And all of them, at least statistically speaking, all wildly overrated.

The save is one of baseball’s most intuitive statistics, yet at the same time, one of the most misunderstood. A pitcher is credited with a save if he is the last pitcher in a game won by his team, is not credited with a win, and records at least one out. He also has to do one of the following three things: enter the game with a lead of three runs or less and pitch at least one inning, enter the game with the tying run on base, at bat, or on deck (regardless of the count), or pitch for at least three innings (generally the seventh, eighth, and ninth).

This nearly always means that the closing pitcher on the winning team is credited with a save, provided they enter the ninth inning with a lead of fewer than three runs. The statistic doesn’t take into account whether the lead is in jeopardy or any degree of difficulty. Essentially, most saves are given out in relatively safe situations where nearly anyone pitching would be able to get out of an inning.

This leads to some overinflation of the way we look at closing pitchers. Let’s consider Huston Street, the closer for the Colorado Rockies, winners of the 2009 NL Wild Card. Street, along with the rest of the bullpen, has received credit for the Rockies’ resurgence in 2009, picking up 35 saves and a 4-1 record. His 35 saves are the second-most in his career, which means 2009 was his second-best season. Right?

Well, it depends on how you look at it. Sure, he was in a lot of save situations, but what about his ERA? In nearly 62 innings pitched, Street posted an ERA of 3.07. Not too shabby, certainly, but it pales in comparison to his 2.88 ERA in 2007 and 1.72 ERA in 2005, seasons in which he recorded a combined 39 saves — only barely more than he did this season.

What does this tell us? Essentially, it tells us that Street pitched at the end of more games in 2009 than he did in 2005 or 2007. Not much more than that.

Now, this isn’t to say that I think Street is a bad reliever. As an ardent fan of the Rockies, it’s actually just the opposite. I think Street was a terrific addition to the team. I also think there are more sophisticated ways of looking at Street’s production, such as WHIP, BABIP, or K/9. (Incidentally, a K/9 rate of 10.22 this year? I could marry this man.)

One last note about the save — occasionally, they can be awarded in clearly gratuitous situations. One dramatic example came in a game between the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles in which the Rangers won by a score of 30-3. Wes Littleton entered the game in the seventh inning with a lead of 14-3 and went on to pitch the next three innings. Even though the Rangers scored a mind-bending 16 further runs, Littleton picked up the save because he met all four criteria for the save; he was the final pitcher in the game, he did not earn the win (since the Rangers already had the lead when he came into the game), he recorded at least one out, and he pitched at least three innings.

Now, is there any aspect of the lead that he could be said to have saved? Not particularly, but he still picked up the save — one of just two he recorded that season.

The statistical revolution in baseball has given us a new way to look at players’ production, both offensively and defensively, but it’s best to remember to look at all of these numbers with an eye of skepticism, too.

Hoffman, Rodriguez, Rivera, Street, and even Littleton can all tell you that.

Perhaps the single most misunderstood statistic in baseball is the win. Not the win a team gets when it outscores another team, since that’s about as basic as it gets, but wins that pitchers rack up over the season. You’d think a win would be as simple as the pitcher playing for the winning team, but then, if it were that simple, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article.

Of course, sometimes it is that simple. When Mark Buerhle threw his perfect game for the Chicago White Sox on July 23, he was credited with a win, because his team won, and he was the only pitcher. Easy enough.

But what happens if a team has multiple pitchers in a game, as is nearly always the case? Generally, the starting pitcher is credited with the win, since he usually pitches the longest. In fact, in order to qualify for a win, a starting pitcher has to pitch for at least five innings.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. The other qualification is that the pitcher has to be in the game when his team takes the lead for the last time. If, say, C.C. Sabathia is pitching for the New York Yankees and leaves after seven innings with a 3-0 lead, he would qualify for the win. If a relief pitcher then gives up four runs, but the Yankees come back to win, Sabathia no longer gets the win, since he wasn’t in the game when his team last took the lead. In that case, his reliever is credited with the win (and also a blown save, which we’ll discuss in another article).

As you might expect, the pitcher in the game when his team gives up the lead for the last time is credited with a loss. This means sometimes the starting pitcher will be credited with neither a win nor a loss, since they have come out of the game before the lead changes hands for the last time. In that case, he is credited with a no decision, which does not count against his record.

