The Biggest Mystery of MLB's Steroid Era 

Aaron Judge at 53 homers

well ok i dont think brady anderson is all that huge a mystery he had huge protection in that lineup thats it

The empty seats with 100 homerun games era is coming soon.

WHy did your brother narrate half the video?

@@Embargoman I barely know any players names now... Also, the O's gotta go back to those hats, the cartoon trucker hats have never been it. Also also, remember when Cecil Fielder went crazy for 3 seasons out of nowhere?

That is awesome

Barry bonds would've, if he wouldn't have been walked so much.

Great trivia question

20/50 honest season, 50/20 juiceeeeeeeeeee 💪

@@firstnamelastname-up6ni he wouldn’t have been walked so much if he hadn’t been bunting balls over the CF fence.

He was eating his Wheaties.

Yeah, nah, everyone knows it was the 90210 sideburns that gave him his incredible power.

@@chuckeecheeze4649 I have to agree with you on this.

He actually did say in an interview that he had put a lot more bacon back into his diet during that season

He took his vitamins, like any good Hulkamaniac.

Miguel Tejada had a 150 RBI season for a team that finished below .500 That’s forgotten

YEEES!

Maybe just one big video about the 01 Mariners. What a team.

@@Rubberfooted That team had such a disappointing and back-breaking ending.

They still haven't really recovered from that team not winning in Seatle

He didn't get to play in Yankee Stadium with that enticing short right field porch for too many years

ricky also claimed he later “learned how to hit homeruns”

Maris benefitted from expansion. Throughout professional sports, many record setting seasons have happened as a result of expansion. The American League increased by two teams, for the 1961 season. Two other players come to mind, that had career years in 1961. Norm Cash of Detroit and Jim Gentile of Baltimore. Both crushed the ball that season. Cash hitting .361 with 41 HR and 132 RBI. He never came close to those numbers again, as he never hit .300 again and only hit 30+ four more times, over 17 seasons. Jim Gentile hit .302 with 46 HR and 141 RBI. His numbers fell off fast, and he was out of MLB after the 1966 season.

Maris was a good hitter who benifitted from expansion, a friendly right field porch at Yankee Stadium and most of all....batting 3rd in the Yankee lineup, just ahead of Mantle. That being said, he was good enough to step up and make the most of his days as a Yankee.

One "R", dude.

The last of great fan base was the 1980's and 1990's. You can count close to 10 ball players that will be on the same team for five years or more. The Royals you had George Brett, Dan Quinsenberry, Frank McRae, Willie Wilson and Bret Saberhagen. The Brewers were Robin Yount, Cecil Cooper, Paul Monitor, Dan Pleasc, and BJ Surhoff for atleast six seasons. The Giants ran steady with Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Matt Williams, Jose Uribe, Robby Thompson, Don Robinson, Kirk Manwurring for atleast five years. A's had Canseco, McGwire, Dave Stewart, Bob Welch, Carney Lansford, Dave Henderson, Walt Weiss, Dennis Eckersley, Curt Young, Terry Steinbach and Rick Honeycutt for atleast five straight seasons. Expos had Tim Wallach, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter for atleast seven seasons. Astros went atleast seven seasons with catcher Alan Ashby, outfielder Terry Phul, Bob Kneeper, Mike Scott I believe closer Dave Smith, Nolan Ryan, Glenn Davis, Bill Duran and Kevin Bass. This is why baseball will never, never be the same again. Because fans can't get familiar with their teams anymore. It's incredibly rare that five players on the same team, well let's say five players in the starting lineup and pitching rotation stay on the same team for four years. These days it just doesn't happen. Your team had Cal Ripken Jr, and Eddie Murray. Two hall of famers that were teammates for 13 seasons! And ofcourse Ripken played on one team his whole career. My team when I followed baseball for over 20 years was the Oakland A's. But I really quit being a fan of MLB around 2010. Just wasn't my baseball anymore. But from 88 to 2010 I was a fan, win or lose. The Dodgers, Cardinals, Braves, Padres, really before the strike in 1994, almost every team had close to a dozen players (lineup and bench players) that were on the same club for five straight seasons or more. There is just no loyalty anymore. It's all about revenue and 30 million a year contracts! I'm sure baseball has Always been a business, no doubt. But baseball also had that wonderful combination of respect for the fans and profit. Now there is very little respect for the ticket buyer. Just my opinion.

