A friend of mine was lamenting Alex Rodriguez’s use of steroids, pointing out that three of A-Rod’s five highest single-season home run totals occured during the three seasons he admits to using illegal substances while a Texas Ranger, and, more damningly, that his time as a Ranger showed a marked jump in homers from the previous period in his career. But this sort of analysis omits any context for Rodriguez’s accomplishments, the most important of which just might be the home field, at which he played half his games.
Comparing Rodriguez’s last three years in Seattle (1998 to 2000), during which most of his home games were at Safeco Field, the most difficult ballpark in the American League in which to hit home runs, with his three years in Texas (2001 to 2003), which was the easiest park in the league for the long ball, is instructive. During those years in Seattle, Rodriguez averaged 17 home runs at home and 25 on the road; in his Texas years, he averaged 29 at home and 23 on the road. The entire difference can be explained away by where he played. (His five-year averages with the Yankees are 22 homers at Yankee Stadium, a more neutral ballpark, and 20 on the road.) Another conclusion can be drawn: that Rodriguez began using performance-enhancing substances far earlier than he acknowledged or continued using them after he said he had stopped.
But his statistics in Texas cannot support the case that whatever substances he used during those years affected his homerun output.
