Arthur De Vany's Evolutionary Fitness Art's Blog on Fitness, Health, Aging, Nutrition and Exercise

Steroids and Home Runs

Arthur De Vany

A few things have changed since I did this research. We have a bit more evidence, or at least testimony, about steroid and human growth hormone (HGH) use. Almost uniformly, the admitted users began in order to heal an injury or extend a fading career. That would be a cause of the finding Jonathon Cole and Steven Stigler published in the NYT (December 22, 2007) where they state "For the 48 batters we studied, the average change in home runs per year ‘before’ and ‘after’ was a decrease of 0.246.”

Mark McGuire had the best swing in baseball; his swing evolved over the years from a rollover of the forearms into that extended, on-plane, one-handed release. The high finish is indicative of an upward swing path, which is needed to launch home runs. Barry Bonds' swing evolved into an almost identical one from his early line drive swing. A-Rod, Puljos and Manny Ramirez may have the best swings now; their mechanics are almost identical. Ryan Howard is right there too. With this modern swing, where the player stays inside the ball rather than looping outside to pull it, a modern player can hit home runs to all fields. I worked on this swing for quite some time for my softball hitting and hit one out to left, center, and right in my last game, whereupon I retired. We still lost that one.

There is another thing that Bonds does that few others do or can do. He used a maple bat with a smaller barrel diameter of 2.50 inches compared to the limit of 2.75 inches. He loses only 4% of hitting cross-section area, but the thing becomes more like a 9-iron the way it bites into the ball. The wood is a bit denser and grainy too. If they measured spin rate on Bonds' hits I bet the ball spins more than it does for most players, which generates more lift. 

Copyright Arthur De Vany 2005-present

 
Back to top