Basically everyone used them. And they helped performance more than steroids. When balls were flying out of ballparks in then record numbers in the 1960's BY AVERAGE-SIZED ballplayers it was because they had an advantage players don't have today, they had uppers in their lockers.
Rather than acting on muscle mass like steroids, these pep pills allowed the players to focus their minds better while stimulating their adrenal systems. And as any top athlete will tell you, focused concentration produces far better results than muscles alone. The results were amazing. You had TWO guys, the same year, challenging Babe Ruth's single season home run record. You had a guy who weighed a 170 pounds soaking wet break the Bambinos all-time career home run mark!
Do you honestly think it was skill alone that produced such amazing results?
Lately, I've been digging a little deeper, and I found of the drug of choice since the dawn of sports, alcohol, is also considered an performance enhancer. When used in proper amounts it relaxes the body in tense situations so that you can ignore the normal impulse of being anxious or afraid. It literally helps you forget the seriousness of intense situations thus allowing your body to perform at peak efficiency. The "liquid courage" nickname it has is truly deserved.
People who drink beer a lot build up a sort of tolerance to the negative effects of alcohol while getting the maximum affects of it's nerve relaxing benefits. To put it another way, clutch players after prohibition didn't have ice water flowing through their veins, it was alcohol. Long train rides produced lots and lots of drinking, and the talented players who drank a beer or two in the club house before each game were the guys who hit the most home runs.
It's time to end the asterisk in baseball and acknowledge the sport for what it truly is, a lot of guys who are always, and have always, taken every advantage to perform better.
I'll leave you with this picture. It says a lot.
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