Murray Chass is not one to leave things in the past. For a person who often lives in the past, it is very important to constantly bring up the past in order to make yourself feel more modern. Murray likes discussing whether Mike Piazza used PED's based on the scientific evidence of Piazza's bacne. If that's the case, then thousands of teenage boys are using PED's despite not playing a sport. Murray sees that Chris Davis has broken Brady Anderson's Baltimore Orioles home run record and it makes him wonder why Brady Anderson stopped using PED's. It's a question that comes 17 years too late and it is perhaps unfair to just assume Anderson used PED's, but Murray isn't interested in being fair. He wants answers, but the only answer he will accept is the one that matches the conclusion he has already drawn.
The confluence of a series of home runs and other related events the
past week stirred memories and thoughts of past home runs and other
related events.
And when Murray starts stirring memories of past home runs then you better watch out, because someone is getting accused of using PED's.
Featured in these developments were Chris Davis, Brady Anderson, Barry Bonds and Wladimir Balentien.
I guess we should just be thankful Murray wasn't having stirred memories and thoughts about these players in the form of a sexual dream.
By slugging his 50th and 51st home runs, Davis
tied and broke Anderson’s head-scratching Baltimore Orioles’ franchise
record and rekindled the long-dormant debate over how Anderson hit all
of those home runs in 1996.
It was 17 years ago and Brady Anderson isn't making the Hall of Fame anytime soon. Let's just assume it was hard work and perseverance, mostly because it doesn't matter anymore.
By hitting his own pair of home runs, Balentien raised his total to 57,
breaking Sadaharu Oh’s legendary Japanese record of 55 and prompting
another kind of question: Why hasn’t anyone raised the steroids
question?
Because it's Japanese baseball and American sportswriters have enough issues when talking about MLB players and steroids to worry about which Japanese league baseball players may be using PED's.
Maybe it’s because baseball people and fans learned that it’s not the
players who are juiced but the balls. In June, the Associated Press
reported, Japanese baseball officials said they had the balls made to be
livelier without telling the players. The balls, the AP said, resulted
in a dramatic increase in home runs.
There you go. It's been explained. I like how Murray is talking in circles though, asking questions and then answering his own questions. It's like he's having a conversation with himself by answering his own questions.
OK, but Balentien becomes the chief beneficiary of the livelier balls?
Dear Murray Chass,
Before you start writing about a topic, please do some research on that topic. I know doing research isn't anything you had to do in the pre-Internet age, but readers today just don't absentmindedly believe what a sportswriter is saying and require some sense of proof or research done on a topic prior to writing a column on said topic.
Sincerely,
Ben
I did some research and Balentien is NOT the chief beneficiary of the livelier balls. Put on your glasses and check out this article. Here is the pertinent section of the article:
There were 939 home runs in 2011 and 881 in 2012. This season's tally
stood at 512 as of Tuesday, on pace for a season total of 1,297.
So it turns out Balentien is not the chief beneficiary of the livelier ball and home runs have risen by almost 50% from the 2012 season through the Japanese league.
There was a time when Japanese pitchers didn’t allow foreign players to
break Oh’s record, which he set in 1964. They deliberately walked Oh’s
challengers rather than give them a chance to hit home runs.
Imagine if American pitchers started walking a Japanese batter so he wouldn't break a record set by an American. Can you imagine the shit-storm that would erupt if this happened? I can't fathom how American sportswriters would react if pitchers started walking Ichiro so he didn't get a chance to hit .400 (this hypothetical would take place in the early 2000's of course).
Randy Bass hit 54 homers in 1985 and Tuffy Rhodes (2001) and Alex Cabrera (2002) clouted 55 each. The walks ensued.
I bet Murray believes all three of these players used PED's. How else can their home runs be explained? By the way, I am writing this post while drinking coffee, so I guess I'm using a PED because otherwise I would not write with such vigor and charm.
