Ten points:
1. Personally, I don’t care that much if players are using performance enhancing drugs (hence PED). I agree that it would be nice if they didn’t, but it doesn’t keep me up nights knowing that they are.
2. It is impossible to stop athletes from using PED. The International Olympic Committee and other organizations have been trying to clean up the sports in their purview for decades with just about as much success as any drug war. Generally, they only catch the imcompetents and the extreme cases. In a number of sports, notably track and field and cycling, the question is not if a performer is on drugs but what drugs he’s on.
3. That “steroids” (the name used for a large class of muscle-building substances) have had a major affect upon baseball performances is widely acknowledged but not, in fact, proven. I’ll probably do another post on this sometime, but almost no large event has a single cause, and there are a number of things that happened in the nineties that tilted the balance in favor of the offense.
4. This is only a guess from someone with no medical training but who reads a lot… I think it’s quite likely that baseball players gain little added ability from steroids use, but that they increase the player’s ability to stay in the lineup and stay healthy. That is, they don’t make a player better, but increase the amount of time he can perform at his peak ability. Just a guess.
5. I think it’s absolutely certain that the steroids mania currently gripping the country is going to look like Reefer Madness to the next generation.
6. (Nonpartisan political gripe, please let’s not get too much into this.) It is disgusting that with all the problems that this country faces, such as (name your own), the Congress is spending its time harassing baseball players.
7. I’m not sure that the players’ union can actually make all the concessions it made on behalf of its constituents; some player and agent are going to test it. At the same time, the players generally wanted a tough policy. That’s what they got.
8. As I’ve said, my feeling is that amphetamines are and always have been a bigger problem in baseball than steroids. They’ve been around for at least forty years, and this has been widely known since Ball Four was published almost thirty-five years ago. And nobody did anything about it. Since 1970 we had the whole cocaine thing (which made this steroid problem look like a case of drinking too much Dr. Pepper) and a number of “steroid” scares, and nobody’s tried to do anything about amphetamines at all. Until now. I’m not sure that it will do any good but it’s time they at least noticed.
9. I haven’t studied the plan in detail, but in general most professional sports testing programs can only be failed by the arrogant and idiots. However, many baseball players are arrogant idiots.
10. Bud Selig is a wanker.
Agree with 1-10. For evidence on 3 with respect to home runs, see this link.
Good use of the word “Wanker.”
Sorry about that link… a little quick on the trigger finger. Anyway, I had a second point, which is that everyone talks about the effect on home runs, when in fact more pitchers have been caught than hitters, and maybe it’s a bigger “problem” with pitchers….
I fixed it. This software is set only to use html, and a pretty limited set.
Don’t like steroids & I think the only way MLB was going to act was if Congress leaned on ’em. We have worse problems, sure, but I didn’t mind that day on Capitol Hill where these guys got exposed. I actually enjoyed seeing McGwire shrivel and Palmeiro have his Clinton moment. (Funny, I don’t exactly know why, but the moment he did it, my gut told me he was lying.)
I’m not gonna go crazy about this, but there are few things in the history of sports more obvious than the effect that steroids have had on the game. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that other factors impacted the rise in offense as much or more than PED.
When in the history of baseball have players actually gotten better with age?
How many examples do you need? Lenny Dykstra? Brady Anderson? Mark McGwire? Sammy Sosa? Rafael Palmeiro? Barry Bonds?
And personally speaking, I did not like the Steroid Era in baseball. I THOUGHT THERE WERE TOO MANY HOMERUNS. I like games where it’s hard to score. I don’t dig the church-league softball approach.
I’m 42 & maybe I’m getting cranky, but I have too much respect for the Aarons, Mays, Robinsons, etc., to sit back and not call bullshit on the steroid guys and their inflated numbers. If those guys were on speed, it obviously didn’t allow any of them to hit 50 HRs too many times (twice, by Mays, I think).
