Bill James Gets it Wrong on the Issue of Cooperstown and the ‘Roids, Part 1
August 20, 2009 by Sal Marinello
Filed under The Healthy Skeptic
Baseball statistical maven Bill James published a paper last month detailing his thoughts on the steroid in baseball issue, and wrote that he was, “finally ready to say what I have to say about it.” James makes some good points along the way, but overall his 4-page missive is a mess of inconsistency, flawed logic and bad information.
When James’ paper was first made public, I read excerpts of it in a couple of wire service stories that had the effect of making me think James had done good. As a matter of fact, I told a couple of colleagues that I thought James had made some good points. However, when I read the full text I was more than surprised by the approach taken by James.
James starts off with the statement that, “The use of steroids or other Performance Enhancing Drugs will mean nothing in the debate about who gets into the Hall of Fame and who does not.” Nothing like starting off with a bold statement to make your position clear and get people’s attention.
The problem is that James follows this opening salvo with his analysis of steroids, “Steroids keep you young. You may not like to hear it stated that way, because steroids are evil, wicked, mean, and nasty and youth is a good thing, but…that’s what it means. Steroids help the athlete resist the effects of aging.” James goes on to look into his crystal ball to tell us that in the future not only won’t steroids disappear from our culture, but that “everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants.”
According to James, not only will steroids assume a Soma-like status because,
Doctors are going to routinely prescribe drugs that will help us live to be 200, 300 or 1000
In 40 or 50 years every citizen will take anti-aging pills everyday
People in the future will look back on the users from the steroid era as being pioneers and not rule-breakers that cheated to gain an advantage
Our children and grandchildren are going to be steroid users and will view the banning of PEDs “as a bizarre artifice of the past”
James’ argument that steroids and other anti-aging drugs will be used regularly and his view of the future are as off base as is statement that, “The argument for discriminating against PED users rests upon the assumption of the moral superiority of non-drug users.” This declaration is frightening as it clearly implies that those who follow the rules are not morally superior to those who break the rules.
The statistical expert has gone off the rails and lost all credibility. But it gets worse. In the ensuing paragraphs James favors us with these gems.
A steroid user will get elected to the Hall of Fame and then acknowledge he used steroids
Some players who used steroid will get in which will open the floodgates so all users get in
Compares the attitudes towards rule-breaking PED users with the attitudes about sexuality on television of a generation ago. I am not making this up. You have to read this to believe it.
Dick Allen is going to get into the Hall of Fame
Andy Pettitte is probably getting a plaque in Cooperstown and when he does, “he is going to speak up for Roger Clemens.” I am not making this up, either.
Click here to check out part two of my review of Bill James’ paper, “Cooperstown and the ‘Roids.”
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