It’s not likely that anyone will break Oh’s career record of 868, but
then it was unlikely that anyone would break Henry Aaron’s career major
league record of 755. But along came Barry Bonds, who bulked up on
flaxseed oil and whacked 258 homers in a five-year period at ages 36-40,
including a single-season record 73 at baseball’s senior-citizen age of
37.
And naturally, Bonds hitting 258 home runs over a five-year period is equivalent to Wladimir Balentien breaking the Japanese home run record. They are the same thing.
At the time Anderson hit 50 home runs, in 1996, no one was talking about
steroids or suspecting players of using them, though as it developed,
some clearly were.
I very, very clearly remember my friends and I talking about whether Anderson was using PED's or not in 1996. Now maybe the media wasn't talking about steroids or suspecting players of using steroids due to the fact the sports media preferred to keep their head in the sand back then, but I remember very clearly that I was having discussions about the use of steroids in regard to Brady Anderson. I'm not special or overly-smart, so I couldn't have been the only one. I've since ceased to care because it was 17 years ago and there was never evidence Anderson did use steroids.
Was Anderson among them? He has always denied it, and the circumstantial evidence isn’t as voluminous as it is in Bonds’ case.
I like how the circumstantial evidence isn't voluminous or even existent, outside of the fact Anderson hit 50 home runs in a season and never hit that many again, but this isn't enough for Murray to back off wondering whether Anderson used steroids. In fact, there is no evidence or circumstantial evidence that Brady Anderson used steroids other than the fact he hit 50 home runs in a season and never approached this total again. That's it. So while Murray is saying the circumstantial evidence isn't voluminous, he means it's virtually non-existent. Maybe Brady Anderson did use steroids, but there's no evidence and the only circumstantial evidence is that he hit 50 home runs in a season.
In his first eight seasons in the majors Anderson hit a total of 72 home
runs. In his six seasons after his 50 year he hit 88 homers. In 1996 he
drove in 110 runs and had a .637 slugging percentage. Before and after,
his best single-season numbers were 80 r.b.i. and 81 r.b.i., and his
next best slugging percentage was .477.
Yeah, it's crazy isn't it? Roger Maris hit 97 home runs in the four seasons before he hit 61 home runs and hit 117 home runs in the seven seasons after he hit 61 home runs. 1961 accounted for 22% of his home runs for his MLB career while his at-bats in 1961 accounted for 11.5% of his at-bats for his MLB career. RBI's are irrelevant to me for this discussion since they rely on teammates getting on-base. My point is that Roger Maris was a good hitter, but he never came close to hitting 61 home runs in a season again. But of course, there's no chance he was using any type of PED, because Murray chooses to ignore any evidence baseball players prior to the mid-1980's ever used PED's. It simply didn't happen, despite evidence given by Hall of Famers like Mike Schmidt it did happen.
As weird as the 1996 performance seemed to be as produced by Anderson,
equally weird was his reversion to his previous levels of hitting.
Roger Maris never reverted to quite the low level of hitting that Brady Anderson reverted to, but Anderson isn't the first hitter to have an outstanding season and never reach that level of hitting again. Maybe he did use steroids, but it's 17 years later and it really doesn't matter anymore.
Did he decide to use steroids, then decide after a year of use that he didn’t like the threat they posed to one’s health?
I don't know. Quick, someone check to see if he has bacne!
Did he decide he didn’t like cheating? Did someone close to him who knew he was using prevail upon him to stop?
Notice the one option that Murray leaves out completely. Maybe, perhaps, Brady Anderson wasn't using cheating and using PED's. Of course there's no way this is correct and Murray Chass wants to make sure to annoy Anderson 17 years later to get to the bottom of this important story.
I think I can play devil's advocate and turn these questions around. Why would Brady Anderson just stop cheating once he's seen how it can help him play better? What's the point of cheating for one year and then just quitting? Anderson wasn't playing for a new contract at that point, so why would he cheat for one year and then just quit using steroids?