I’m sure the testing won’t be perfect. I’m sure we’ll have mistakes. I don’t know how HGH will be regulated (if at all). I kinda don’t care about the speed. But I would like to have the game return to the pre-steroid era–where it was hard to hit a HR & strikeouts were less tolerated.
I guess what I’m saying is: I’m mostly fine with the new policy.
I actually enjoyed the hell out of the steoid era, and am dissappointed to see it go. I really didn’t care one way or the other if anyone was on steroids or not. The best part about it was the guessing game of who was sticking and who wasn’t. If it wasn’t for steroids the national pasttime would have become like hockey in this country.
From John Donovan of SI.com. Not much new information but still a decent read:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/john_donovan/11/16/furcal/index.html
Forgot to add two things
A) I am dissapointed that congress put so much effort into this, and shunned other issues. Sure they have to grab spotlight whenever they can, but lets fix some real issues first please
2) Bud Selig will still be the commissioner of baseball, and the most incompetent of all the commissioners of major sports in this country.
I think the big thing with all of these supplements is that it shortens the recovery time for muscles from exertion and I think that as much as anything has enhanced performance.
If you’re traveling as much as these guys and keeping being forced to keep the odd hours they do, short term muscular recovery is a priority and any drug that helps with that is going to give that player an advantage.
I’m ten years older than ububba and probably ten times as cranky and I think it would be great to clean up the game to the extent possible. Is this going to be a perfect solution? Probably not. Scientists will always be one step ahead on this stuff. But I think it’s important to make an honest effort.
As for Congress stepping in, Lord knows those folks have things that are a lot more important than this to do, but this is a public health issue. More and more high schoolers are messing around with this stuff and it’s just not a good thing.
I hated the steroid era. At age 32, I’m too young to be labled ‘cranky old man’ but as someone who idolized Mike Schmidt growing up, I hate to see his career home ranking get pushed further down the list as less worthy and likely ‘roid culprits [read: Palmeiro, Sosa] move up it through the use of illegal chemicals. For you baseball card collecting geeks like me, go grab a Sammy Sosa card circa 1990 and you’ll swear it’s a different person.
50PH,
You touch on a great point regarding public health and youth.
My cousin was a pretty good HS & college baseball player in the ’90s, played with future MLB players (incl a future Brave), he’s now a HS coach, and he tells me that the impact of steroids on young players was & is absolutely seismic.
Apart from MLB, that should be an over-riding concern, too.
Sort of off-topic, but are there other benefits to MLB having an antitrust exemption besides the benefit of having no competition? Congress has held that exemption over the collective head of MLB many times over the years, and I’m not sure what MLB is afraid of.
I’ll try to make this pertinent: Say, just for the sake of argument, that Congress attempted to strongarm MLB into a ridiculously draconian system of punishment for performance enhancers — such as a lifetime ban for use of ephedrine. The owners and MLBPA push back, saying Congress is going too far, and Congress replies that they will remove the antitrust exemption if baseball does not comply.
What’s to keep MLB from just saying okay, take it away then? What practical impact would this have? Even moreso than other sports, the immense network of scouting and development, minor league ballclubs, merchandising agreements, ballparks, etc etc, would amount to a de facto monopoly regardless of Congressional patronage. Nobody’s going to go head-to-head with MLB — it’s impossible. Can’t be done.
So the next time Congress needs something to grandstand about and hauls baseball back into its halls, why don’t the owners and players band together and tell them to go screw themselves?
I’ve never understood the Selig hate. No commissioner has done more to force neccessary concessions from the players union. The union has had a selfish stranglehold on policy for too long.
Was Babe Ruth on steroids? Or Jimmie Foxx, or Lou Gehrig, or Rogers Hornsby? It’s not like there hasn’t been a big offensive era like this before. A lot of things happened in baseball from 1987-1997 that changed the context, and that changed the numbers. Was Hank Aaron on steroids? He was one of the best hitters in the league until he was 39 and led the league in OPS and slugging at 37. At 34, Willie Mays hit 52 homers, led the league in slugging and on-base percentage, won a gold glove in center field, and was named the MVP, all playing his home games in Candlestick Park. He must have been on something. There have always been some outstanding players who remained outstanding players a long time.