I missed one season and when I started watching again it was pretty much a whole new team

@@chadnewfield8866 I think it's more about how guys didn't stick around because of loyalty they stuck around because they didn't have an option. Look at the NFL, free agency changed the nfl. Players didn't stay because of a love of the team, they stayed because they literally had no other option. I think if the same options were available back then, you'd see the same thing you see today. Loyalty is nice, but teams use that to low ball players, the teams have 0 loyalty, players shouldn't either. IMO

@@michag4337 There we're options in the 1980's. Not as much as 2022, but players could of signed one to three year contracts. Free agency was found around 1974 after Curt Flood was upset with his situation and then stood up for his case. He maybe was a casualty from doing so, but this paved the way for free agency. I do believe that players were more loyal in the 1980's then any other decade after the birth of free agency. Expecially after that strike in 1981. I'm sure that Tim Raines, and Tim Wallach signed a few times with the Expos. But I believe more options came to players after Jose Canseco complained that he was getting paid less then Wally Joyner, what Jose called as a singles hitter. This is only one example, perhaps a small one. I'm sure other factors came into play. As for the strike in 1994, come on, that was just for more money for the players, plain and simple. Back then in 94, five to seven million a year just wasn't enough. They wanted more cash. Just my opinion.

Mario Lemieux.

But then there's also Dee Gordon...

And Jose Canseco...

And Alex Sanchez, the first player suspended for steroids.

Wrong. They didn't lose their base running ability, the power surge just changed their offensive role so they didnt steal a lot. Fast explosive athletes who do steroids dont suddenly become slower and less explosive

Hanley Ramirez was also stealing 50 bases in a season when he was younger. Steroids don’t necessarily make you slower. They actually make you faster

the fact that pedro martinez pitched a sub 2 ERA to those monsters is fucking crazy.

1996 was a crazy offensive environment. Baseball completely changed in 93/94 with the introduction of a livelier ball. Btw 92 and 94 there was a 34% increase in HRS and Runs/Game jumped 0.8 of a run. HRS stayed at around that level for another 20 years.

@@oldfrend Another ridiculous pitching stat of that era that totally baffles me.....In 1997 Clemens gave up 9 HRS in 264 innings in the American League. That's a HR or 2 a month.

My favorite stat is Rey Ordonez putting up a 3 WAR season with an OPS+ of 64 in 1999. That was fuckin mental

That's 200+ today easy

Yeah that's a good point why would he just use for one year but not any other year after having such great results? Doesn't make much sense

He probably had bad side effects and stopped using them.

Or he lost his access to them.

Or he was trying to prove a point..

Or his balls shrunk.

Yeah I’ve always thought that was his roid season, he was a pretty skinny dude and he hit like 57 that year

Yes. Good one.

Him and Greg Vaughn.

Gonzalez seemed to really move those hips when he swung. He might have invented twerking.

@@codyharris4750 maybe, but Greg Vaughn had a lot of power for a long time

That's because no one was using WAR back then. It may show on his baseball reference page, but WAR was not a commonly used "stat" back in '96.

@@VonRye I am very much aware, I was simply pointing out both with his WAR and standard stats that he finished 9th in MVP voting with a monster season like that, implying 8 others before him put up even crazier seasons as well.

The various stat sites don't even agree on what WAR should be, why use it as some form of metric?

reminds me of Bull Durham when he talks about the difference between a .250 hitter and .300 1 extra hit a week a ground ball with eyes. Sometimes they doubt a players ability and get lazy on the pitches they throw him. Around this point in time the enforced strike zone was starting to reel in a bit too.