Efforts to reach Anderson by telephone to ask him these questions and others were unsuccessful.
I can't believe Anderson doesn't want to talk about something that happened 17 years ago and has no bearing on the 2013 Baltimore Orioles team. Murray thinks Anderson would want to comment and clear his name. After all, once Anderson denied using steroids Murray Chass would surely drop the issue wouldn't he?
Haha, who am I kidding? We all know Murray would simply say that Brady Anderson is lying and can't justify his increase in power during the 1996 season. So there's really no reason for Anderson to comment on the speculation that Murray is trying to toss around, because no matter what Anderson says (outside of a confession of steroid use during the 1996 season) Murray isn't going to believe him regardless.
However, he is the Orioles’ vice president of baseball operations and
was at the game in Boston when Davis hit his record-breaking 51st home run.
The Orioles hired Anderson? The entire organization is obviously complicit in Anderson's steroid use.
“I love it,” Anderson told the Baltimore Sun. “Chris and I have been really close since he came here.
Brady Anderson and Chris Davis are close. Because Brady Anderson indisputably used steroids, this is more proof that Chris Davis is using steroids as well.
“I know I was obviously having my best year, but I wasn’t thinking,
‘Wow, this is amazing.’ I never thought that. It seemed pretty normal. I
found out in subsequent years that it wasn’t normal. But watching Chris
do it, you think about the consistency of which you need to hit home
runs to get 50. Seeing him do that kind of reminded me of how consistent
you need to be.”
By "how consistent" Murray knows that Brady Anderson clearly means "how you need to find the best steroid supplier and then hope he doesn't get busted and snitch on you."
Their careers, Anderson added, have somewhat paralleled each other: both
were top prospects and both flourished after trade-deadline deals to
the Orioles.
Again, further proof that because Brady Anderson used steroids Chris Davis is most definitely using steroids also.
There is, however, a difference in the prelude to their hitting 50 home
runs. Davis established himself as something of a home run hitter in the
minor leagues and hit 33 last year in his first full season in the
majors.
Of course, even knowing these numbers I have no doubt that Murray thinks Chris Davis is using PED's to increase his home run totals.
Given the way he has started, Davis isn’t likely to fall to low
double-digit homers as Anderson did, plunging from 50 to 18 the next
season.
So if Davis hits 45 home runs next year does that mean he is less likely to have used steroids to increase his power or does this make it more likely? I am wondering because while Murray is using Brady Anderson's one year increase as proof (the only proof) he used steroids, Chris Davis could certainly be using steroids and just not stop using them after one season.
My point is that if Davis continues to hit home runs at a high rate this doesn't mean he is clean, just like Brady Anderson's one year outlier doesn't mean he took steroids for one year and then quit. Besides, who cares? It was 17 years ago. There are plenty of other exciting baseball-related issues to discuss without going back 17 years and trying to dredge up proof that Brady Anderson used steroids for a season. It really doesn't matter anymore.
Showing posts with label chris davis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chris davis. Show all posts
Monday, October 21, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
0 comments Rick Telander Joins the List of Sportswriters Who Beat Around the Bush in Accusing Chris Davis of PED Use
Just a reminder to those participants in the Bottom of the Barrel Fantasy Football league to sign up for the league again. If you want to of course. Otherwise I will open up the teams on Saturday so that others who may want to join can.
Rick Telander tells us it "raises eyebrows" when we see Chris Davis' performance this season. Chris Davis is hitting home runs at a record pace. Rick Telander is one of many sportswriters who don't have the guts (and mostly evidence) to accuse Chris Davis of PED use, but that doesn't stop some passive-aggressive accusations like talking about how it seems odd Davis' home run numbers have skyrocketed. Of course Roger Maris went from 39 home runs to 61 home runs in the span of a season, but that's irrelevant because it needs to be irrelevant so these sportswriters don't have a logical example to compare Davis' current season to. So Rick Telander is one of quite a few sportswriters who accuse without accusing and have suspicions of Davis they don't have the guts to voice. Telander sure will beat around the bush though.
