Stealing In Baseball By Dane Moore

As this is also my first post, I would like to disclaim my biases as Phil did. My areas of expertise fall within the professional realm of baseball, basketball, and football. Being from Minnesota I intently follow the Vikings, Twins, and Timberwolves (unfortunately). Above all else my true sports calling comes from the Chicago Cubs. I intently follow the Cubs and the entire NL central. No I do not like the Cubs because they are the “loveable losers” or because “everyone likes the Cubs.” I would call myself a legitimate follower. Since I was very young I have watched Cubs games on WGN and Sammy Sosa was my baseball idol growing up. (Again unfortunate)

After having a week to sit on this new McGwire information, not that I didn't know McGwire was juiced the whole time, I am agitated that he is allowed to coach in major league baseball, but Pete Rose is still shunned. I do not support someone who blatantly lied and manipulated the game of baseball. I am not trying to be cliché but this is the nations pastime and I view every player’s behavior that has dodged around the steroid issue as completely unacceptable. Cheating is always the word linked to steroid use and this issue. But I would like to suggest that what McGwire and all steroid users did was stealing.

John Kruk is an example of someone who was a “clean” player in the 90s. Kruk a career .300 hitter over his ten seasons, had to have faced numerous pitchers who were juicing, therefore losing more battles at the plate against pitchers who had an unnatural athletic advantage. Other first baseman in Kruk’s era have surfaced as users, and many others are still concealing their steroid use.

For instance Kruk was a three-time all-star making the team in ‘91, ’92, and, ’93. Matt Williams and Bobby Bonilla were two first baseman that made the all-star team in 1990. Williams was the starting first baseman for the National League All-Star team in 1990. Receipts recently surfaced of steroids from a Florida clinic being sent to Williams home in the 90s. Bobby Bonilla also made the squad, and although Bonilla doesn’t have receipts connecting him to steroids, Bonilla’s body transformation in the 90’s has caused wide speculation that he might be as a user. In 1994 Matt Williams made the NL all-star team again, and Jeff Bagwell who was called the “ring leader” of steroids in the 90’s made that all-star team as a reserve first baseman over Kruk. And also in 1995 Kruk didn’t make the AL all-star team when he played for the White Sox. Mo Vaughn made the team; Vaughn was in the Mitchell report as a player who purchased steroids from Kurt Radomski the New York Mets Clubhouse manager and infamous steroid dealer. Mark McGwire made the team, and well if you’ve so much as turned on ESPN recently, enough said. That’s three more all-star games in the 90’s Kruk could have potentially made had those five players not had an unnatural athletic advantage, and made the team over him.

Kruk is just one public example I would like to look at also from a monetary standpoint. Hypothetically speaking lets give John Kruk ten more points on his batting average over his career to compensate for facing pitchers with an unfair athletic advantage. And lets give him one of those three all-star snubs I spoke of earlier. I believe Kruk could have signed significantly bigger contracts with those statistical advancements.

An example I found from the 2009 season that would be relative to John Kruk’s contractual situation in the 90’s is a comparison of Mike Sweeney of the Seattle Mariners and Nomar Garciaparra of the Oakland A’s. Mike Sweeney and Nomar Garciaparra were both thirty-five year old first baseman at the start of the 2009 season. (Kruk was thirty-four years old going into the 1995 season when he signed a one-year, one million dollar contract with the Chicago White Sox.) Sweeney and Garciaparra also both signed one-year contracts going into ’09. Sweeney had a .299 career batting average to advertise along with five career all-star game appearances to the Mariners. Garciaparra had a .313 batting average with six career all-star games under his belt. The Mariners and A’s are both in the American League West division and come from similar markets on the west coast. The two teams offered these two very similar players very different contracts. With fourteen more points on his career batting average and only one additional all-star game appearance Garciaparra signed a contract worth one million dollars, and Sweeney signed for five hundred thousand dollars.

I’m not saying this can directly be correlated with how much additional cheese Kruk could have earned in ‘95. But better stats equals more money in baseball period.

Kruk was robbed by the likes of Mark McGwire and Matt Williams who stole his all-star appearances. And Roger Clemens and other cheating pitchers who had an unfair athletic advantage deprived Kruk of a higher batting average. I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the crying Mark McGwire who balled about his burden of being a steroid user. He brought that upon himself. Kruk who now works for ESPN’s baseball tonight was asked his opinion on knowing he faced McGwire who was cheating. “It makes me wonder how much myself and other clean players would have benefited had we been playing on an even playing field. Once you are out of the game, you speak of your statistics and achievements, and those go a long way on your resume.”