The interesting thing about the win statistic is that the pitcher only has a partial degree of control over it. A starting pitcher can pitch well enough to win a game for his team, only to watch his bullpen or the defense behind him blow the game. Kansas City’s Zack Greinke only has 13 wins on the season, tying him with five other pitchers for eighth place in the AL. Yet most baseball writers have him as a lock to win the AL Cy Young Award. Why Greinke and not Sabathia, who leads the AL with 17 wins? Sabathia plays in front of a great defense, while Greinke plays for, well, the Royals.

Sometimes it takes a look at more advanced statistics to see the big picture. (If you need a refresher on baseball statistics, take a quick look at this explanatory article.) The San Francisco Giants’ Tim Lincecum, like Greinke, ranks eighth in the NL in wins, also with 13. Colorado’s Jason Marquis has two more wins, giving him 15 and third place.

I may be an unabashed Colorado Rockies fan, but even I couldn’t realistically argue that Marquis deserves the NL Cy Young Award over Lincecum.

Why? Wins don’t tell the whole story. Sure, Marquis has won more games, but Lincecum leads the NL in ERA, K/9, and is third in WHIP (with a minimum of 160 innings pitched).

Marquis, for comparison, ranks 16th in ERA, 34th in K/9, and 20th in WHIP.

One interesting, but still rare, stat that tries to adjust for excellent pitchers on atrocious teams is the “tough loss.” In order to qualify for a tough loss, a starting pitcher has to pitch at least six innings, give up no more than three earned runs, and still see his team lose the game. This frees the pitcher from receiving a loss due to bad defense, a blown save, or a lack of run support.

As you might expect, Greinke is near the top of the AL in tough losses with five, but the MLB leader might surprise you. It’s actually Johan Santana of the New York Mets with seven. Santana, by many accounts, is one of the most talented pitchers in the game, but suffered the indignity of having to play for the Mets while they blundered their way toward the bottom of the NL East.

And despite those seven tough losses, he still posted a 13-9 record.

Just one more reason why wins and losses don’t tell the whole story for a pitcher.

Strike three.

Foul balls seem to be a simple concept in baseball, but their intricacies can confuse even the most seasoned fan. Nearly everyone knows the basics: If the ball lands outside the foul lines, it’s a foul. If it lands inside the lines, it’s fair. Easy enough.

But what happens if the ball rolls over the line? What if it rolls over the line before it reaches first or third base? What happens if the ball bounces off third base and flies into the stands?

Our simple “lands in fair territory, it’s fair” rule works for the vast majority of plays, but it’s interesting to look into the uncommon cases and see what happens then. Let’s consider.

If a hit ball lands in fair territory but rolls into foul territory before it reaches first or third base, the ball is foul. This doesn’t happen terribly often, since most batters make enough contact with the ball to either carry it into the outfield or send it high enough into the air that rolling isn’t an issue.

If the case is like our bunting pitcher earlier, though, things are different. If a bunted ball goes foul when there are two strikes in the count, the foul is called as a third strike.

Suppose, say, Nick Swisher is up to the plate and belts a ball into left field. The ball flies along the third base line, landing just fair but then bouncing into foul territory. In that case, the ball is still fair.

The boundary is either first or third base — as long as the ball is fair when it passes first or third, it’s fair. Of course, if the ball is fair in the air over one of those bases but lands in foul territory, it’s a foul ball.

What if the ball hits a base, though? It’s probably not going to be an issue if a ball hits second base, since it’s nowhere near foul territory, but what if the ball bounces off first base on a line drive? Once a ball hits a base (no matter which one), it’s fair. It doesn’t matter where the ball lands afterward.

These situations are even less common than the above one, since a defensive player is likely to be standing on the base and be able to make a play.

Here’s an interesting situation: Suppose Todd Helton hits a ball along the first base line, it lands fair in right field, and then bounces into the stands in foul territory. We know the ball landed fair past first base, so it’s fair even if it ends up in foul territory, but the ball is currently out of play.

What now?

In this case, the ball is ruled a ground-rule double, and Todd is awarded two bases. This would be the same as if he’d hit the ball into deep center field and it had bounced into the stands.

The trajectory of the ball would make a play like this extremely unlikely, unless the ball had a tremendous amount of spin on it, but theoretically, it could happen. On the other hand, if the ball lands in the infield and then bounces into the stands before it crosses first base, the ball would be foul.