People might wonder what the fallout from the baseball’s Steroid Era is.
Sportswriters will overcompensate for their lack of awareness during the Steroid Era by suspecting every player who puts up Roger Maris-like numbers of PED use?
Try this: Amazing Orioles slugger Chris Davis (in town to play the White Sox) is on pace to hit 61 home runs — Roger Maris’ golden number —
A number that Maris hit once and never came close to again. Maris went from 19 to 16 to 39 to 61 to 33 to 23 home runs over a span of six seasons. If Maris did that today (Brady Anderson for example) we would all point out how Maris was obviously cheating the year he hit 61 home runs and then claim Babe Ruth was the home run champion with 60 home runs. Since Maris hit those home runs over 50 years ago we all know he was perfectly clean and obviously no clean player could ever replicate hitting less than 40 home runs in a single-season and then knocking 61 home runs in the very next single-season.
The first thing that goes through any informed fan’s mind when he or she sees a 6-3, 230-pound muscleman come from almost nowhere and suddenly start ringing the home-run bell is steroids.
Chris Davis didn't come out of nowhere. He hit 33 home runs last year and hit 21 home runs in 391 at-bats in 2009. He's been a guy who could hit home runs for most of his career now. He's in the prime of his career though and has made the Jose Bautista-type change to his swing that he claims contributes to him crushing the baseball.
Do I believe Chris Davis is clean? I don't have evidence to the contrary and his age, ability to hit home runs in years past and the knowledge other hitters have made changes to their batting style with success tells me Davis' new-found super power could be legit. I'm not naive, but I'm also not going to be a wimp and passively-aggressively accuse Davis of using PED's because I have no other column ideas.
The Brewers’ Ryan Braun was voted the National League’s most valuable player in 2011, and all that has hung over him since is the cloud of a failed doping test and legal technicalities.
Except Braun didn't put up prodigious home run numbers in one season like Davis has done this season. Braun has been fairly consistent in his home runs per season. So Braun isn't exactly an example of a player whose home run rate has skyrocketed in one season, so he isn't a great comparison to Davis.
The Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown last season, and you just have to wonder. Cabrera’s right up there in all categories again this season, battling Davis for a possible recoronation. Is he clean?
Yeah, let's drag Miguel Cabrera into this discussion. That seems fair. Apparently no MLB player can ever have another great season of hitting the baseball without his name immediately being linked to PED's by a sportswriter. Do we have evidence Miguel Cabrera isn't clean? If not, it is only fair to assume he is clean.
Commissioner Bud Selig would like us to think the dubious old days of drug-taking have vanished because Major League Baseball and the players union have agreed on a drug-testing program. But the Olympic rule holds: Only the stupid, reckless and bizarrely egomaniacal get caught.
Oh ok, so most Olympians are using PED's, but only the dumb ones get caught? Great, glad we got that out of the way. Why even have sports since Rick Telander thinks everyone is using PED's? I'd love to know Rick's PED thoughts on the NFL and NBA. He probably thinks all of those guys are clean.
Even career narcissist Lance Armstrong might have made it through doping central if he had left well enough alone and not come back to cycling after his seven Tour de France victories.
It's speculation to say Armstrong would have gotten busted even if he didn't return to cycling after his seven Tour de France victories, but the government had their eye on Armstrong for a while and Armstrong had also made a lot of enemies over the years. I'm betting Armstrong would have been busted for doping at some point because the government or one of the people he defamed or libeled over the years would have worked hard to find evidence of his doping.
Everybody says Davis is a humble, God-fearing sort. And he seems to be. He doesn’t like to brag. He walks away from homers the same way he does from strikeouts.
Irrelevant.
But he has hit a broken-bat homer.
This is even more irrelevant. Jordan Pacheco has one too. Justin Upton has hit one. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has hit one. Mark Teixeira has hit one. If that's evidence of a player using steroids then Rick Telander needs to be prepared to accuse all four of these players of using PED's.
