks (although Bonds was far more consistent). Sosa was a consistent mid-30s home run threat, topping out at 40 in his pre-steroid years.

Sosa was a guy you could see having one of those seasons where everything was perfect and he'd hit about 52 home runs. In the old days we'd have called it a career year. When he exploded for 66 home runs in 1998, we were awed. We should have known better, but we ate it up. Along with McGwire, Sosa captivated the nation. He was fan-friendly and personable, always happy to give a sound bite.

And then as steroid rumors persisted, something happened to Sammy's demeanor. He became hostile with the media, including one bizarre incident with Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly in which he insisted he didn't have to prove anything to Reilly, because Reilly wasn't his father. In his Congressional testimony last March, Sosa suddenly lost the ability to speak English.

Over the years, Sosa's public reputation was so thoroughly tarnished that when he retired this offseason, his departure from the game resulted in none of the lovefest sendoffs you'd have predicted. Like other suspected steroid users, Sosa's retirement was a relief.

OF – Jose Canseco

It’s arguable whether he’s the player single most identified with steroids in the court of public opinion, but for people involved in Major League Baseball, no man did more to popularize and normalize the use of performance enhancing drugs than Jose Canseco.

Known as “The Chemist” because of his tireless devotion to substance-induced body development, Canseco is the Godfather of the steroid era. Canseco ‘roided his way to 462 career homeruns, corrupting numerous players (some on this list) and taking down Madonna along the way.

For more information on Canseco, please refer to his incomparable “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big”. I read that book in less than 16 hours, you can too.

DH - Jason Giambi

The last starter on the All-Steroid Team, Jason Giambi is the stereotypical steroid user. He's big, he's greasy, he's a party-hard kind of guy.

In his book, Canseco referred to Giambi as "the most obvious juicer in the game". Looking at pictures such as this one, or perhaps more famously the one of Giambi on the cover of ESPN the Magazine, it's hard to really argue with that logic. In terms of career abnormalities, I'm still giving that award to Bret Boone, but it's worth keeping Canseco's declaration in mind.

As far as I'm concerned, Giambi deserves everything bad that ever happens to him on the ball field. He spurned the Oakland A's so he could go play for the corporate Yankees, the team that his young, brash club could never overcome. It would have been like Pedro signing with the Yankees if the Red Sox had never won the World Series. Maybe not quite as bad as that, but pretty bad.

Like many others, I was disgusted last year when Giambi won Comeback Player of the Year honors. It just goes to show that just like we were in the late '90s, we're still blinded by the long ball.

So there you have it, boys and girls, that about does it. Sure, we could have expanded this list. We could have talked about Rafael Palmeiro coming off the bench, about his finger waving in front of Congress in the spring and the earplugs he had to wear come fall.

But we'll cap it there. If readers feel I made any serious ommissions, I'd be curious to hear competing starting lineups for the All-Steroid Team. As it is, I like my starting nine.

And I sure as hell like the weather here in New York. Enjoy it everyone, have a good weekend. And if you find it in your heart to vote in this poll, well, I'd appreciate it.

- A.F.O.M.G.