Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the Walking home from work last night I decided that if I do posts on sports again (link and link), I'm going to try to develop some sort of sports/science intersection genre. So here's the first stab.
I only really follow two sports teams: The SF Giants and a certain college bball team that is about to get NIT'd after losing in the early season to such stalwarts as U of Montana (a game I took my then-5-mo-old to), UC Irvine and recently D-II UC Davis (my alma mater).
I've always been a Barry Bonds apologist, probably because every time I've gotten out to Pac Bell in the past few years he's hit something into the water. And it's always been clear that while he hates the media, he loves the SF fans and he loves baseball. Even if every columnist in the country takes it personally that he doesn't want to answer the same set of dumb questions after every game, I think the love of the game and fans is far more important.
But the 'roids thing is now too hard to ignore.
In context, he was slamming a daily two-liter 'roids cocktail at a time when all his competitors were doing the same and it wasn't outlawed by baseball. For that, I don't really care if he, Big Mac, Ken Caminiti, Disneyboy Sosa or any of the rest were juicing. Big HRs is what the People want and I'm one of Them.
But somebody who might care, and probably should care, is Hank Aaron. And you know he's going to be asked a million times about the new Bonds evidence. So far he's been pretty diplomatic. But here's how he should go about it from now on:
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Aaron do you think that if Bonds breaks your record there should be an asterisk after it?
AARON: Well, I think this is what we should do. Bonds wasn't juicin' until 1998, right? So let's take either the mean or maybe the linear least squares trend of his HR totals through his seasons before 1998. Actually, maybe it's better to assume a Gaussian distribution and we'll set the peak at, say, '96 or '97, about halfway through his career. If we just used the mean that would give him the benefit of the doubt. We could try some sort of frequency analysis or periodogram but with a short time series it's probably more trouble than it's worth.
INTERVIEWER: uh huh
AARON: We could also do a multiple linear regression with all the other season-by-season records of all the pre-roids sluggers. Anyway, which ever technique is most appropriate, we extrapolate from '98 to the '06 season to get his expected totals. Then let's see if his post-1998 totals match. Clearly 2001 (73 HRs) was an outlier, but '02 - '04 are probably high, too. So we adjust those high totals down to the expected line. The residual is wiped off his HOF record, he gets to keep any HRs that come in below or at the extrapolation curve.
INTERVIEWER: yea.
Comments
# 1 | J-Dog | March 8, 2006 12:15 PM
I expect it would go more like:
Q - Mr. J-Dog, what should be done about Barry "Orange Julius" Bonds?
A - Kick him in his 'roided nuts, until he is writhing on the ground in pain. He has cheated, he has been caught, he must now pay the price. He can go to baseball card events with Pete "Bet Me" Rose, because they should both be banned for life from baseball.
# 2 | RPM![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/nosenada/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 8, 2006 12:21 PM
Whether or not Bonds's homers (and hits, OBP, Slugging, etc) count isn't all that important to me. What is important is whether he purjured himself in front of the grand jury investigation. If he lied to the grand jury about knowlingly taking steroids he should be punished. I hope to death that Bonds becomes the next Pete Rose. This isn't just because he's a Giant (I'm a Dodgers fan), but because he's a total ass hole. Willie Mays (who played before my time) was an awesome player, and I have the utmost respect for him. The fact that Bonds is a total jerk and he plays for the Giants makes him doubly hated in my book.
By the way, all of the juicers (Caminiti, Sosa, Palmero, Bonds, McGuire) have come out of this looking bad (or dead). Sosa and Palmero can't get an MLB contract (and there is talk that they won't make it into the HOF) and Big Mac's image is tainted after he refused to talk about steroid use in front of Congress. In the end, cheaters and dopers get what's coming to them.