He can hit opposite-field dingers on bad pitches.
Shin-Soo Choo hit an opposite field home run off a slider on the outside part of the plate a few weekends ago against the Braves. Choo is probably not using PED's.
He has checked his swing and hit the wall.
Rick needs to immediately forward this information to MLB so they can start the investigation immediately. Chris Davis checked his swing and hit the wall? This doesn't sound anecdotal at all.
Five days ago, Baltimore Sun baseball writer Matt Vensel noted that Davis’ amazing stat of the week was that he had hit at least nine homers in three consecutive months, something ‘‘last done by Rafael Palmeiro in 1998.’’
Palmeiro? Yep, a previously disgraced ’roider.
More clear evidence that isn't anecdotal or coincidental in nature.
I don’t think anybody wants Davis to be dirty. He never has failed a drug test, remember.
Actually, you are the one who needs to remember Chris Davis has never failed a drug test. As I noted when Rick Reilly sort-of-but-not-really accused Chris Davis of PED use, Davis did hit home runs in AA at the current pace he is hitting home runs. Davis hit 54 home runs in 867 at-bats at AAA from the ages of 22-25 years old. Davis is now 27 years old (in the prime of his career) and getting consistent at-bats. This isn't the case of a 10 year veteran who hasn't ever hit 30 home runs in a season over his career starting to slam the ball out of the park at a prodigious clip. Davis hasn't really gotten consistent 500 at-bats over a season in the majors but for one year of his career and that was in 2012. He hit 33 home runs last year. Davis has shown he can hit home runs, even if not at this current rate.
And let’s state here all the reasons he might be as clean as spring sheets: He is 27, a great age for sluggers. He has changed up his swing to be less wild. He is left-handed, and that helps in parks with shallow corners and against right-handed pitchers. He has been in the majors six seasons and has worked very hard. Finally, he hit 33 homers last season.
And I really don't think this can be overstated, that last year was the first year Davis got 500 at-bats in the majors. You don't have to be a genius to know consistent at-bats can help a player feel more comfortable at the plate.
I like the idea of Rick Telander telling us why Chris Davis may not be using PED's, but I know he doesn't believe it. He wouldn't write this column if he believed Davis wasn't using PED's.
It’s that leap from 33 last season to 31 before the All Star Game that nags. By comparison, though, Maris hit 39 homers the season before hitting his assuredly non-drug-induced total of 61 in 1961.
This is the appearance of being fair to Chris Davis. I also like how Maris' home run total of 61 was "assuredly non-drug-induced" because we all know no Hall of Famers have stated "greenies" were readily used and available in MLB clubhouses. We all know no Hall of Famers like Willie Mays or Willie Stargell would ever be linked to any type of amphetamine use of any kind. So we know for sure that Roger Maris never used any type of amphetamine or PED during his playing days. MLB players started using cocaine in the 80's and then they started using steroids to enhance their performance in the 90's and there was never ANY drug use prior to the 1980's. It's best Rick keeps his head in the sand so he doesn't smear memories of his idols.
I think it is funny that Rick says Roger Maris was assuredly clean while he works hard to raise suspicion around Chris Davis. Who really knows if Roger Maris used any type of amphetamine, but there is more than one account amphetamines have been available in MLB clubhouses for quite a few years now. Again, Roger Maris is the only player allowed a 50% increase in home runs during a season and every other player who experiences this sharp rise in home runs is immediately under suspicion of PED use.
In the second inning Tuesday at U.S. Cellular Field, Davis drew a one-out walk from Sox pitcher John Danks in his first plate appearance. This despite the fact Danks is a lefty and so is Davis.
This was the first time in MLB history a left-handed pitcher has walked a left-handed batter...more evidence of PED use by Chris Davis.
We’ll see where this Cabrera-Davis race goes. Let’s hope — for the immediate future, then through the spectrum of history — it remains fair, clean and authentic.
