I'm not sure how exactly to say this politely, but Mike Piazza was known to have a bit a bacne problem while he was a New York Met. I'm not sure how widely known that was, but it was certainly known by more than a few people. Why am I bringing this up? Well, bacne is generally seen as a pretty tell-take sign that a guy is doing 'roids, so why exactly has Piazza never really come under the gun in terms of steroid talk? Former New York Times sportswriter Murray Chass has the answer for you:
When steroids became a daily subject in newspaper articles I wanted to write about Piazza’s acne-covered back. I was prepared to describe it in disgusting living color. But two or three times my editors at The New York Times would not allow it. Piazza, they said, had never been accused of using steroids so I couldn’t write about it.
But wait, I said, if I write about it, I will in effect be accusing Piazza of using steroids and then someone will have accused him of using steroids. No can do, I was told. I always took the veto to stem from the Times ultra conservative ways, but I also wondered if it maybe was the baseball editor, a big Mets’ fan, protecting the Mets.
Whatever the reason, I never got Piazza’s suspicious acne into the paper. Then all of a sudden the acne was gone. Piazza’s back was clear and clean. There was not a speck of acne on it. His back looked as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
What a remarkable development. It was a medical miracle. If teenagers could get hold of whatever Piazza used to clear up his back, they would be rid of the acne problem forever.
Obviously, Chass's claim is circumstantial, but he does have one more interesting point. That is that Piazza's back cleared up in 2004, which was exactly when MLB instituted their steroid testing.My thoughts? Well, Piazza was a 62nd round draft pick in the 1988 draft and was drafted only as a favor to his father, a close friend of Tommy Lasorda. Piazza then proceeded to become the all-time home run hitting catcher during the heart of the Steroid Era, all while sporting volcanic bacne.
So did he use steroids? Absolutely. Will we ever be able to prove he used steroids? No. But then hey, that's pretty much the Steroids Era in a nutshell.
Mike Piazza: His bat and his back [Murray Chass...On Baseball]
Why didn't the New York Times let Murray Chass write about Mike Piazza's bacne? [The Big Lead]
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