# 3 | Todd Crane | March 8, 2006 12:54 PM
Barry Bonds loves baseball? How does using illegal drugs that better performance show a love for baseball? How does running to second only during a homerun trot show a love for baseball? How does treating every pop fly not hit right at you with distain show a love for baseball? Seems to me that Bonds is a rather complicated guy. He has an amazing talent for a game he seems to view as an inconvenience.
# 4 | Kevin Vranes | March 8, 2006 1:07 PM
are y'all playah haters just because you don't like the Gigantes?
JD - you're gonna ban all the rest too then, right? BigMac only took andro and creatine? Yea right. His arms are as big as my chest and I'm not a small guy.
RPM - mostly agreed. And ain't it amazing how many of the openly-juicing Raiders lineman of the 70's and 80's have dropped dead very young?
TC -
How does using illegal drugs that better performance show a love for baseball?
well, the obvious answer to this is that he loves it so much that he wants to be as good as possible, no matter what it takes?
How does treating every pop fly not hit right at you with distain show a love for baseball?
Dunno...in my long "career" of going to Giants games I saw him make some incredible catches in the outfield. You don't win EIGHT gold gloves by treating pop flies with disdain. I don't see Bonds treating baseball as an inconvenience, I see him treating the media as an inconvenience. I think that gets translated into the former only because the media is doing the depicting. That he never figured that out is his problem, obviously.
# 5 | J-Dog | March 8, 2006 1:32 PM
Kevin - YES! I am all for banning Mac and Sosa... My only ehtical concern is the "Gaylord Perry Problem", to wit, an admitted cheater with his KY ball and getting winked at, and in the HOF. They are both cheats, so is there an "acceptable" level of cheating? Yo no se amigo, but you can see where the problem is... HOWEVER, I am still in favor of kicking him in the nuts, because he is in fact, quite the a-hole.
OTOH... It would be kind of fun to watch Bud "Buthead" Selig squirm as Bonds surpasses Ruth and closes in on Hammerin' Hank...
Bottom line for me, I can use this as a tremendous object lesson with my 12 year old as what NOT to do, and why.
# 6 | Kevin Vranes | March 8, 2006 1:37 PM
alright, now how about all the guys who have been doing amphetamines for decades? like Aaron, probably....
# 7 | J-Dog | March 8, 2006 1:42 PM
Kevin - What about Ruth - performance enhancing beers and hotdogs? What about Ty Cobb... sharpening his spikes to take out middle infielders? Where do we draw the line? Not sure - talk to me... I am open and waiting to be convinced, although to get back on Original Post track, I suggest we come up with some sort of mathematical formula.
Force of Kick 2 Nuts = ???
Time of Bonds' writhing = +/- ???
# 8 | Karl | March 8, 2006 6:23 PM
I love your suggestion of the several ways to statistically analyze Bond's 73. I encourage you to pursue it (them). As an impetus I did a little (trivial) analysis just using a spreadsheet. For Bonds ('87 through '98), Ruth ('20 through '33) and Aaron ('55 through '73) respectively: Mean 32.9, 47.1, 36.7; StD 7.8, 7.6, 7.0. So, StD very similar. ALL of Aaron's yearly totals are within 2 StD of mean, as are Ruth's. Bond's 73 is more than 5 StD's from mean!!! If Bonds did not take drugs, the only conclusion is: a being from another solar system took over the body.
# 9 | Kevin Vranes | March 8, 2006 8:31 PM
Thanks Karl. Actually, as soon as I wrote it I decided that it's exactly what I'm going to do.... shhh, don't tell anybody. I'll post it once the paper is off...
# 10 | Karl | March 8, 2006 9:45 PM
Kevin: If possible would you email me when it's available and tell me where you've posted it. I love numbers, I have an MS in Math, mostly Analysis and Algebra, but don't know much about statistics. I'd love to see how and what you do with those numbers.
# 11 | Dano | March 8, 2006 9:58 PM
Barry was kinda thin in Pittsburg. His magical transformation is hard work, surely. Nothing more. Raffi: same. Brady Anderson: surely same. Etc etc etc.
