Interesting tidbit from Bill James' new book, as pointed out by Rob Neyer on his blog yesterday:
Two of the greatest home run under-producers of all time were teammates: Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti in 1984. Puckett hit no home runs (-16), Gaetti hit only 5 (-19). Suggesting the possibility that the Twins' two World Championships may have been aided by their team being among the first to discover ... well, I'd better not go there. Nor will I point out that Gaetti was bald and had acne and Puckett died young.Um, what? Is James accusing Puckett and Gaetti and other Twins of using steroids? This is certainly the first I've ever heard of that one. Puckett did not have, shall we say, the type of physique commonly associated with 'roid usage, and of course it's well-established that his death was caused by a stroke, mitigated by the fact that he weighed close to 400 pounds. Gaetti was never the biggest guy either, but if his baldness is evidence of steroid use, I look forward to the same charge being leveled at Cal Ripken.
The only cheating accusation I've ever heard leveled at the '87 Twins was sign-stealing, with the help of the Metrodome center field cameras. But that's never been substantiated either.
Bugs and Cranks unloads on James here. I've always loved James' writing, but I always seemed to detect a subtle anti-Twins bias in his '80s books- specifically, he'd always accuse the Twins and Brewers of playing slow white guys for no apparent reason.
Don't forget the air conditioning scandal, where some Dome employee said he turned the a/c on when the opposition was batting, and left it off for the Twins.
Posted by: Jeremy at April 9, 2008 09:11 AMYeah but didn't Kirby beat his wife, despite being blind? 'Roid rage, perhaps?
Posted by: LilB at April 15, 2008 12:58 PM