Home Run Totals May Decrease

This could be the year of the incredible shrinking slugger.

Some players are slimmer this spring and, for the first time, an initial positive test for steroids will cause a 10-day suspension.

Coincidence or connection?

“Some guys look a bit smaller, but you can’t really say they were taking steroids is the reason they look smaller,” Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Matt Lawton said. “A lot of guys like to lose weight.”

Some congressmen labeled steroid use in baseball a scandal and threatened government intervention to force even tougher rules, even though there are potential constitutional and labor law obstacles.

But whatever questions fans have about who took what and when aren’t stopping them from buying tickets. Commissioner Bud Selig says 27 of 30 teams are ahead of their advance sales for last year, when the major leagues had their third-highest average attendance and their best since the 1994-95 strike.

Before the 1994-95 strike, there were just 18 50-homer seasons in baseball history. Since then, there have been 18 more.

From 1995 through 2002, at least one player per year reached 50. In the last two seasons, no one has.

“I definitely feel like you’ll see home run totals go down. You’ll start seeing more of the home run totals in the 40s,” says Washington Nationals Manager Frank Robinson, fifth on the career homer list with 586.

Asked whether that was because of the new steroid policy, the Hall of Famer responded: “I’m not going there.”

When the New York Yankees’ Jason Giambi shed weight a year ago, he said it was because he sliced In-N-Out Burgers from his diet. This spring, he’s all but confirmed that he used steroids in the past.

Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who denied Jose Canseco’s accusation that he used steroids while playing for Texas, dropped about 20 pounds following last season.

“I carried too much weight the last couple of years, so I decided to come in lighter this year,” he said. “I feel great because I’m light on my feet hitting, catching, running -- everything.”

Selig and union head Donald Fehr say the potential stigma of being outed as a cheater was sufficient deterrent to eradicate performance-enhancing drugs. There were 83 to 96 positive tests in 2003, when anonymous survey testing took place (the difference stems from unresolved disputes), and 12 among 1,133 tests last year, baseball told Congress.