Caveat: not a Bonds fan. Never was.
D
# 12 | Kevin Vranes | March 9, 2006 5:01 PM
Alright then, I'll give you one hint about something I've already noticed. When I fit "expected" lines to career HR totals, Roger Marris' best year (61 HRs) is 17 HRs more than you would expect in that year based on his career performance. Bonds' best year is about 22 HRs more. I suspect that both of these guys are outliers and that the vast majority of sluggers are going to have residuals much closer to zero. But it begs the question: Marris didn't juice, did he? So is Bonds sudden explosion that shocking when Marris seems to have a very similar "unusual explosion?" You'll have to wait for the whole paper and yes, Karl, you can bet I'll be promoting it here.
# 13 | Todd Crane | March 9, 2006 7:40 PM
Bonds' love of baseball made him do steroids?! That's just plain silly.
Bonds cannot be allowed into the hall of fame. He cheated. He cheated in a way that is an order of magnitude greater than any other pro athlete cheated ever. But this is all small potatoes in the truly grand scheme of things. What will we all be saying when Barry dies at 51 after years of waging chemical warfare on his body? This is a sad story that is going to have a tragic ending.
# 14 | Kevin Vranes | March 9, 2006 10:56 PM
For me to buy that you have to prove to me that the amphetamines that players have been doing for years are not as much of a cheat as steroids are. Peter Gammons and many other baseball commentators seem to think that the testing for amphetamines that will start this season is going to have a much greater effect on the performance of players than steroids testing will. Hank Aaron was undoubtedly doing amphetamines just like everybody else. Not sure Marris or Ruth were.
# 15 | Kevin Vranes | March 10, 2006 11:56 AM
The Daily Show on Bonds (well, well worth your time):
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TDS-Bonds-3-9-06.mov
(thanks NP)
# 16 | James | March 10, 2006 7:32 PM
I haven't seen much discussion of another HoF steroid user: Sandy Koufax. Oh, sure, it was a cortico-steroid that he was using, not one of the really bad anabolic ones, but it was certainly a "performance enhancing drug" since he basically couldn't pitch without it. It wasn't a medical necessity, either; he didn't need cortisone after he gave up pitching (the health effects were why he left baseball, in fact).
Truth to tell, what really sticks in my craw is the sanctimonious preachings of journalists who say that what Bonds did was setting such a bad example for kids, when they're doing all they can to make sure that said kids think that the only reason why Bonds is so great is steroids. "Every knock is a boost," as the old saying goes, and every anti-drug ad is still a drug ad.
# 17 | Michaela | March 13, 2006 3:59 PM
First things first, I think sports & science need to spend more quality time together, so I love the idea of this article theme.
While the side effects of juicin' are clearly a problem, during the time that it was legal no alterations should be made to the stats. That's like second guessing what stats would look like before and after the infield fly rule. In hind sight both of those could be seen as "cheating" both of them altered the choices available to players with regards to effecting their stats.
Regarding the Marris & Bond's breakout years as data anomalies... unless the Marris precedent was followed by additional anomalous years they should each keep a single anomalous year as just having all the right factors come together (with or without juice).
As to the Pete Rose argument I think Pete should be let into Cooperstown and history should just plain move on; as long as he wasn't betting against his own team in games in which he featured... I think all a little betting might do, at most, is provide extra motivation if betting on yourself; then again I never followed that brouhaha closely enough to understand the details.
# 18 | kevin vranes | March 14, 2006 4:32 PM
The one good arguement against betting that I've heard is that if you're addicted to gambling (Rose) and in deep with the bookies (very possible if you're into gambling, see Gretsky, Wife of), then when you owe big you owe very big and you're going to pay. So if the bookies call in on your team, you have no choice. So we've never heard that Rose bet against his own team. But it's possible that he owed so much to a bookie that a bookie directed him to throw a game. Guilt by association it may be, but it's a legit concern.