Stricter policy won’t lead to dramatic changes

The final “Jeopardy” category is: Drugs in baseball.

The clue: A lot like 2002.

And the correct question: What will the national pastime look like in the post-steroid/amphetamine era?

Tuesday’s agreement between Commissioner Bud Selig and union boss Donald Fehr is going to be a lot tougher on anyone caught juicing. But really, how hard was it to come up with that?

Look at a timeline of events beginning with the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home-run chase in 1998 and you’ll find enough tips that were missed, bungled or purposely ignored to fill up another “Naked Gun” sequel.

So Selig and Fehr better not turn up together on vacation next week, running a tab at a bar in Los Cabos. Or worse, on the disabled list with torn rotator cuffs from clapping each on the back too heartily. Because there is plenty of heavy lifting left to do, especially if all those pronouncements about restoring the integrity of the game weren’t just empty words.

Let’s start with the steroid withdrawal, since baseball’s flirtation with that performance-enhancer is better chronicled.

By just about any offensive measure, the 1999 and 2000 seasons were the most prolific in history. Apparently, everybody from the top on down read the memo that if one long-ball spectacle did that much to bolster the bottom line, the more spectacles the better. Players got bigger and were paid more for buffing up. Ballparks got smaller, bats got harder, and investigators dispatched by the commissioner’s office got junkets to the Caribbean to see whether the baseballs were actually being wound tighter.

Even with all those incentives and advantages, though, the numbers fell off slightly the following three seasons, a trend that dovetailed – coincidentally, no doubt – with the start of anonymous survey testing for steroids in 2003.

Players at that time knew six months in advance that testing was on the way, yet nearly 100 came up positive. In 2004, even with a weak drug policy still in place – a first positive test resulted only in a referral for treatment – the number caught using performance enhancers fell drastically to an even dozen. But a curious thing happened. Despite reports of shrunken sluggers in spring training, by season’s end, offensive production was up across the board again – homers and runs per game, slugging and batting average, you name it.

This season, the number of busts in the major leagues leveled off at 12, but production headed south again. Home runs were down by nearly 400, teams averaged almost a half-run per game less and batting and slugging averages were off slightly. As snapshots go, a researcher at the Elias Sports Bureau said 2005 could easily be mistaken for 2002.

So what does that mean for next season? All those people who think the game is going to look like it did before the supersized era took hold will be disappointed. There won’t be a dramatic drop-off in offense, except maybe in the number of guys hitting 50 home runs. You can probably forget 60- and 70-homer seasons for a while.

On the other hand, plenty of ballplayers came by their inflated physiques honestly, most of the new ballyards are still small, and one thing we learned from the names on Selig’s steroid blotter is that pitchers were juicing, too. Throw all those factors into the mix and the changes won’t be anywhere near as dramatic as some fans might have hoped. The transition to steroid-free baseball, already begun, will be gradual. The bad news is that the cloud that hovers over the era, the one that made comparisons with the past seem so murky, won’t be lifted right away, if anytime soon.

The ban on amphetamines, though, will make such comparisons trickier. Greenies, as they’re called, were much more prevalent in clubhouses than steroids and around for much longer. Baseball packs more travel and more games into a shorter time than other sports, and greenies are the dirty little secret that make it possible for so many to perform at such a consistently high level. If anything is going to take a serious bite out of baseball’s inflated numbers in a hurry, banning amphetamines could be it.

You won’t see the effect right away. But if the dog days of summer are matched by a scoring drought of epic proportions, don’t jump to any conclusions. Because it likely won’t be the result of shrunken biceps so much as droopy eyelids.