Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning during the regular season you’ll get a fresh, topical story to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
As the home run rate in 2005 took its steepest decline in 17 years, scouts had a favorite line to explain why certain sluggers were not hitting as many home runs: “Congress got him.” The inference was that testing for steroids with penalties, which came about through pressure from lawmakers, changed the game. Sports Illustrated headlined a cover story I wrote that year, “Baseball’s Incredible Shrinking Slugger.