Steroid use in baseball ... in the 1960s

One of the points that I tried to make in my article on the "steroid era" of Major League Baseball was that there's no way of knowing, short of admissions by the players involved, who was taking what in the 1960s. I've listened to an enormous amount of hot air from people who are just outraged about Barry Bonds possibly passing Hank Aaron who, of course, never used anything.

Now we've got some more fuel for my contention that "we cannot, as so many have done, say that we know they were [clean in the 1960s]. The drugs were everywhere. We know that baseball players have used substances, both legal and illegal, as long as there have been baseball players." In an an AP article posted at ESPN, former pitcher Tom House, the man who, coincidentally, caught Aaron's 715th home run, says that "performance-enhancing drugs were widespread in baseball in the 1960s and 1970s".

House, perhaps best known for catching Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball in 1974 in the Atlanta Braves' bullpen, said he and several teammates used amphetamines, human growth hormone and "whatever steroid" they could find in order to keep up with the competition.

"I pretty much popped everything cold turkey," House said. "We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses. That was the '60s, when nobody knew. The good thing is, we know now. There's a lot more research and understanding."

House, a former pitching coach with the Texas Rangers and co-founder of the National Pitching Association near San Diego, is one of the first players to describe steroid use as far back as the 1960s.

He was drafted in 1967 by the Braves and pitched eight seasons for Atlanta, Boston and Seattle, finishing his career with a 29-23 record and 3.79 ERA.

House, 58, estimated that six or seven pitchers per team were at least experimenting with steroids or human growth hormone. He said players talked about losing to opponents using more effective drugs.

"We didn't get beat, we got out-milligrammed," he said. "And when you found out what they were taking, you started taking them."

I'll repeat what I said a month ago. "I do NOT want to sit here and accuse Hank Aaron of using steroids. Obviously, I have no way whatsoever of knowing that. I don't have any reason to suspect it, I don't have any evidence that points to it."

But the circumstantial evidence of performance-enhancing drug use is nearly as great for Aaron as it is for Bonds. Easily available? Check. Late career home-run rate expansion? Check. Much heavier at age 38 than age 22? Check. There's more for Bonds, though most of it's hearsay, but those things that keep getting cited aren't any stronger for him than they are for Aaron.

I would love for there to be a magic wand that would remove all steroids from baseball. Absent that, I'd be pleased to hear the vilification of Bonds in contrast to the sanctification of the Aaron (and Rice and Schmidt and Jackson...) ended.