Give Aaron Judge Steroids

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I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the new AL single-season home run record holder is Aaron Judge. Judge – after a week of interruptions to college football games – was finally able to beat Roger Maris’ record of 61, set in 1961.

While it’s more than an arms-length away from the MLB record of 73 set by Barry Bonds in 2001, it hasn’t stopped many fans from declaring Aaron Judge the new home-run king. With his notable use of steroids at the time, the Barry Bonds HR record (along with the McGwire and Sosa records) is seen as tainted.

I would agree. The use of steroids in the 1990s and 2000s has tainted the game. We know that nobody is truly capable of reaching those numbers without performance enhancement drugs. Any record set now is pale in comparison to the monster numbers that roided-out sluggers like Barry Bonds were cranking out season after season.

The solution?

Give Aaron Judge and several other MLB players performance-enhancing drugs for the entirety of the 2023 MLB season.

The Marketing Angle

In hindsight, we can act all uppity about the sanctity of the game, but baseball is more fun when the ball goes farther. The juiced-ball 2019 season offered some solace to fans hungry for some power, but that has been reversed. Attendance numbers have steadily declined since 2007. Do you want to guess who left in 2007? Barry Bonds.

Aaron Judge and his recent home run chase is the most regular season buzz that baseball has seen since the days of Griffey. On October 4th, Aaron Judge was the third-ranked search term on google. If you haven’t been keeping up with google search trends, a major league baseball player getting a score of 100 and a rank in the top 3 doesn’t happen often. Aaron Judge’s home run chase has been a boon for the MLB.

It would be in the best interest of the MLB to nudge the game in a way that this type of performance can be replicated. The problem is: 6’7 athletic freaks with a knack for hitting don’t just grow on trees. We can also not guarantee that Judge replicates this kind of production next year.

People want to see upper-upper-deck blasts. They want to see 500-foot homers more regularly. They want theatrics. And outside of Aaron Judge’s incredible 2022 season, Major League Baseball is depriving them of that.

The Ethical Argument

It’s no secret that Bonds was consuming the special cocktail of tren, HGH, and steroids for much of his career, but he waited until 1999 to start. By that point, Bonds was in his mid-30s and well past his athletic prime. Some may say that there is an ethical problem with allowing people to take steroids, but I think it was more of a crime against humanity to rob the world of a juiced-out Barry Bonds in his prime. We would’ve seen things we have never seen on a major league diamond. We can’t make that mistake again. It is unethical to so flagrantly limit human progress.

I think an important reference to use is the sport of bodybuilding. Bodybuilding, by and large, doesn’t test for steroids unless they are advertised as natural competitions. Sure, they may say they banned steroids, but they don’t care enough to stop the usage of steroids. There isn’t a soul on earth who believes that Mr. Olympias like Ronnie Coleman are clean, even with the best genetics on earth. Despite the known use of steroids, bodybuilding fans still tune in. MLB fans should treat this idea the same.

Imagine 2022 Aaron Judge, but on the same cocktail of tren, HGH, that Bonds was on. Aaron Judge will be 6 years younger than Bonds was and will have access to far better training. We might see the first 80 home run season.

We can make Steven Kwan a 30-30 guy. Shohei can finally take away the record of most strikeouts thrown with 50 HRs from Tungsten Arm O’Doyle. And maybe, just maybe, Daniel Vogelbach can manage to collect his first stolen base.

The potential here is limitless.

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