Steroids era statistics don’t impress

This will be the enduring legacy of baseball’s steroid scandal: Every player who had a good season that was in any way surprising during the past two decades will find those statistics under suspicion. Each better-than-average year will be tarred by the same performance-enhanced brush in the minds of the game’s fans for all time.

It doesn’t mean that all of them are guilty; it simply means that many of us will presume they are, simply because a season or a string of them vary dramatically from the mean.

Remember Baltimore outfielder Brady Anderson?

He was one of the first to stretch the boundaries of credulity, back when home run totals had just started to climb and, for sluggers, 50 was becoming the new 40. In 1996, he hit 50 home runs.

Even though he was 32 years old, his previous career high was 21. The following season, he hit 18. His second-highest total would be 24. Such a statistical aberration had never been seen before.

At the time, we were simply amazed. We are amazed no longer.

This doesn’t mean that Anderson is guilty; there never has been any proof or testimony that he was. But because he played while the Steroids Era was reaching its zenith, his ’96 season is under suspicion.

The game’s drug testing — after being a joke for the first few years of its existence — has improved dramatically of late. In 2008, after all those recent pushes toward 60-homer seasons (thanks, Barry and Sammy and Mark), only two players reached 40.

Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard, a huge first baseman, reached 48, while Adam Dunn, now with Washington, hit 40. Both players are extra-large men for whom 40-homer seasons seem eminently reasonable.

But a few years earlier . . .

Consider Luis Gonzalez. He was a 33-year-old outfielder for Arizona in 2001, a guy who had never hit more than 31 homers in a season. That year, he hit 57. He never hit more than 28 in the years that followed.

“Gonzo,” by all accounts, is a great guy. But did he get caught up in the enhancing mania, even if just for one season? You can’t help but wonder.

As we wonder about Adrian Beltre. The third baseman, now with Seattle, was in his contract year with the Dodgers in 2004. The year before, he batted .240 with 23 homers. In ’04, his numbers were .334 and 48 home runs. Seattle gave him the big bucks and since then, his top figures have been .276 and 26.

And that’s the shame of it all. Whether Anderson, Gonzalez, Beltre and so many others are innocent or not, many, if not most, fans have made their decisions. And the great seasons that used to get us so excited (remember George Foster’s 52 homers in 1978?) now leave us conflicted and wondering.

Almost 20 years of baseball’s statistical history is universally viewed as tainted and untrustworthy. How many friends have told you that they believe Roger Maris’ 61 homers in 1961 is the real home run record?

I have, and I’m saying it again right now. Sorry, Brady.