'Greenie' Monster Tamed?

Among people who watch big league baseball for a living, there are differing opinions as to whether there has been any change at all.

"I think the overall effect of the greenies was to make [a player] think he was stronger, more rested and better able to perform," said ESPN and Comcast SportsNet television analyst Buck Martinez, a former manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. "I think it was in their heads more than a physical thing. The [quality of play this] season doesn't seem to have changed one bit."

One scout for a National League team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the league has asked team employees not to discuss drug policy, agreed with the "it's-all-mental" theory, saying: "I don't see any difference. If guys aren't doing [amphetamines] now, their bodies have probably gotten used to it, and they probably didn't need them in the first place."

Arroyo said, if anything, some players have reported better results without the drugs. "I've heard two guys talking about why they're having so much success as hitters. And both of them attributed it to not using greenies -- it's made them more relaxed at the plate, less jumpy," he said.

However, an AL scout said he sees a visible effect. "I see everyday players getting more days off, or more days at designated hitter, he said. "And I see some awful performances on day games." One NL team official added: "I definitely see it. Look at how many veterans, older players, guys who are career .300 hitters, who are hitting .240 this year."

Statistically speaking, there is little outward evidence of a major change in the way the game is being played since the amphetamine ban went into effect. For example, contrary to popular wisdom at the start of the season, the most durable starting players do not appear to be taking more days off.

In 2005, 71 players played in 150 or more of their team's games -- or 92.6 percent of a full 162-game schedule. This season (through Sunday), 82 players had played in 92.6 percent or more of their team's games. The number of players who played in 100 percent of their team's games has fallen from 10 last season to seven so far this season; however, both numbers are up from 2004, when there were only four.

Likewise, relief pitchers -- the group believed to be the most dependent on amphetamines, because of the quick-response nature of their job -- seem to be appearing in games just as frequently. In 2005, 21 relievers appeared in 75 or more games (46.3 percent of a full 162-game season); this season, 22 pitchers are on the same pace or greater.

"One thing I'm not surprised to see is a lack of change in playing time," Will Carroll, author of "The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems," and a contributing writer for Baseballprospectus.com, said in an e-mail. "Many expected there to be fewer players going every day, taking more [days] off, etc. I thought all along that doing this would be an implicit admission by managers that they knew about the amphetamine use.

"Managers seem much, much more likely to say, 'You figure out how to do what you need to do [to play], and I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing.' "

From Coffeepots . . .

Amphetamines are said to have first entered baseball clubhouses in the 1940s, when players who had served in World War II returned home, having been introduced to the drugs during combat as a way to remain alert. Players from the 1950s and 1960s have said the drugs were openly dispensed by team trainers during that era.

Still, they remained largely out of the public view until the 1970 publication of "Ball Four," Jim Bouton's tell-all memoir of the 1969 season in which he broke the code of silence about the widespread availability and use of amphetamines in baseball clubhouses.