No, not buying it. He was juicing like most of the others at the time.

Yea but that one more good swing doesn't necessarily equal a HR. Unless you're juicing

That is a generic statement any player can make. All the sudden at age 32, whilst facing a league of juiced pitchers, Mr. Anderson found a magic swing and couldn't stop knocking them out of the park. lol

Funny that it was a contract year, and he never came close again. He was one of the fittest guys out there and would have "remembered". He juiced. Look at the difference in juicing Bonds and non juicing. 30 to 35 homers a years, 60 plus.

Ichiro in Batting Practice would launch absolute Bombs. He's admitted he could easily hit 35-40 HRs a year but it would come with a lower batting average and that wasn't his role on the team. Ichiro...all 5 ft 11 inches and 175 lbs of him.

@@justinlast2lastharder749 Yes but Ichiro had once-in-a-lifetime talent. The other guys that were mentioned did not.

The problem is the assumption he only used for one year. If he did use, I'd bet it was more than one year. Other than that, you raise some good points, which is why I'm not as convinced he used as Bret Boone or Luis Gonzalez. Of course, there's always a decent chance for a player heavily into bodybuilding who spent as much time in the gym as Brady considering how prevalent steroids are in that world. The apparent lack of a sudden or dramatic physical change is a good point. However, I'll play devil's advocate and say that since Brady was ahead of much of the league in nutrition by the time he entered the majors so it could be that he was also using earlier to get to the majors and therefore did not change as much physically once he was a starter. Brady did mention in 1992 that he had to work to maintain his weight so there's a decent chance he'd experiment with steroids for that reason. You're also obviously correct that fluke seasons do happen without steroids, sometimes due to the ball such as in 1987. Though Maris is not really a good comparison since he had established himself as a power hitter with 39 home runs the year before he hit 61 and 33 the year after. He was also uniquely protected by Mickey Mantle when he hit 61 and surprisingly didn't draw a single walk that year. As for Brady's numbers, it is somewhat unusual that Brady's second best season, including his second best season for power and home runs, came in 1999 when he was 35. Not unheard of, but much more common in the steroid era.

It was a contract year.

Wow never would’ve guessed that accounted for more homeruns

lol, and he also had access to illegal drugs that increase strength, durability, recovery and stamina.

We’ve seen this before with Davey Johnson, and most recently, Ketel Marte. Juiced balls have a hell of an effect.

Look at Roger Maris.

@@davidmayberry3190 that was due to an expansion year. Norm Cash batted .361/.487/.662 with 40+ bombs that year, and never came close to those totals again.

The odd thing was how much muscle he put on in just one season

@@easy-jay not Brady Anderson, he didn’t weigh in any differently than his previous season, and gained a total of 5 pounds since his rookie season to 1996

This is a point I always try to make. In 1995, Anderson was hitting in front of Bret Barberie. In 1996, he was hitting in front of Roberto Alomar.

Vaughn at least had two other 40+ homer seasons in there, two consecutive. There was a huge dip between his first and second along with missing about 25% of the season. I'd chalk that up to injury

@@dkroll92 That’s exactly it. Vaughn was very injury prone later in his career. When he was able to play in 140-150 games, he was good for 35-40 HRs pretty consistently.

Dang, looks like I needed to do more research, thanks for the info.

Remember that his Padres teammate, '96 MVP Ken Caminiti, admitted to using steroids during said season.

@@jonnuanez2843 yea, that is my concern about that season for vaughn.

@@jonnuanez2843 Caminiti said he'd take handfuls of drugs including roids.

@@captainwesker1234 greg Vaughn was a decent player, he had multiple 40+ home run seasons. The year he hit 50 he basically played a full season so it wasn't that strange

We're not talking about Barry Bonds here. Brady was a very solid player (with a career average near 200). Getting on the juice may have propelled him to one great season and that's all he had. EVERYbody started using in the late 90s, he may have just had a jump start.

If it's any conciliation the Orioles traded Schilling, Steve Finley and Pete Harnisch to the Astros for Glenn Davis three years later in 1991.