Until then, let's keep writing passive-aggressive columns where it is hinted that both players may be using PED's.
I wish elite sport didn’t so often come around to the fraudulent Armstrong, the guy who lied to cancer patients and everybody else as he won his gold and infamy. But it does.
Chris Davis has nothing to do with Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong doped to win seven Tour de France titles, while Chris Davis has had an excellent half-season during the 2013 season. Even if Chris Davis did cheat, his degree of cheating still pales in comparison to Lance Armstrong's degree of cheating. Not that there are degrees of PED use, but bringing Armstrong into this discussion only clouds the issue.
‘‘The Tour de France? No,’’ he told the French newspaper Le Monde last week. ‘‘Impossible to win without doping.’’
Maybe for Lance Armstrong it is impossible to win the Tour de France without doping. Greg LeMond didn't seem to have a problem doing so.
Let’s hope, as ever, he was lying.
And this has what to do with Chris Davis again? Roger Maris is allowed to go from 39 home runs to 61 home runs without any suspicion, but no other player in the history of baseball from the Steroid Era on is allowed to have such a large single-season increase in his home run total. I guess Roger Maris was such a physical specimen that no other MLB player throughout the history of baseball could match his single-season home run total.
Chris Davis may be using PED's, but his home run totals can also be explained by his changed swing and the fact he is now getting consistent at-bats. It's fine to believe he is cheating, but as a sportswriter if you suspect Chris Davis is using PED's then I would expect you to search for information to back up your claim as opposed to just accusing him and carrying on with your life. Also, don't drag Miguel Cabrera into the discussion. He hasn't failed a drug test either.
Rick Telander tells us it "raises eyebrows" when we see Chris Davis' performance this season. Chris Davis is hitting home runs at a record pace. Rick Telander is one of many sportswriters who don't have the guts (and mostly evidence) to accuse Chris Davis of PED use, but that doesn't stop some passive-aggressive accusations like talking about how it seems odd Davis' home run numbers have skyrocketed. Of course Roger Maris went from 39 home runs to 61 home runs in the span of a season, but that's irrelevant because it needs to be irrelevant so these sportswriters don't have a logical example to compare Davis' current season to. So Rick Telander is one of quite a few sportswriters who accuse without accusing and have suspicions of Davis they don't have the guts to voice. Telander sure will beat around the bush though.
People might wonder what the fallout from the baseball’s Steroid Era is.
Sportswriters will overcompensate for their lack of awareness during the Steroid Era by suspecting every player who puts up Roger Maris-like numbers of PED use?
Try this: Amazing Orioles slugger Chris Davis (in town to play the White Sox) is on pace to hit 61 home runs — Roger Maris’ golden number —
A number that Maris hit once and never came close to again. Maris went from 19 to 16 to 39 to 61 to 33 to 23 home runs over a span of six seasons. If Maris did that today (Brady Anderson for example) we would all point out how Maris was obviously cheating the year he hit 61 home runs and then claim Babe Ruth was the home run champion with 60 home runs. Since Maris hit those home runs over 50 years ago we all know he was perfectly clean and obviously no clean player could ever replicate hitting less than 40 home runs in a single-season and then knocking 61 home runs in the very next single-season.
The first thing that goes through any informed fan’s mind when he or she sees a 6-3, 230-pound muscleman come from almost nowhere and suddenly start ringing the home-run bell is steroids.
Chris Davis didn't come out of nowhere. He hit 33 home runs last year and hit 21 home runs in 391 at-bats in 2009. He's been a guy who could hit home runs for most of his career now. He's in the prime of his career though and has made the Jose Bautista-type change to his swing that he claims contributes to him crushing the baseball.
Do I believe Chris Davis is clean? I don't have evidence to the contrary and his age, ability to hit home runs in years past and the knowledge other hitters have made changes to their batting style with success tells me Davis' new-found super power could be legit. I'm not naive, but I'm also not going to be a wimp and passively-aggressively accuse Davis of using PED's because I have no other column ideas.
