11/05/24
July 25, 2008
A Baseball Career Without Steroids.: "My first team was the Hanover Park Braves," he says. "The very first game I ever played in, I hit a home run." Fasano had watched his father work as a carpenter, his mother as a custodian. As he honed his skills on the baseball diamond, he began to crave the golden ring -- the fame and fortune that accompanied major-league success. He wanted … the dream.
Stories like this are the biggest reason why sports can't just legalize performance-enhancing drugs. You have to support people like Fasano who are smart enough not to tear up their bodies with that junk. It's interesting that he calls out by name some of the catchers who probably cheated to beat him out of roster spots. He's described as a great locker room guy by Frank Thomas, but that kind of candor isn't usually appreciated by fellow players.
posted by rcade at 07:15 AM on July 25, 2008
I always kinda liked Sal. But when he was with the Kansas City Roylz he was never more than the chubby back-up catcher who seemed to handle pitchers well and played gutsy baseball on the few times he got on base. He shoulda eaten less in Kansas City (but it's hard to avoid Gorozo's Italian food and all that lovely barbecue). He was, and is, a marginal professional ballplayer. Did others' steroid use hurt him? Yeah, probably. But if Sal had trimmed down to maybe 20% less body fat, he might have impressed more GMs. This is the kind of bathos the Reader's Digest wallows in. As Henry David Thoreau noted, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I suspect Sal Fasanco might have a solid career in baseball as a coach or even a manager. He obviously loves the game. He knows pitchers and is a positive force in the clubhouse. And I suspect the Reader's Digest writer chose to write a "sad, likable, failure" piece and made it come off that Sal obsesses over the juiced-up guys who got to the Bigs better than he did. I hope this isn't Sal Fasano's legacy. He deserves better.
posted by Monkeyhawk at 09:21 AM on July 25, 2008
I'm sure this will earn him few friends in MLB circles. And everyone knows about the 'users' now. They were listed in a published report. It's easy for him to point them out because someone else has already done the dirtiest of that work. Can you imagine if he'd said this stuff ten years ago when it could have made a difference? When it was actually costing him jobs and bigger contracts? That would have been quite courageous. Instead, it seems he never considered that. He contemplated joining the masses and taking stuff too, but he never mentions, and the reporter never seems to ask, why he didn't publicly (or privately perhaps) question the integrity of those beating him out. It's a glaring omission from this story.
posted by 86 at 10:42 AM on July 25, 2008
"A disappointment," he says glumly. "My career has been a really big disappointment." How can Fasano be disappointed with a career that actually had him in the majors for significant lengths of time? I don't now the numbers, but I am sure that less than 50% of prospects that enter the minor leagues ever get to the AAA level, let alone into the majors. Accept it for what it is, Sal. You were a marginal player at best, but you had enough determination and work ethic to get to the majors. As Monkeyhawk said above, Fasano might have a career in coaching or managing. He should find a high school or small college that is looking for a coach, and give it a try. If nothing else, he will perhaps be rewarded by having an influence on the career of a young player or two.
posted by Howard_T at 05:04 PM on July 25, 2008
How many others -- those who slipped past Mitchell's digging -- have unfairly cost him major-league jobs as well? Five? Ten? Fifteen? "I'll never know," he says.Oh man, what a pathetic whiner. I'm with Howard_T on this one; he's had over a thousand at bats in a major league uniform- including 20 this year!- when there are people like my dad who would have loved to have even one. He still makes $60,000 a year- a good living- for 8 months' work as a backup catcher in AAA, and likely will get some kind of coaching position to work in baseball the rest of his life he doesn't burn out on his bitterness. He's spent the first half of his life playing baseball for a living and still supporting a full family- including the baseball insurance that covered his child's medical bills- and he's bitter because he doesn't have millions in the bank account?! Fuck you, Fasano. Had he done steroids he would have still been a career .221 hitter with an OPS+ of 75 (.688 OPS). Outside of the Seattle Mariners, no major league team will employ such a player. The article wants us to believe the myth that PEDs magically turn a 6'2", 265 lb. overweight backup catcher into Mike Piazza or Ivan Rodriguez, that the only reason Fasano was passed over for other players was because he was a "good guy" who "didn't do drugs". This is complete bullshit; if steroids would have made him a .260+ hitter with a more lasting major league career, Fasano could have hit the gym the way even slender guys like Nomar or Ichiro hit the gym, becoming a ripped muscle-bound god with pure hard work. The article even mentions Frank Thomas calling him one of the good guys- but notably, not one of the good players. Frank Thomas, like Ken Griffey, Jr., each have gone their entire careers without a whiff of steroids- yet they are in the 500 and 600 HR clubs respectively, with each in the top 20 all-time RBI leaders with over 1700. They are MVPs, All-Stars, beloved players, icons of the game in the 1990's, and sure-shot first-ballot Hall of Fame players 5 years after they retire. They are only 2-3 years older than Sal Fasano, and have had stunning Hall of Fame careers without apparently a single pill or syringe of PED (hell, for all we know PEDs might have prevented Griffey's lost years to nagging injuries). The idea that Fasano couldn't even make it as a regular major league player without steroids is nonsense. He didn't make it because he obviously didn't care about physical conditioning, and presumably didn't put the work in to be a better hitter: studying tape with the obsessiveness of Tony Gwynn, spending countless hours polishing his swing including getting kinetic analysis of his swing, or dropping 70 pounds and getting in far better shape. A couple of years of Pilates, yoga, aerobic and strength conditioning when he was in his 20's might have made Sal Fasano just good enough to last. Or maybe if he was just more talented. Sorry, Sal- we'd all love to have Josh Hamilton-esque natural talent, but we don't. Them's the breaks.
posted by hincandenza at 05:43 PM on July 25, 2008
Wow. Peer pressure in written form. Was that written by a steroid manufacturer by any chance? Dear god! Can you imagine the effect reading that would have on a kid playing baseball in high school? They may as well have just put "DO STEROIDS AND PLAY IN THE MAJORS!" instead.