In the comments yesterday, Myron mentioned that people "wanted proof" and asked him to "name names" when it came to baseball players using pep pills in the late 50s and most of the 60s and 70s as well.
I'm not an expert on the matter. I've just read a lot and watched a lot of documentaries over the years, but for the most part nearly ALL players from that era used amphetamines at least a few times. For some it was a daily ritual and they became addicted.
What's funny is, that nobody kept it a secret. Most players talked about it freely and never thought about it being WRONG or CHEATING.
It literally was a different era. Players didn't fly on jets from city to city to make their games, at least not very often, especially up through the mid 60's. Players back then didn't make that much more than an average successful businessman and many of them had off-season "Regular Joe" jobs to help support their families.
No, the regular way to journey was by train or bus. Owners, who were far, far poorer than today's billionaires couldn't afford to send their players ANYWHERE by plane. Road trips we're truly that. Long, exhaustive journey's where players literally played poker, drank beer, and smoked cigarettes to pass the time. They did it in their hotels, on the buses and in the trains. And they did it nearly every night.
Back then, drinking beer was what players did, and getting drunk was was more common than than being sober. Players WERE good old boys. At the beginning of the article I mentioned the term "pep pills." For players, they were the magical hangover pill. It never mattered how much you drank the night before, as long as you had your wake up pills the next day. Even players who didn't drink, and there were a few, often took the pills to "wake up." Getting a truly good night's sleep on a train or in a bus was not easy. The players didn't want to play tired and have a bad game or games. Their jobs were at stake, and contracts back then were with YOUR OWNER. Free agency wasn't even a twinkle of any lawyer's eye yet. If you wanted to play ball, you had to do it well. And to do it better, you needed to be alert.
I won't bore you with the details about the advantages of pep pills. I've done that in the past with some of these blogs. But I will mention the ONE thing that they helped players do: FOCUS. In much the same way that kids are given ADD-type medicines to help them focus today, players benefitted from THEIR miracle pills.
The primary difference between a great major league ballplayer and a utility infielder? Focus. I'm not going to to bother to get into the studies that were done in this area, but I can summarize them for you. The truly great players, in any sport, have the ability to shutout ANYTHING that is not primarily important to their success at any given moment. These pills didn't just wake you up, they gave you the ability to block out the distractions. They were the ultimate PED, much more so than steroids or HGH. It's not the body that makes a great player. It's the focus of his mind.
I can't give you names, but players shared their pills freely with other teammates. Winning was of primary importance and players salaries were all a reflection of how well their TEAM did. Helping teammates play better was just part of THEIR job. Most of the players from that first great homerun (the Marris, Mantle) era are dead. And now that amphetamine use IS considered cheating, the players who are left are just as hesitant to speak about their use as current players are about steroids and HGH.
Did Maris and Mantle, and Mays, and Aaron, and Kaline and Killebrew, and Yaz, and... (fill in your favorite) use these pills at least a few times? I don't know, but they lived in an era where a good percentage of the players did.
IF people haven't changed in the last few years, and I don't think they have, we'd have to look at TWO groups of people who probably used them. 1) The very best players (those who had the drive and skills to be better than everyone else already) and 2) The players who were forced to take them if they wanted to be good enough to keep their major league job.
The guys in the middle didn't need them as much. They were good enough to have a big league job for years without being cut and replaced and they KNEW they would never have the ability of some of the Hall-of-Famers already mentioned.
HOWEVER, what if you are a good player getting older and you still want to hold onto your job a while longer? Exactly. Basically every single player eventually fell into one of the two groups. I can't give you names and I can't give you percentages, but the players who have talked over the years (usually to reporters and writers and usually anonymously) have led those who have studied the issue to believe that pep pill usage back then was substantially higher than current PED drugs.
Remember, there was no testing. There was no fear of getting caught. There was no good reason to NOT take these pills.
And many of the guys we are talking about are already in the HALL. If using drugs to enhance performance is wrong NOW, it was just as wrong THEN. Pick your poison. The players certainly did.
And back then you couldn't tell just by "looking at them."
Excellent commentary.
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