Ground rules aren’t the same everywhere, however. While the August 22, 2009 showdown between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets is most famous for Eric Bruntlett’s unassisted triple play, it also included an inside-the-park home run when the ball got stuck under the padding where the wall meets the warning track.

Shane Victorino gave up on the play, assuming a ground rule double would be awarded. While that may have been true at another park, the situation wasn’t included in the ground rules for Citi Field—and thus the umpire allowed the runner to go home and score.

Somewhat more common is the case where a fly ball hits the foul pole. Clearly, if the ball goes inside the pole, it’s a homerun, whereas a ball hit outside the pole is a foul. But if, say, Albert Pujols hits the ball straight into the foul pole, he’s still credited with a home run.

Of course, knowing Pujols, he’d be more likely to hit the ball straight through the foul pole, but that’s another story.

One last note: If a ball is hit into the roof of an indoor structure in fair territory and lands in foul territory, the ball is foul. If the ball becomes lodged in the roof support structure and does not return to the field, the ball is generally foul, though rules depend on the stadium in question.

The Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Field has several catwalks suspended from the roof, some of which are in play, and others of which are not. In the 2008 ALDS, Rays third baseman Evan Longoria hit the C ring catwalk and was awarded a home run.

First off, one thing. Moneyball is not a book about baseball.

The story, non-fiction, is about Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and how he outsmarted the rest of Major League Baseball to build a competitive team on a tiny salary budget.

It talks about Beane’s failures as a player in the big leagues, and his rise to glory as a GM. Along the way it digs into the stories of some of Beane’s prized players, who helped the A’s improbably win 100 games while they might not have made any other big league roster.

But in a few months I won’t remember any of that, because Moneyball is not about baseball.

It’s about thinking about baseball.

Beane takes an unorthodox approach to evaluating players by using only past performance statistics, and chucking out the subjective eyeballing of potential in prospects. Traditional box score statistics end up being inadequate, and Beane instead puts priority on players with a knack for getting on base, and who are patient enough to wait for good pitches.

The book isn’t terribly heavy on numbers—there aren’t any charts or graphs, so don’t be scared away by it all—but it’s just enough to excite Stat Lust in anybody who’s even the slightest bit nerdy about sports (check out the reviews people have written on Amazon for Moneyball for proof).

And to anybody who’s over-the-top about statistics already, like myself, this book is downright inspiring.

The glory of Moneyball, to me, was the validation I felt when it proved that, yes—a great deal of sports statistics are actually poor measures of performance.

The book goes to some length to explain the theories of sabermetrics, the New School of baseball statistical measures. The underlying philosophy is to view baseball objectively, and track statistics in such a way that they both accurately reflect past play and reasonably project future performance.

The application of the theory is some new measurements, most of which are reasonably simple. Part of Beane’s approach is establishing that the primary goal of every batter when they go to the plate is to not get an out. Everything else is secondary. Walks are thus in no way inferior to hits, and on-base percentage becomes the stat du jour over simple batting average.

Some traditional statistics are simply tossed out. Recording errors becomes useless when you realize that, to score an error a player, must have first done something right by being close to the ball. It’s easy to avoid an error if you arrive late and let it bounce.

As I read my mind went straight to straight to basketball, as that’s what I spend my shower time thinking about, and how many times I’ve been dissatisfied with basketball statistics. Rebounds are particularly troublesome—offensive and defensive boards are typically lumped together, and a big man might have a great night of rebounds if he can just manage to miss every shot he takes.

But don’t worry—basketball has its own version of sabermetrics, called APBRmetrics. If you’ve heard of PER or True Shooting Percentage or anything that John Hollinger has ever touched, then you’re already familiar with it.

I feel obligated to repeat that the book’s story is enjoyable as well. It follows the highs and lows of Beane’s career (thus far) as a GM, and there’s a great deal of human interest as he calls upon baseball’s misfits—real deal underdogs—to assemble a playoff-caliber MLB team.

The movie, if it comes to fruition, will probably be good. Maybe even heart-warming. Brad Pitt will probably do a great job as the volatile-tempered Beane. And Demetri Martin was selected to represent Beane’s right-hand man Paul DePodesta, and Demetri Martin is fantastic.

But it’s just not going to be the same.

There’s no way a movie designed for mass audiences is going to make me geek out about statistics as much as the book did.

I’m recommending this book to anybody with a similar academic interest in sports. You don’t have to like baseball, either, although that probably helps.

And while this site is called How To Watch Sports, Moneyball fits right in.