My God that is a great point. You = Genius!!

huh. talk about outlier. i knew hank never had a monster HR year, but bonds, i thought no way. turns out yeah, never hit more than 49, then 73!

@@oldfrend Why is that????? I'll tell you. For several years Barry watched the media get on their knees and perform lewd acts on Sammy and Mark who weren't a 10th the ball player he was.... AND he knew it was for one reasons.... ROIDS. So...... Barry, justifiably, decides to do the same. Except a couple things worked catastrophically against him.... 1st. MLB and it's fans had lost the luster of "WOW, look at it go." and were turning against roids. 2nd.... Barry is so much better at hitting that Sammy and Mark combined, that Barry made a mockery of the game. 3rd.... Barry already had a horrible relationship with the writers. It took him by surprise when they gave him the opposite of the love they gave Mark and Sammy. 4th..... MLB was looking for a way to execute this steroid FRANKENSTEIN it had created. Attacking Barry was their way of getting the village to attack FRANKENSTEIN who had done NOTHING wrong. Hank and Barry are top five in my 63 years of living and 57 of watching. Hank is #1. Ichiro #2 Alex #3 Rickey #4 Barry #5

@@oldfrend when they start walking you 1/3 of the time you step up to the plate its hard to bit home runs.

@@oldfrend nobody would pitch to him after that 73 HR season.

I think that Orioles team was the first in history to have their entire lineup hit for double digit HRs in a season. Perhaps the entire lineup having over 20 HRs in a season, although only Brady Anderson hit over 30.

Yes. This was the biggest factor I remember from that season. Teams gave Brady something to hit in hopes he’d make out- rather than be on base for Zeile, Alomar, Palmeiro and/or Bonilla coming behind him. Talk about protection…

This. All of this. This is the one thing that never gets talked about with this season. Teams had to pitch to Brady. Major contributing factor

Sometimes it leads to having to pitch differentlly to players in ways you might not want to. Making it easier to predict pitch placements. I noticed many of the homers seemed to be on low and away pitches.

Anderson was no more legit than a fake $100 bill. And Palmeiro only used steroids to heal his knee quicker. He never hit 50 HR's in that small ballpark nor in Texas where the ball flew out of the ballpark. I have minimal issues with Palmeiro because he didn't abuse steroids like MANY others did. Same with Andy Pettitte. Used only to heal an injury. Raffy lied but he was a hell of a player

Dude was one of the best hitting catchers!

Contract season.

Lopez was a power hitting and lots of Ks catcher. Knowing baseball he was probably on steroids too

@@chickenfkeryay considering two of his teammates were Palmeiro and Canseco…it’s assured he probably did

@@bostonrailfan2427 He never played with Canseco and didn't play with Palmeiro till 04. Plus Lopez hit 34 in '98.

I’d attribute it to the amount of video and analytics out there for pitchers to study. Every season that goes by they have more data and video to study.

That's exactly what I thought, too! You = Great Baseball Knowledge!!

He was a beast though. Like Big Papi and The Big Piece (Ryan Howard), he hit HRs clean and sober. Which is why Junior is always top 3 all time to me. In the steroid era, when pitchers were juicing crazy, The Kid jacked 50hr routinely with the prettiest swing in baseball history. He wasn't huge like Howard or Ortiz, and he wasn't juicing like Mcgwire or Sosa. He was just THAT DAMNED GOOD.

@@chance2413 Ryan Howard's Nickname Was Rhino Because Of How Big He Was

A rarity these days

on the homers the pitch placement seemed to be in very similar spots low and away. He haad good teammates so i think they were trying to get him to ground out but he was dipping his shoulder some and went for fly balls.

there is historic comparison for this kind of thing... Nolan Ryan threw harder than anyone else in his prime while still racking up impressive innings. What was special about him? He lifted weights in an era when almost no one else did

BS...the guy was on steroids and you know it

@@ToxicAvengerCleanYourMind lmao don't be mad

I only knew about becuase of this season lol

@@chuckwagon9973 Nice. I turned 3 in December of 1996 so don't remember much that I witnessed. But a lot of people in my mom's family live near Baltimore and are huge Orioles fans. Pretty sure at least one of my uncle's has a Brady Anderson jersey lol

his arms were bigger…the previous year and year after they were smaller. if he wasn’t juicing that year, then why the abrupt change?