You don’t have to like the baseball that period produced, still around today. I don’t, particularly; I preferred the baseball of the late seventies and early eighties. (Well, except for the Braves losing all the time.) I’d much prefer a game with fewer homers, strikeouts, and walks, and more doubles, triples, and stolen bases.
But I don’t think that the “steroids era” is a good description any more than “rabbit ball” was a good description of the Babe Ruth era. People then were convinced that the ball had been messed with to help the offense, but it wasn’t so. What happened was that a number of things, including the singular person of Ruth, changed the game.
Aaron and Mays each probably would have hit 60 homers some year if they’d played in good hitters’ parks in their best years. Mantle would have if he’d been healthy.
Just to be clear, I’m not against the new measures. I agree with ububba and 50lb about the steroid era. Plus I turned 39 two days ago, the stray cat I took in the other day turned out to have AIDS, and my Bagwell-esque arthritic shoulder is acting up, so I’m way beyond cranky…
To continue… I don’t think anyone was on steroids during Aaron’s career. But almost all the same arguments made about Barry Bonds could have been made about Aaron, who looked dramatically different as an old player than as a young player. Hank was something like 5-10, 170, if that, when he started in the big leagues, and probably well over 200 when his career ended.
Justin,
“If it wasn’t for steroids the national pasttime would have become like hockey in this country.”
You know the game of baseball has been around for 110 or so-odd years, right? Just because they aren’t hitting 70 homeruns a year anymore means that baseball would have gone the way of hockey in this country?
I don’t know much about hockey, but I do know that the problems it is/was having (overexpansion, regional differences, style of play) are a little different than whatever problems baseball might have been having before steroids came along.
But was Hank’s neck thicker than his head by the end of his career? Sure, people can get bigger, but guys like Sosa and Bonds have basically invented entirely new body structures for themselves. You can’t honestly believe that the Bondses and Sosas of the world haven’t been chemically altering their bodies.
Mac,
Why are you carrying water for these people? 😉
Your point about the rabbit-ball is well-taken and, sure, some outstanding players had some singular outstanding seasons late in their carrers (and so did some good ones like Darrell Evans, admittedly in Tiger Stadium), but mostly they didn’t get dramatically & consistently better with age like Bonds.
Players that are already great suddenly leap to immortal status with the aid of PEDs. The improvements seem to work all the way down the line, as evidenced by the likes of Brady Anderson. But before anyone points to Davey Johnson as a one-season HR wonder (43 HRs in 1973) to somehow exonerate Brady for 1996–I don’t remember that ol’ Davey suddenly looked like Barnacle Bill the Zitbacked Sailor that year. In spring training 1996, Lady Brady looked like a professional wrestler.
My point is that, regardless of whatever Rogers Hornsby did, he wasn’t using steroids and there are many within our midst THAT ARE OBVIOUSLY ON STEROIDS, which OBVIOUSLY enhances performance. If it didn’t, players wouldn’t use them. And I, personally, would like to see them go away.
I think it’s important that we all take a moment away from Roider Madness to laugh at the Mets, who after shopping Mike Cameron hither thither and yon have (according to Newsday) finally swapped him for:
Xavier Nady.
Pending a physical on Cameron, though if he fails that the chances of trading him to anyone else are pretty slim.
Go Minaya!
Michel
When baseball was going through it post strike era, it was suffering from overexpansion, big market vs small market, which is still happening today, and players versus owners in the greed dept. How is that not comparable to the hockey situation we are coming out of?
My point was the longball, most notably the Sosa/Mcquire dual, brought baseball back to life.
I should say that what makes Barry Bonds an inner-circle immortal is his unreal plate discipline, which is unmatched, rather than his home run rate, which is elite but not unprecedented.