It’s How to Think About Sports.

Baseball statistic-managing software

Baseball, more than any other major professional sport, is defined by numbers. Many of the sport’s most hallowed records are immortalized by numbers. 61. 755. .367. 4256. Even casual fans of baseball are familiar with statistics like RBI, batting average, and ERA.

But in the last few decades, statisticians have developed increasingly refined and increasingly complex ways to measure batting, pitching, running, defense, and just about anything else you could think of. More than a few fans have become lost in a sea of acronyms. Is a WHIP of 1.5036 good or bad? If a player has an RISP batting average of .279, should I move him to the middle of the order or trade him? And what is “slugging,” anyway?

Let’s take a crack at breaking down some of these statistics—at least the newer ones.

Hitting

BA – Batting average: the old standby. A player’s total hits are divided into his total at-bats and expressed as a three-point decimal figure (ex., .223). This statistic is the traditional way to evaluate a player’s offensive ability; if his BA is high, he’s good, and if it’s low, he’s not. A BA of .300 or higher is fairly impressive, while a BA under .200 is generally low enough to get you sent back to the minor leagues. No one has hit over .400 since 1941.

BABIP – Batting average on balls in play: essentially, how often a player reaches base when a ball is hit into play. This discounts home runs and strikeouts, so it’s a measure of how effectively a player can reach base when he hits the ball (or is walked or hit by a pitch). A typical BABIP stays close to .290. It can also be used as a pitching statistic, but we’ll cover that in the pitching section.

OBP – On-base percentage: measures how often a player reaches base. This includes both hits and walks. Traditionally this was ignored in favor of BA, but over the last decade or so, managers have placed an emphasis on players skilled in drawing walks, as a walk gets a man on base as effectively as a hit does. OBP is nearly always higher than BA, simply because walks are included. (A high number of sacrifice flies, coupled with a low number of plate appearances, would result in a lower OBP than BA.) An average OBP today hovers around .340.

A practical application of OBP comes into play when the bases are loaded. It’s not the batting average of the next batter up that matters, it’s his OBP, since getting on base by any method will bring in a run.

RISP – Runners in scoring position: a measure of a player’s BA with runners in scoring position (i.e., on second or third base). Naturally, you’d want a player’s RISP to be high, or else you’ll be leaving runners stranded on the bases. This can also be used as a tool to measure “clutch,” although statisticians disagree on the existence of “clutch”.

SLG – Slugging percentage: a measurement of how many bases a player earns on average per hit. To calculate it, simply divide a player’s total bases (one for singles, two for doubles, etc.) by his total plate appearances. A talented player will have a slugging percentage over .500, though technically, the highest SLG one could achieve is 4.000, if they were to hit only home runs. Seattle pitcher Felix Hernandez hit a grand slam in his only at-bat of the 2008 season, giving him a slugging percentage of 4.000 for the year.

OPS – On-base plus slugging average: simply enough, combining OBP and SLG to create a more complete measurement of a player’s offensive contributions. An OPS of .7000 is deemed average; an OPS of .9000 or higher is likely to lead the league in any given season.

Pitching

K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: a measurement of how many strikeouts a pitcher is likely to record in a game. It tends to be a more reliable measure of a pitcher’s ability to strike out a hitter than raw strikeout totals, since pitchers tire over the course of a game.

K/BB – Strikeout-to-walk ratio: a statistic that measures a pitcher’s control over the ball. A pitcher with a high degree of control over his pitches will record many more strikeouts than walks, resulting in a high K/BB, and vice versa. A strong pitcher will have a K/BB over 5.

BABIP – Batting average on balls in play: as mentioned above, this measures how many balls hit into play end up as hits. This tends to be outside of the pitcher’s control, so an abnormally low BABIP is a sign of a fluky performance. BABIP tends to normalize around .290; pitchers seeing a BABIP higher or lower than .290 can expect to see it regress toward the mean over time.

WHIP – Walks and hits per inning pitched: essentially, the number of runners a pitcher permits to reach base in an inning. This includes, obviously, walks and hits, but also errors, in contrast to ERA. A strong pitcher will have a WHIP near 1.0, meaning they only allow, on average, one baserunner per inning.

“We have a problem in baseball,” said Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg upon hearing the news. “Using [the gym] is not respecting the game.”

Although it is impossible to tell without testing whether a given player is using the gym, it is often clear in retrospect. Gym users tend to be bulkier, with larger muscles and less body fat. The added strength from illicit gym use contributes to both more powerful hitting and lengthened stamina.