The Brewers’ Ryan Braun was voted the National League’s most valuable player in 2011, and all that has hung over him since is the cloud of a failed doping test and legal technicalities.
Except Braun didn't put up prodigious home run numbers in one season like Davis has done this season. Braun has been fairly consistent in his home runs per season. So Braun isn't exactly an example of a player whose home run rate has skyrocketed in one season, so he isn't a great comparison to Davis.
The Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown last season, and you just have to wonder. Cabrera’s right up there in all categories again this season, battling Davis for a possible recoronation. Is he clean?
Yeah, let's drag Miguel Cabrera into this discussion. That seems fair. Apparently no MLB player can ever have another great season of hitting the baseball without his name immediately being linked to PED's by a sportswriter. Do we have evidence Miguel Cabrera isn't clean? If not, it is only fair to assume he is clean.
Commissioner Bud Selig would like us to think the dubious old days of drug-taking have vanished because Major League Baseball and the players union have agreed on a drug-testing program. But the Olympic rule holds: Only the stupid, reckless and bizarrely egomaniacal get caught.
Oh ok, so most Olympians are using PED's, but only the dumb ones get caught? Great, glad we got that out of the way. Why even have sports since Rick Telander thinks everyone is using PED's? I'd love to know Rick's PED thoughts on the NFL and NBA. He probably thinks all of those guys are clean.
Even career narcissist Lance Armstrong might have made it through doping central if he had left well enough alone and not come back to cycling after his seven Tour de France victories.
It's speculation to say Armstrong would have gotten busted even if he didn't return to cycling after his seven Tour de France victories, but the government had their eye on Armstrong for a while and Armstrong had also made a lot of enemies over the years. I'm betting Armstrong would have been busted for doping at some point because the government or one of the people he defamed or libeled over the years would have worked hard to find evidence of his doping.
Everybody says Davis is a humble, God-fearing sort. And he seems to be. He doesn’t like to brag. He walks away from homers the same way he does from strikeouts.
Irrelevant.
But he has hit a broken-bat homer.
This is even more irrelevant. Jordan Pacheco has one too. Justin Upton has hit one. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has hit one. Mark Teixeira has hit one. If that's evidence of a player using steroids then Rick Telander needs to be prepared to accuse all four of these players of using PED's.
He can hit opposite-field dingers on bad pitches.
Shin-Soo Choo hit an opposite field home run off a slider on the outside part of the plate a few weekends ago against the Braves. Choo is probably not using PED's.
He has checked his swing and hit the wall.
Rick needs to immediately forward this information to MLB so they can start the investigation immediately. Chris Davis checked his swing and hit the wall? This doesn't sound anecdotal at all.
Five days ago, Baltimore Sun baseball writer Matt Vensel noted that Davis’ amazing stat of the week was that he had hit at least nine homers in three consecutive months, something ‘‘last done by Rafael Palmeiro in 1998.’’
Palmeiro? Yep, a previously disgraced ’roider.
More clear evidence that isn't anecdotal or coincidental in nature.
I don’t think anybody wants Davis to be dirty. He never has failed a drug test, remember.
Actually, you are the one who needs to remember Chris Davis has never failed a drug test. As I noted when Rick Reilly sort-of-but-not-really accused Chris Davis of PED use, Davis did hit home runs in AA at the current pace he is hitting home runs. Davis hit 54 home runs in 867 at-bats at AAA from the ages of 22-25 years old. Davis is now 27 years old (in the prime of his career) and getting consistent at-bats. This isn't the case of a 10 year veteran who hasn't ever hit 30 home runs in a season over his career starting to slam the ball out of the park at a prodigious clip. Davis hasn't really gotten consistent 500 at-bats over a season in the majors but for one year of his career and that was in 2012. He hit 33 home runs last year. Davis has shown he can hit home runs, even if not at this current rate.