Bonds in fact showed a rather normal aging process for much of his career. His best two seasons, prior to his breakout at 36, were at 28 and 27. A classic curve for an elite hitter — a contributing major leaguer at 21, all-star at 23, MVP at 25, superstar at 27, fade to “ordinary” MVP-candidate numbers in his thirties. Then he went nuts on the league at 35-39, which messed up the curve… Anyway, Bonds was the best player in baseball already when he was 27. His numbers, ironically, look worse now because of the numbers put up since then.
I again speculate that he isn’t actually improving because of steroids, but that the steroids have increased his ability to perform at his best. I don’t know that, but it seems likely. Basically, they allow players with “old player’s skills” to have young player’s tools.
OK, so no matter how you slice it (inject it?), Bonds’ performance certainly has been “enhanced.”
Re: The Cameron deal to SD. The Pads reportedly are taking on his $7M salary for ’06. Why they would want him, I’m not sure, so I wonder if Cameron could be roaming CF in Yankee Stadium next year. In mid-’05, there was talk about a NYY-NYM deal that included Sheffield for Cameron. (The Yanks have no real CF for next year.)
Are the Mets somehow making room for Manny? Or is it just a salary dump?
It’s obvious why they want Cameron — he is (if healthy) a great centerfielder, and that is a humonguous ballpark where you need a great centerfielder. Makes it a lot less likely that B-Giles will be back there.
It’s probably a Mets salary dump, but I don’t see them having the ammunition to get Ramirez without Cameron. More likely they’ll go after B-Giles. Around and around they go…
I hadn’t realized that the Mets would get Nady. Actually, that’s not too bad of a deal for them, because they’d actually have a real first baseman for once. Obviously Nady isn’t great but he’d help that team.
Supposedly the frontrunner for Giles now is the Yankees, waving a 3/30 contract and CF at him. Giles isn’t really a CF, but maybe he’ll play there this year and shift to right for the next two years. His plate discipline should keep his bat productive even if his power drops.
Maybe the Pads will flip Cameron to the Yankees, but I doubt it: Padres fans have already dug up 4 or 5 articles over the past few years where Kevin Towers has mentioned wanting to get Cameron to SD.
As for Nady at 1B, aren’t the Mets still trying to land Delgado? Or is it just that the Mets are in for every single player at the moment because they’re incapable of negotiating with any sort of finesse?
Oh, if we can’t match that for Giles I’d be ashamed. Three years? That’s nothing. $10 million in Atlanta is like $13 million in New York.
It just seems that $7M is a lotta money for the Pads to spend on anyone.
Has anyone looked at players who coincidently had an off year last season at the same time testing began? Did the wind blow in all year in Miami, or did Lowell and Gonzalez develop warning track power all of a sudden? I don’t know how much idle speculation Mac will allow, but it could make for an interesting discussion.
Re steroids: I think I’m the youngest person on here (just barely 18, correct me if I’m wrong), but I am old enough to remember the mid-90s and the McGwire-Sosa race. Well, that was great. It was fantastic baseball. And now that I know it was all chemically fueled, I feel like the whole thing was just a big sham and not worth the electricity used to power my TV. My view in steroids is rather simplistic: when you play sports, it needs to be fair. That means everyone is at the same advantage or disadvantage. Logically, that means either EVERYONE should take the same steroids, so we know that, for example, Barry Bonds on deca-durabolin (picking random drug here) is better than Sammy Sosa on the same deca-durabolin, or NOBODY should take steroids at all. Period. If you have “Barry Bonds on deca-durabolin is better than Sammy Sosa on nothing” you don’t know who’s better. Maybe Sosa would still be worse if he were on deca-durabolin. Who knows? But it has to be level so you can compare. So if everyone (and I mean literally everyone, here) is cheating, is it still cheating? You could get rid of the “cheater” moniker that way. What you couldn’t get rid of is the health effects and the influence this will have on impressionable kids. These players will bulk up, gain more endurance, have a good career, and then die at 50 of heart problems or strange tumors (I firmly believe Giambi’s pituitary tumor was a result of roiding or HGH or something). Then you also have 18-year-olds like myself starting this stuff and, as we’ve seen in several cases, killing themselves. Or suffering the same health consequences down the road. That’s not worth it. Not at all. I’m not sure steroids are the massive problem we make them out to be; I can think of about 50,000 other things that should take priority, such as, oh, I don’t know, the WAR we’re fighting (no comments on that, please), the fact that New Orleans is still a huge mess, AIDS, poverty, that hideous TennCare health program that’s killing people, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But steroids ARE a problem and I think it’s great that they’ve finally decided to try to cut them down a little bit. Every drop helps.
