During last night’s Yankees game, broadcaster Michael Kay spoke of how the home run has been devalued and listed a bunch of reasons why there were so many now, from steroids to smaller ball parks. Also: the "tighter baseball."
Ten years ago after I watched scrawny Brady Anderson of my team, the Orioles, hit 50 home runs in a season, I went to Yankee Stadium and interviewed a bunch of players about whether the ball was juiced. Almost to a man they said it was. Mel Stottlemyre’s the one guy I remember right now, and he used the concrete floor to demonstrate his point. The ball was jumping out of the park in a way few of us had seen it do before, players and fans. I wasn’t the only one who talked about the juiced ball then.
But my point is this, when I wrote it up, friends said I was indulging in a conspiracy theory. I believe MLB did a study to prove they weren’t juicing the ball, cut it open, pictures in Sports Illustrated and probably the Times. Well they were; and now it’s conventional wisdom. These things happen…