He didn't counter anything, he "decided to remain optimistic." Brady Anderson didn't naturally turn into Hank Aaron overnight at age 32.

Wrong. Maris hit 39, the season before. Also, to those that claim Yankee Stadium helped him, he hit more homers on the road, when he hit 61.

In Rogers 61 season he was never intentionally walked with Mantle in the lineup batting behind him. You going to walk Roger to pitch to Mickey? Roger was seeing a lot of good pitches.

In 1960, Maris played 72 road games and hit 26 home runs in those games. This average over 160 games would be almost 58 home runs. But he only hit 13 home runs in 64 Yankee Stadium games. He was losing home runs at home. In 1961, his road game HR/G average went up a little, but his Yankee Stadium HR/G average almost doubled, like he figured out what he needed to do to hit more home runs there.

They told him to go for the homers. Stengel even batted him leadoff to give him more chances to hit them.

@@lucasmembrane4763 Until a late season injury Mantle was hitting home runs at about the same rate as Maris, so why would Stengel decide to give Maris the advantage? For that matter Mantle being so much faster than Maris would be a better choice for leadoff anyway.

mines was mike devaraux

Didnt he hit like 20 or more leadoff homeruns that season?

@@antmothirteen6540 not sure 20 but it was alot

I saw a Doc on Dave Parker and surely believe that there was plenty of illicit use throughout, especially uppers of any kind.

roids are useful for a lot more than just muscle building, the increased recovery rate is super helpful during the 162 game grind season that baseball has

@Y4123 I think Everth Cabrera of the Padres got busted for steroids when he only hit 2 homers in a season. After the news came out that he had tested positive for steroids fans started showing up at Petco Park with signs telling him he should get his money back!

@@rico9163 The thing is, though, that putting an unnatural level of mass on your skeleton is not healthy in the long run. Steroids actually stress and weaken joints that were not intended by nature to handle a roided up physique. Pro wrestler and body builder Superstar Billy Graham said that his body really broke down from the strain caused by steroids.

@@ryanjacobson2508 Steroids causes heart problems. These guys are not thinking in the long run.

Another sort of outlier season was Jacoby Ellsbury's 30 HR season when he was with Boston, very similar to Anderson's season

Another sort of outlier season was Jacoby Ellsbury's 30 HR season when he was with Boston, very similar to Anderson's season

It's the opposite, the chance is super low that he wasn't taking stuff.

There are many types of PEDs and have different effects on the body. Cyclists are skinny and the sport had a major PED issue. Brady's weight isn't proof of anything.

@@Paulafan5 exactly, most of these people are clueless.

Yeah in only 140 games

@@adamclark9004 Forgot about that the Indians won 100 games I think as well

@@patrickstrahm05 so many mlb records could have been made if 94 and 95 were full seasons

@@adamclark9004 Matt Williams was having his greatest season. I remember that one. Too bad for him.

Explain why do you say MLB has lost integrity...

I mention Davey at the end of the video

@@JollyOlive maybe Hank Aaron rubbed off on him that year. Who knows, lets watch this Mets Diamondback slugfest

Matt Carpenters 2018 season, hit 36 hr and never close before or after,. By 2020; he only hit 4 hr as a part time player.

I remember smashing the "Lancers" repeatedly. Didn't hurt that we had future bug leaguers like Dave Roberts.

Is innocent because he was the same high school as you that's priceless

Wow, it took a lot of scrolling to find a Baltimore fan capable of being honest with themselves. LOL. Props.

Even back then many people assumed Brady Anderson and Rafael Palmero were juicing.

I have no issues with wanting to keep it positive, I do however think you're protecting a guy that cheated (like everybody else did).