Re Pads trade: Seems kinda risky. Who knows what Cameron’s going to be like next year? He really got hurt badly in that collision. Time will tell, but I wouldn’t have done it.
Idle speculation is okay. Nothing actually libelous.
Cameron for Nady is a steal for San Diego. The Mets just gave away one of the three good bats on the team and one of the top defensive outfielders in baseball. Works for me.
But how do you know Cameron will still be a good bat? He got his face smashed in and, from what I’ve heard, is still photosensitive and suffering from vertigo and migraines. It seems like a high risk-high potential reward trade for the Padres. I still wouldn’t have done it. They have no idea what Cameron will be like next year. He may never be the same again.
Yeah, stupid Mets
I am sure the medical staff did enough homework to approve this trade for Cameron. However, no one can assure the psychological impact of the incident on Cameron. Weighting the overall risk and reward, one can call it an even because the Padres also taking on Cameron’s salary. I agree that this means Brian Giles will not return.
Mac, I don’t think the Braves have enough spending power to offer $10M to Giles, unless the Braves can find a $2M closer rather than the projected $5M being required for Farnsworth or someone like him.
Sammy Sosa on the ‘roids. Phooey, Next you’ll tell me used a corked bat!
What’s that? Oh! Um…
Maybe we’ll talk about Bud Selig. We know he’s a dope. So do the owners, and they mean to do something about it just as soon as they get back from the bank.
Mac’s point about the sport’s blindness to amphetamine abuse is one of basball’s biggest dirty secrets. But nobody cared if a guy popped a “greenie” if he had to get up for a game. Didn’t matter if it was from a nagging injury, or a lengthy road trip, or a hangover.
But we can’t tolerate drugs if they kill either people or teams. I’ll never get over losing Ken Caminiti.
And that very same era that Mac lauds, the late 70’s-early 80’s with its wide variety of offensive styles was clouded with the scourge of cocaine:
1)Remember Tim “Rock” Raines? How did he get that nickname? Hint: He changed to a face-first slide in ’81 so he wouldn’t break the vial in his back pocket! Look at his numbers and wonder how close he might’ve come to being in the HOF.
2)The ’82 NL East pennant race was heavily handicapped to go to the Pirates. But the only place they went was to testify in court. Of corse, their famous manager Chuck Tanner was shocked–SHOCKED–to learn about it.
3)Whitey Herzog’s books about his great teams from that era have a dozen stories about substance abuse. David Green is probably the saddest. Think of David Justice with more speed.
I love all you cranky guys and I hope that you keep posting here so we can separate the real issues from the hype.
But I especially appreciate the younger people because you show me how much good about baseball I’ve learned to take for granted.
That “steroids” (the name used for a large class of muscle-building substances) have had a major affect upon baseball performances is widely acknowledged but not, in fact, proven.
-Begin Rant-
First of all, there is no way to adequately prove or disprove the effect of steroids playing baseball. The only real way to do it would be to juice some players, turn them loose in MLB and see what happens. (Ok this has already happened, but I’m talking about a controlled experiment) I don’t think Bud Selig is going to go for it. We do know that steroids make your muscles stronger. They allow them to recover faster and perform at their peak more frequently. To say that your not sure if those things would help you play baseball more effectively is a tremendous job a burying your head in the sand.