Pujols, accordingly, currently leads the league in home runs, RBI, runs, slugging percentage, and OPS. Detractors point to the gym as the driving force behind this dominance.

While the revelation about Pujols raises suspicions about other players, some were quick to deny involvement.

“I have never used [the gym]. Period,” said Rafael Palmeiro, longtime first baseman for the Rangers and Orioles, who has long been under suspicion. “I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.”

Sammy Sosa, who went toe-to-toe with Mark McGwire in their famous race to break the home run record, spoke up as well: “I have never used [the gym]…I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean.”

Others, like Houston Astros first baseman Lance Berkman, think the entire issue is overblown.

“The [gym] issue is not quite as big an issue as some people think,” said Berkman. “This is a hot-button issue now. People are making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Manny Ramirez, fresh off his own 50-game suspension, added that if Pujols didn’t kill or rape anybody, the league ought to let it slide.

Speculation can only now begin on what gym use means for Pujols’ records, and whether it will keep him out of Cooperstown. Antagonists argue that gym use, while not specifically banned by the league before 2006, creates an unlevel playing field.

Clearly, if some players use the gym and others do not, the advantage goes to those who did.

Jose Canseco, once known as baseball’s Godfather of the Gym but now long-retired from the game, has been open about the role that the gym played in his career.

“Have I used [the gym]? You bet I did. Did [the gym] make me a better baseball player? Of course it did.”

And despite the consternation around gym use, Canseco doesn’t have any shame.

“If I had it all to do over again, would I live a [gym]-enriched life? Yes, I would.”

Last week the Los Angeles Angels announced the Nick Adenhart “Pitcher of the Year” award, in memory of their young starting pitcher who was killed by a drunk driver on April 9.

The award will go each year to the team’s most outstanding pitcher, as selected by his teammates. But the real intention of the award is to celebrate Adenhart—a terrific young pitcher and (perhaps more importantly) a quality human being.

Adenhart stands as an example of everything that is good in professional sports.

While the rest of baseball is caught up in steroid accusations and football is inundated with talk of Michael Vick and Donte’ Stallworth, Nick Adenhart is the player that every dad wants his son to see and that rising players should emulate.

At the time of his death, he was the youngest pitcher on a Major League roster and promised to be a reliable, perhaps dominating, starting rotation pitcher for years to come.

But even at age 22, he’d already overcome a lot to get there.

Straight out of high school, Adenhart had been projected as a top-10 pick in the draft. But fate struck, as it often does, and Adenhart went out with an elbow injury just two weeks before the draft. It was revealed that he would have to have the dreaded Tommy John surgery, and Adenhart slipped from the top 10 to 413th in the draft.

Tough blow for an 18-year-old.

He pulled through it, though—he recovered, rehabbed, and rose through the Angels’ ranks to become one of baseball’s top prospects and the Angels’ top prospect going into 2009.

He made his MLB debut in 2008 at the fresh age of 21 and pitched three games for the Angels over the course of the season, including his first win in a victory over the White Sox at Angel Stadium.

On April 8, 2009, he pitched his first game of the 2009 season—the game that would be his last.

After a stellar performance, striking out five and allowing no runs, a minivan struck the Mitsubishi Eclipse that Adenhart was riding in around 12:30 a.m., and Adenhart died shortly after at the UC Irvine Medical Center.

The tragedy is not the death of a pitcher, or even a top prospect—it’s the death of a human being. A son and a brother.

What brings this story into greater focus is that just over the fence in the NFL, Donte’ Stallworth finds himself on the other side of this situation. Stallworth struck a pedestrian with his Bentley while driving drunk around 7:15 AM on March 14, 2009.

The pedestrian was killed. Another son, likely a brother, and possibly a father as well.

It’s easy to forget that guys like Nick Adenhart still exist. Good guys still fill rosters everywhere, in every professional sport, despite the societal dregs that too often fill the headlines. Normal people still rise to the pinnacle of physical achievement through simple hard work and unyielding focus.

“His life’s goal was to be a Major League Baseball player,” said his agent Scott Boras, shortly after his passing. “And he certainly achieved that standard.”

That’s all it requires. The posturing, the tattoos, the cars, the women, and the lawless lifestyles aren’t requisite to success in sports. They’re just often the unfortunate result.

