Keith Olbermann
Baseball and steroids: Kilroy wasn't here
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Who holds the record for the most strikeouts by a baseball pitcher in a single season, Sandy Koufax or Nolan Ryan?
This is more than just a baseball trivia question, raised to deflect attention as two separate congressional hearings into steroid use— likely to feature subpoenas and a lot of nervous men invoking of the 5th Amendment— loom. They illustrate a point that is evidently unclear to a lot of today's baseball players, to all those anticipating Barry Bonds' chase of the all-time record for home runs, and to the Commissioner of Baseball himself.
Bud Selig has now decreed that no matter what the results of the investigations into steroids, they will not affect baseball's priceless record book. No matter what is or isn't proven about Bonds or Mark McGwire or anybody else, their records will not be altered, Selig says. "That would be unfair to do that… We can't turn history back… Each era, each decade has had situations where people said there were unfair advantages."
As often happens with Mr. Selig, his assumption of omnipotence will be disproved. History will be the final judge, and history— as vital to baseball's continuity as today's boxscores — will probably dismiss 1984-2004, and every record set during it, as being as artificial as the drugs with which Jose Canseco said he injected himself and some of his teammates.
Technically, Selig is correct. There will not be an asterisk next to Barry Bonds' name reading "* May Have Used Steroids." But there will be other solutions that future historians— and probably even future Commissioners— will employ to get the point across.
Take that trivia questions as a perfect template.
Who holds the strikeout record, Koufax or Ryan? The answer is neither. Koufax whiffed 382 batters in 1965, and Ryan 383 eight years later. And each has a line in the record book. But they're listed below the statistical record — 505, by Matt Kilroy of the 1886 Baltimore Orioles.
Who the heck was Matt Kilroy?
You won't find him in baseball's Hall of Fame. And you won't find his name on the lips of any baseball fans, nor even many of its historians. He and his 505 strikeouts have simply been dismissed as anachronisms. Once, this was accomplished by noting the mark was set "pre-1900" and thus irrelevant to the game we know now. Koufax, as an example, is only credited with the National League record since 1900 (Charlie Radbourn of the Providence Grays has the N.L.'s All-time mark with 411 in 1884).
If that were not enough, the validity of the league in which Kilroy pitched has been denigrated. It was the American Association, and it was merged into the National League in 1892. It wasn't, say the historians, quite "Major League" enough for its records to "really" count.
But there are still more weapons available to erase a statistic. Kilroy, like Radbourn, set his record in a time when one or two pitchers were all a team had for a full season, so his opportunities to strike batters out were historically aberrational. And, to top it all off, in his day, the pitcher still stood 50 feet from the pitcher— not the 60 feet, 6 inch standard adopted in 1893. That pitchers were also under distinct, possibly neutralizing disadvantages seems to have been forgotten. Until that 1884 season, pitchers were essentially limited to underhand deliveries, and even the modification of the rule that year prevented them from throwing fully overhand, to say nothing of the fact that batters were permitted to tell the pitcher how they wanted the ball pitched— high or low.
In sum, baseball has decided it was too easy for Kilroy to strike batters out. So, it has struck him out.
And it can do it to any player— for example, Bonds— in a dozen similar ways, without the word "steroid" ever being used. The home runs he hit before 2000 could be ignored because 20th Century baseball "wasn't like" the 21st Century game. Hank Aaron's 755 homers could always be listed as the most hit before the advent of inter-league play. Some future rules change could create separate categories for the time "before the ten-man batting order."
There are lots of ways to turn Barry Bonds into Matt Kilroy. And history— as it has done to Kilroy and dozens of other record-setters— will use them ruthlessly. So, when those hearings convene and Bonds, or anybody else, speaks, they'll not just be testifying to a bunch of politicians. They'll be testifying to the future, and giving it all the excuses it needs to bury them.
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