The easiest way to “prove” that steroids work is that players will risk their health, reputation, career, and freedom to take them. Players that play every day, take thousands and thousands of swings a year, and know every inch of their game like that back of their hand. To propose that these guys are taking these illegal, potentially harmful substances and are not really sure they help is a highly dubious.
-End Rant-
It is disgusting that with all the problems that this country faces, such as (name your own), the Congress is spending its time harassing baseball players.
I’d rather they waste their time with harmless stuff like this than meeting on how to get Ted Stevens appropriations for another $200 million Alaskian brigde. Next I think they should dive into the American Idol voting.
Nyb, some players also urinate on their hands. They do all sort of things. That doesn’t mean it works.
Nyb, some players also urinate on their hands. They do all sort of things. That doesn’t mean it works.
Ah, the old ‘athletes are lunkheads’ arguement. Yes, these top athletes couldn’t possibley be smart enough to know how to fine tune thier bodies for maximum performance. I’m sure they haven’t all fine tuned their weight lifting regimine, diet, and equipment to get the most out of their talents. They just try whatever comes along and hope for the best.
Your hoging all the sand.
C’mon, man, everybody knows that Moises Alou increased his grip by .82-percent. Where you been?
I really have a problem with ‘your’ versus ‘you’re’. Drives me crazy.
It’s not that athletes are lunkheads. Well, not precisely. But they aren’t particularly well educated, baseball players less than any others. They don’t really understand things like cause and effect. How many stories about players’ superstitions have you read? Did eating chicken really make Wade Boggs a better baseball player? Wouldn’t he know?
Look, for a hundred years, baseball players were told not to weight train, despite the fact that a few players who did had great results. Every time one guy who did weight train got hurt, that was proof that weight training was bad for baseball players. Players maintained dietary habits that a doctor today would chew out any civilian patient for — and thought they made them better players. There are all sorts of examples.
I have no doubt that players on “steroids” feel stronger, are in fact stronger. I don’t know that that makes them better hitters.
Was the Ted Stevens bridge really $200 million? I thought that was the massive unnecessary Midwestern highway project. Perhaps I’m confusing my pork barrel spending. And that is NOT a political comment. Every Congress in history pulls stunts like that, those are just more recent. I am waiting eagerly for National Tractor Operator Appreciation Month. If it were up to me, we’d get rid of every single one of those kind of days/weeks/months/hours etc. except for Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yaaaarrrrrr!
Things I don’t like about Bud Selig: the umpire resignation scandal, the 2002 All-Star Game that stupidly ended in a tie, All-Star policy in general, meddling around in management salaries, the Nationals deal, nationalism in the HR Derby, the 1994 strike, contracting teams right after the strike, and generally not having any cajones to speak of. It is not a coincidence that “Bud-Selig stupid” yields 52,500 hits and that there is a wonderful Contract Bud Selig website for your viewing pleasure. Maybe it’s just a problem with being MLB commissioner in general, but he’s the worst of the Big Four (although does Gary Bettman still count? He might be worse, now that I think about it).
And I am not absolving Don Fehr of anything.
I also fail to understand what it is that makes athletes seemingly more stupid than the general public. Even with a basic elementary school education, I would never assume that pissing on my hands would make me play a sport better. That sounds like something from 1520. Going a little higher up the intellect ladder, I would also not (Rafael Palmeiro, allegedly) assume that a suspicious imported liquid substance from a ramshackle pharmacy somewhere in Buenos Aires was a great thing to grab and shoot into my body without a second thought. I don’t think any half-sane person would. So is there something that makes baseball players inherently dumber than the rest of society?
Didn’t the umpire resignation scandal get rid of Eric Gregg? If so, GO BUD!
And you forgot the conflict of interest of still owning the Brewers while “acting” as commish from 92-98.
I know this is going to sound like a shameless plug, but I wrote a piece about steroids on my blog.
My basic feeling is that, Jenny, you’re absolutely right.