@@slabathonfury3879 It's not a matter of protecting him, just basing my opinion off what we actually know and not assumptions. I don't assume or even let PEDs change how I see players or the game. PEDs have been around since the beginning of the game and we will never know who took PEDs and who didn't. So to pick and choose who you think cheated and who didn't, or what stats are valid and not, is pretty irrational in my opinion.

@@sheyanderson4371 i think they ALL count in the 90s/early 2000s. It's still foolish to think a below average hitter suddenly became top .1% at age 32, naturally, and in the middle of the steroid era withOUT cheating himself.

@@slabathonfury3879 I think our debate is more a matter of whether we think he cheated or not. I think it was a fluke first and foremost because there are no accounts of him actually cheating whatsoever. He is already the top 1% in world, so chances of him having such a season are higher than we would think. Then even assuming you are right and he was on PEDs, I would still argue it wasn’t cheating. PEDs randomly taking effect to have one, and only one such season, then drop right back off doesn’t seem logical at all to me.

@@sheyanderson4371 Brady was known as a gym buff. You should be asking why would Brady Anderson not be juicing? Are you sure you're not in denial because of your emotional attachment?

That’s cause the pitched around him or walked him intentionally nearly every at bat after that season. He was once walked intentionally with the bases loaded, to ensure he couldn’t hit a walk off grand slam

@@TheBurn0820 Yeah Greg Maddux joked once that Bonds was the easiest hitter to face because if it mattered, you just put him on first with a walk.

Funniest stat ever is Sosa hit 60 hrs twice and still wasn’t good enough either season to lead the league. Everyone knows about the 1998 season but he hit 60 in 2001 too and nobody even noticed because of Bonds hitting 73.

Cyclists aren't massive hulks, even the ones juicing. It depends on the PED and how someone trains.

*Always inject your vitamins.

Sometimes its just luck. Davey Johnson hit 43 homers in 1973. Previous career high of 18 with a total of 136 across almost 4800 career ABs.

@@brentb2228 fair enuf. Anyone in the steroid era will always be suspect tho unfortunately

check out his Baseball Reference, he pulled the ball more that season than any other in his career. And he hit more fly balls than he usually did as well, although not a career high

that's true, but remember that Cruz did get caught juicing, lol

Right. He found it that year. Just a one off season. Doubt he juiced. He was a base stealer with power, not the other way around. Had one year where the ball was just huge to him. Also, that was the juiciest ball ever in 96. Look at the numbers. Everybody hit better for power that year. That ball was helium. You saw guys hit pop ups into the 5th row. The ball was extremely hitter friendly.

@@thequixoticangler3364 the ball was certainly juiced. Even Players like Randy Velarde doubled their single season HR totals.

​@@distantgalaxymusic1447 Why do you say the baseball was juiced like crazy back then?

@@TiagoGomez-hb9te a few years before the strike in 94 baseball was in decline. A great way to have fans show interest is HRs. The Babe saved baseball in 1921 because of that. Fielder hit 50, the Anderson. When Major League Baseball almost died after the strike, Fans blamed the league not the players. 96-99 there were huge numbers being put up by everyone except a few guys. Not everyone was on steroids and guys that hit 6-9 HR’s a season suddenly hit 15-20. Then in 2000 they went back to hitting 6-9 HR. The majority of the league doubled their HR totals. McGuire was averaging 35 a season hit 70, Sosa averaged 28 a season hits 66. Now those guys were on roids, but Aaron Boone wasn’t. Just go to baseball reference and see for yourself. Players in the era were claiming the balls were juiced.

@@distantgalaxymusic1447 MLB should seriously start juicing up the baseball and lowering the mound again to raise up HR and most importantly raising up Batting Average and Bases on Balls. Way higher Batting Average = More action that the sport of baseball badly needs since there's hardly any action during innings anyway. I miss when everyone and their uncle could hit .300+ BA. MLB's so boring now with it's 3 Outcome model (HT

And why is it so bad?