As we all too often get caught up in the celebrity of professional athletes, we don’t remember that they are, or were once, normal people.

They spit up as babies. They went to school like every other kid, perhaps even underachieving academically.

They also have families, often of their own. Adenhart’s father Jim was in attendance at Nick’s final game, seeing his son do what he’d worked his whole life to do.

“I hate that this happened, but this is part of life. This is the real deal,” said Adenhart’s Angels teammate Torii Hunter. “That’s why you’ve got to kiss your kids, kiss your family every day when you get up in the morning and before you leave for work.”

The death of Nick Adenhart represents much more than just the need to fill a hole in the starting rotation—and Donte’ Stallworth’s crime means more than just a suspended wide receiver. It’s bigger than sports.

The Angels keep Adenhart’s locker just as it was and still assign him a locker at away games.

And every once in a while, when we’ve suffered some loss of our own, we understand.

Steroids were the best thing that’s happened to baseball in a long time.

With Sammy Sosa having been revealed as another of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, we start another round of condemnation and speculation as to who’s on the list.

We talk about asterisks, how steroids are destroying the game, and how players are now presumed guilty and left with the onus of proving their innocence.

It can’t go on like this, with another high-profile player’s name being revealed each month and the outrage starting all over again. It’s this drawn-out, austere process that is destroying baseball by forcing us to talk about something other than the game that’s being played.

We’re left with two options.

The first is to reveal all the names on the list, dole out punishments as the league deems necessary, affix asterisks to all the records in question and brand every player who partook with a searing hot iron.

We’ll forever wonder if we got everybody, and how those players would have played without the performance boost, reliving the outrage with each sportswriter’s painful column.

The other solution is simple and elegant: Destroy the list.

Let me be clear that I do not condone steroid use, or even tolerate it. To cheat at professional sports is to be the weakest of all athletes, proclaiming one’s self unwilling to go through the agony and torture of the work it takes to be truly great.

It takes a lifetime of no-holds-barred, unyielding dedication to be a professional athlete—that’s why I’m not one.

At the same time, somewhere Bud Selig is quietly (very quietly) thanking Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for juicing up. Baseball enjoyed a heyday it hadn’t known in decades when McGwire and Sosa raced to be the home run king.

It was more than selling a few more tickets or a bump in merchandise sales. It was a cultural movement, a zeitgeist of anticipation and accomplishment and belief in the insufferableness of the human spirit.

The purists would always be there. But people who had never watched a full nine innings were now checking each day to see if Mark or Sammy had hit one out of the park that day.

Would the record be broken today? Tomorrow? It enveloped water cooler discussion more than politics, religion, and the weather combined.

When McGwire broke Roger Maris’ home run record, it wasn’t an individual accomplishment. We’d all done it together.

In a sport that had been troubled by strikes and lockouts, and had lost a sizeable portion of American mindshare to Michael Jordan and the glory days of the NBA, one thing becomes abundantly clear in retrospect.

Steroids saved baseball.

Not that baseball was going anywhere. Not that it wouldn’t be popular now. But steroids made baseball fun to watch again.

And now it’s a new era in baseball. There was no penalty for first-time steroid users in 2003, but Manny Ramirez can tell you that there is now.

With the ignominy that has overshadowed the sport from this whole scandal, we can be sure that the necessary steps will be taken to avoid it happening again.

The steroid days are, for the most part, behind us. Hitters are hitting a normal number of long balls again, and pitchers are showing their age. It’s not as fun, but at least it’s a level playing field.

Bringing the luster back to baseball means making a clean mental break, a reboot of the American mindset towards baseball. It has nothing to do with punishing offenders or earmarking records, and it has everything to do with making baseball fun again.

Recall that the list was the result of ostensibly anonymous testing. The fact that the testing was not double-blind (as evidenced by the players’ names and results being kept together,) and that the results still exist in some form, speaks to it perhaps being a deception, that maybe it wasn’t intended to always be anonymous.

The testing was held in the first place to determine whether it was necessary to institute random testing to discourage and penalize steroid users. They got their answer: Yes.

Now destroy the list.

Let the Steroids Era be an anomaly where players (legally, at the time) found new ways to succeed—and just as the NBA changed with the introduction of the shot clock, MLB can change with the introduction of strict substance rules.

Performance-enhancing drugs are a terrible thing, a terrible show of sportsmanship, and a terrible example for the kids.

But enhance performances they did.

And it was terrific to watch.