And let’s state here all the reasons he might be as clean as spring sheets: He is 27, a great age for sluggers. He has changed up his swing to be less wild. He is left-handed, and that helps in parks with shallow corners and against right-handed pitchers. He has been in the majors six seasons and has worked very hard. Finally, he hit 33 homers last season.
And I really don't think this can be overstated, that last year was the first year Davis got 500 at-bats in the majors. You don't have to be a genius to know consistent at-bats can help a player feel more comfortable at the plate.
I like the idea of Rick Telander telling us why Chris Davis may not be using PED's, but I know he doesn't believe it. He wouldn't write this column if he believed Davis wasn't using PED's.
It’s that leap from 33 last season to 31 before the All Star Game that nags. By comparison, though, Maris hit 39 homers the season before hitting his assuredly non-drug-induced total of 61 in 1961.
This is the appearance of being fair to Chris Davis. I also like how Maris' home run total of 61 was "assuredly non-drug-induced" because we all know no Hall of Famers have stated "greenies" were readily used and available in MLB clubhouses. We all know no Hall of Famers like Willie Mays or Willie Stargell would ever be linked to any type of amphetamine use of any kind. So we know for sure that Roger Maris never used any type of amphetamine or PED during his playing days. MLB players started using cocaine in the 80's and then they started using steroids to enhance their performance in the 90's and there was never ANY drug use prior to the 1980's. It's best Rick keeps his head in the sand so he doesn't smear memories of his idols.
I think it is funny that Rick says Roger Maris was assuredly clean while he works hard to raise suspicion around Chris Davis. Who really knows if Roger Maris used any type of amphetamine, but there is more than one account amphetamines have been available in MLB clubhouses for quite a few years now. Again, Roger Maris is the only player allowed a 50% increase in home runs during a season and every other player who experiences this sharp rise in home runs is immediately under suspicion of PED use.
In the second inning Tuesday at U.S. Cellular Field, Davis drew a one-out walk from Sox pitcher John Danks in his first plate appearance. This despite the fact Danks is a lefty and so is Davis.
This was the first time in MLB history a left-handed pitcher has walked a left-handed batter...more evidence of PED use by Chris Davis.
We’ll see where this Cabrera-Davis race goes. Let’s hope — for the immediate future, then through the spectrum of history — it remains fair, clean and authentic.
Until then, let's keep writing passive-aggressive columns where it is hinted that both players may be using PED's.
I wish elite sport didn’t so often come around to the fraudulent Armstrong, the guy who lied to cancer patients and everybody else as he won his gold and infamy. But it does.
Chris Davis has nothing to do with Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong doped to win seven Tour de France titles, while Chris Davis has had an excellent half-season during the 2013 season. Even if Chris Davis did cheat, his degree of cheating still pales in comparison to Lance Armstrong's degree of cheating. Not that there are degrees of PED use, but bringing Armstrong into this discussion only clouds the issue.
‘‘The Tour de France? No,’’ he told the French newspaper Le Monde last week. ‘‘Impossible to win without doping.’’
Maybe for Lance Armstrong it is impossible to win the Tour de France without doping. Greg LeMond didn't seem to have a problem doing so.
Let’s hope, as ever, he was lying.
And this has what to do with Chris Davis again? Roger Maris is allowed to go from 39 home runs to 61 home runs without any suspicion, but no other player in the history of baseball from the Steroid Era on is allowed to have such a large single-season increase in his home run total. I guess Roger Maris was such a physical specimen that no other MLB player throughout the history of baseball could match his single-season home run total.
Chris Davis may be using PED's, but his home run totals can also be explained by his changed swing and the fact he is now getting consistent at-bats. It's fine to believe he is cheating, but as a sportswriter if you suspect Chris Davis is using PED's then I would expect you to search for information to back up your claim as opposed to just accusing him and carrying on with your life. Also, don't drag Miguel Cabrera into the discussion. He hasn't failed a drug test either.
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