A reader in Australia, a Mets fan, asked in e-mail what evidence besides his back acne did I have that Mike Piazza used steroids or any performance-enhancing drugs. What impressed me was he asked the question in a civil way unlike the irrational manner in which most Piazza fans write their accusatory e-mail.
“As a keen Mets fan from the other side of the world,” Chris Iliadis wrote, “I’m intrigued by the notion that back acne is enough evidence of PED use. Surely there is more??”
Among Piazza fans, I have become notorious for citing back acne as the reason I suspect Piazza used steroids. I initially did so about eight months after I began this website. I would have raised the issue earlier, but two or three times my editors at The New York Times said I couldn’t because no one had written about it.
The primary blocker was Jay Schreiber, the baseball editor and a huge Mets fan. I noticed recently that a Times columnist, Michael Powell, was allowed to mention the unmentionable.
“To turn suspicion into indictment into conviction should require some proof,” he wrote last month. “Murray Chass, a former New York Times colleague, has waged a war to convince the world that Piazza was a user of steroids.”
I didn’t see it as a war, but baseball writers have been accused of ignoring steroids in the 1990s, thus contributing to their widespread use, so we can at least be given latitude to single out the suspects.
In my view, Piazza was a major suspect, who lagged in his early efforts in the Hall of Fame election. The writers, as a group, overcame their initial reluctance and elected Piazza in his fourth year on the ballot, sweeping him into the Hall of Fame Wednesday with 365 votes from 440 writers, an 83 percent majority.
I did not vote for Piazza. In fact, I was the only writer of the 440 writers who submitted ballots to vote for only one player. Only three writers did not vote for Ken Griffey Jr., and I was not one of them.
An encouraging development, to me, in the election was the slowing of the rush to full-ballot voting. Last year 51 percent of the writers filled their 10-line ballots; the year before it was 50.4 percent. This year, according to Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers Association of America, 42.0 percent listed 10 players.
Nevertheless, 185 writers voted for 10 players, and 363, or 82.5 percent, voted for six or more players. I don’t begrudge other writers their votes and what they do with them, but I don’t understand why they want to vote for so many players and devalue the honor to those players who truly merit election.
I was asked in a radio interview Tuesday night if I would have voted for Piazza if I didn’t suspect steroids. I said I would have to consider it, but I probably would. However, when the steroids suspects began appearing on the ballot, I decided I would not vote for cheaters.
Do I know that all players I suspect of using are cheating? No, but people are convicted of murder with less damaging circumstantial evidence than we see against some players.
My Australian reader asked what circumstantial evidence I had about Piazza besides the back acne.
Two books offer direct evidence. In “The Rocket That Fell to Earth, a book by Jeff Pearlman about Roger Clemens, a former major leaguer, Reggie Jefferson, is quoted as saying:
“He’s a guy who did it, and everybody knows it. It’s amazing how all these names, like Roger Clemens, are brought up, yet Mike Piazza goes untouched.”
Pearlman quotes another player, an unnamed veteran player, as saying, “There was nothing more obvious than Mike on steroids. Everyone talked about it, everyone knew it. Guys on my team, guys on the Mets. A lot of us came up playing against Mike, so we knew what he looked like back in the day. Frankly, he sucked on the field. Just sucked. After his body changed, he was entirely different. ‘Power from nowhere,’ we called it.
“When asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, to grade the odds that Piazza had used
performance enhancers, the player doesn’t pause. ‘A 12,’ he says. ‘Maybe a 13.’”
In another book, “Pedro,” an autobiography by Pedro Martinez, the Hall of Fame pitcher, with Michael Silverman, a veteran Boston writer, Martinez writes, “By 1993, boy, could he hit. Like so many hitters that decade who found sudden success at the plate, he had added some weight and bulked up that lanky frame of his. His bat started to fly!”
A writer who covered the New York Mets when Piazza played for them told me all of the writers who covered the Mets knew that Piazza used steroids. Why didn‘t any of them write it? Maybe their editors told them they couldn’t because no one had written about it.
In the seven and a half years I have been writing this column I have probably received more mail about columns I have written on Piazza than any other individual or subject. After an early column, the second time I wrote about Piazza and steroids, I heard from a reader, Darrell Sparkman, who identified himself as a former Piazza teammate and roommate at the University of Miami.
Sparkman said it was tasteless to write about Piazza’s acne-covered back and argued that Piazza “has long been known for his tape measure shots.”
“We used to call him the best six o’clock hitter in the nation, batting practice was at six,” Sparkman wrote. “Mike was in the cages hitting every chance he got. When he was at home he was working out or hitting the tire in our backyard. He had a batting cage at his parent’s home. He would tell us of the hours spent in the batting cage over Christmas Break. He was a hard worker and a great hitter with tremendous power.”
“People have made comments about Mike for years,” he continued. “Is he gay? Hell no. Steroids? Absolutely not. He didn’t have some major physical transformation. He was a big strong guy and grew in to his body.”
In addition, Sparkman said, Piazza “has had back acne for years,” adding, “He wasn’t taking steroids when we were at Miami, I can tell you that as can our other roommates. As painful as it probably was, his back acne was a source of humiliation back then.”
Sparkman must have been thinking of another teammate. According to Miami records, Piazza was on the Hurricanes baseball team for only one year and had nine at-bats and one hit.
As for his back acne, what Sparkman and other Piazza fans don’t want to recognize is that Piazza’s back acne magically disappeared, leaving his back as smooth as a baby’s bottom, when baseball began testing for steroids.
Not everyone has defended Piazza in responding to my columns about him.
“I’m guessing by now you’re getting ripped on this article, but wanted to say it was a good one,” one reader wrote. “I’m a die hard Mets fan, but I appreciate objectivity. I always admired Piazza, and still would even if he were called out, but steroids would explain a lot of things about his career, especially his opposite-field power.”
Another reader said, “No dispute from this Mets fan that Mike Piazza was doing something unnatural for much, if not nearly all, of his career. I don’t know if steroids helped him hit for a high average, but they certainly added muscle to his physique and yards to his long balls. You’re correct to suggest that he somehow was overlooked in much of the noise about steroids when it first came to light in baseball. As time progressed and I watched him play for the Mets on television, it seemed impossible that he’d done this naturally.”
In news conferences after announcement of his election Wednesday, Piazza avoided talking about steroids, although he was asked questions that subtly suggested steroids.
“I’ve prided myself on respect for the game,” he said. “My father taught me to have respect for the game.”
I wonder how use of steroids demonstrates respect for the game.
“It’s a tremendous honor,” he said. “I want to thank all the writers for their support.”
How about the chemists?
He was asked if he was bothered “by people who make accusations” about things like back acne?
“Today,” he said, “is a day I want to celebrate my career and dwell on the positive parts of my career. Those things I can’t worry about.”
Piazza didn’t admit either in his 2013 book that he used steroids. Remember, though, that it took Pete Rose 15 years to admit that he bet on baseball.
As for Piazza’s book, it offers another piece of circumstantial evidence to the steroids case.
Piazza received an $800,000 advance from Simon & Schuster for the book. The author who wrote it with him would get a chunk of that advance. Michael Bamberger, a well-respected Philadelphia sports writer, was supposed to be the writer.
However, Bamberger withdrew from the project when Piazza refused to commit in writing that he would tell the true story about him and steroids. Bamberger gave up a big day, but his integrity was intact. I can’t say the same about Piazza.