Palmeiro, Steroids Smear a Whole Era of Players

John Gambadoro
Aug. 8, 2005 08:55 AM
The Arizona Republic

Mark Grace is fighting mad. But he is not alone. Joe Morgan, Will Clark, Frank Robinson, Andy Van Slyke and many others are ticked off to no end. The steroids scandal that has wrecked baseball - no matter how Bud Selig spins it - is not going away.

Yes attendance is up and the majority of teams are still playing in August for something and that is all good. But Rafael Palmiero just got busted for steroids and the fans' trust in the players has never been worse. Grace is upset because he played the game the right way and he will forever be lumped in with the cheaters, of which there were and are many.

Grace came into the big leagues in 1988 and he knew of players who were taking steroids then. He was around it; he was asked about it, he was offered it. But he balked at taking the drug. In his career Grace hit 20 home runs zero times. He drove in 100 runs zero times. In 16 years he had 173 home runs. But he was a hit machine. He had more hits than any other player in the 1990s and he finished with 2,445 of them. And every one of them was real.

"It bothers me that guys like myself, Tony Gwynn, Jay Bell and Matt Williams, guys who played the game the right way are lumped in with this era," Grace said. "Some of us were playing fair."

Grace points to 2007 as a big year to determine how the steroids scandal will truly affect the players who cheated. He looks at Mark McGwire, who will be eligible for the Hall of Fame that year, and questions whether he will be enshrined. When asked if he would vote for him, Grace says, "No. At least not on the first ballot." He calls McGwire's numbers "artificial" and believes that steroids clearly made a difference in the power numbers for many of the players of that era.

"It probably started in the early '90s when we started seeing monsters like (Jose) Canseco and other enormous guys coming around. You were like wow! Those guys are enormous. Then guys started hitting balls where nobody ever did. Before Mark McGwire got to St. Louis there had only been three balls ever hit in Busch Stadium's upper deck. Mark hit like 40 of them up there."

Grace, the former Cubs and Diamondbacks star who now is a broadcaster with Arizona, believes steroids played a huge role in a player's production. "If a player had warning track power and he took steroids to get stronger, those balls are now going over the wall for a home run. And balls are getting through the infield quicker as well."

In his years in the minor leagues Grace played with Palmiero in the Cubs organization. He says Palmiero was a good player with average-at-best power. In his first three full seasons in the major leagues Palmiero hit a total of 30 home runs in 1,737 at bats. He followed those seasons with years in which he hit 22 and 26 respectively. Palmiero had spent parts of seven seasons in the majors and had never hit more than 26 home runs in a season and was not known as a power hitter. But the year after he became teammates with Jose Canseco at Texas in 1992 Palmiero's home-run numbers went up big time. He hit 37 home runs in 1993 and drove in 100 runs for the first time in his career. He would hit 30 or more home runs 10 times in 11 years and four times hit more than 40.

"There were suspicions about Raffy," Grace said. "He was mentioned in Jose Canseco's book. Put it this way: If Jose had mentioned me and I know I'm not a user I would slap him with a libel suit before he could say Jackie Robinson. To my knowledge none of the guys who were mentioned in the book have done that."

Palmiero has clearly damaged his reputation beyond repair. He comes off as liar and a cheat. He was adamant about not taking steroids in front of Congress only to be found out as a fraud a few months later. His chances for the Hall of Fame are slim at best now.

The best thing the baseball writers who have a Hall of Fame vote can do is to honor the players in this era who respected the game and played it the right way. In other words, they should not vote for those we know have cheated. That includes McGwire, Palmiero, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds. It would be very difficult to not vote for Sammy Sosa based on speculation. Grace pointed out that Sosa gained 40 to 50 pounds from the time he first met him to the time he became a pure power hitter. But while all of baseball is waiting for Sosa to mess up, unless he does there isn't much to keep him out.

The sad part about the steroids era is that Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Robinson, Mickey Mantle and all of those who played the game the right way are being surpassed by those who have done it artificially. That is not right and hopefully, one day, baseball can right this wrong by any means necessary."It's a bad, bad era and unfortunately I'll be looked back on as a part of it," Grace said. "I'm pissed off at all of this stuff. Looking back on it, it's crazy. I'm almost ashamed to have been a part of it for 16 years."

And us fans are just as ashamed to have supported it.