(To quote myself:) “As Rob Neyer has pointed out, the tragedy of steroids is not that they make it impossible to compare players across eras, because circumstances have always been constantly changing, from the dead-ball to the live-ball era, to the height of the pitchers’ mound, to modern science and Tommy John surgery. The tragedy is that players from the steroid era cannot be compared to each other. If McGwire and Palmeiro and Bonds’ stats were inflated due to steroids, how does one adjust the statistical bar of entrance for players who may have been clean?”
P.S. My blog is not about baseball. It’s basically just a place where I put stuff I write, mostly about music, movies, and occasionally baseball and other stuff.
Was the Ted Stevens bridge really $200 million? I thought that was the massive unnecessary Midwestern highway project. Perhaps I’m confusing my pork barrel spending.
No, sorry I was too lazy to look up an exact example.
Look, for a hundred years, baseball players were told not to weight train, despite the fact that a few players who did had great results. Every time one guy who did weight train got hurt, that was proof that weight training was bad for baseball players. Players maintained dietary habits that a doctor today would chew out any civilian patient for — and thought they made them better players. There are all sorts of examples.
Sure, but everyone is a lot smarter now. Supplements both legal and illegal are huge business now. The players from those days and their ignorance have absolutley nothing to due with today’s players. Players hire their own personal trainers to help sort through it all. Simply put, times have changed.
I have no doubt that players on “steroids” feel stronger, are in fact stronger. I don’t know that that makes them better hitters.
The whole thing is a big physics equation. Other than perhaps becoming too musclebound to swing, it’s hard to fathom how being able to put more force into your swing, getting the bat through the zone quicker, and having your muscles recover faster so that you are at your peak more often wouldn’t help. And again it’s all risk-reward. Taking steroids carries some pretty big risks (as opposed to peeing on your hands), and it’s hard to imagine so many signing up for those risks if they aren’t seeing any rewards.
Other than perhaps becoming too musclebound to swing
This is exactly what happened to Ruben Sierra, after all, so it’s not just an idle threat.
This is exactly what happened to Ruben Sierra, after all, so it’s not just an idle threat.
Agree with that. Glenn Braggs syndrome.
Maybe they’re a lot “smarter” — that is, better informed. (People are people and people today aren’t any smarter than people 50 years ago.) Or maybe they just believe different wrong things. People (not just ballplayers) hold an incredible variety of objectively false beliefs.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned but Jeff Blauser is the new manager in Pearl. I like this idea… mainly because I like Blauser.
Blauser! All right!
Was that sarcasm Mac?
I don’t know anymore.
Whaa? Anyways… where do you see Eddie Perez fitting into the organization as a manager or coach?
(although does Gary Bettman still count? He might be worse, now that I think about it).
Here’s an argument for Bettman being worse: The Kings’ Sean Avery was recently fined $1,000 for diving during a game. Not only was he not called for a penalty during the game, they wouldn’t even tell him the exact play they were fining him for, only the game in which it happened. He complained in the LA Times about it, and was fined another $1,000 today for complaining. Granted he’s about the NHL’s biggest problem child, but that’s just unbelievable to me. Try that at your job tomorrow and see what happens. Fine one of your employees for something, but don’t tell them exactly what, only the day it happened. That should be interesting.
I guess I’m just having trouble including Bettman as part of a “Big Four” because, IMHO, hockey sucks and not many people like it. It is not “big.” They cancelled the whole SEASON last year and nobody I know cared except my 15-year-old brother. It’s been relegated to Outdoor Life Network, for goodness’ sake. Yet Bettman is part of the “big four?” Soccer has more fans. Where is Don Garber in all this?
Another argument for Gary Bettman, ignoring what I just wrote: the Todd Bertuzzi Incident. Had that not happened on the ice, Bertuzzi would be in jail for aggravated assault and battery. As he should be. Steve Moore could have died or been paralyzed, and may never play hockey again, yet Bertuzzi misses what, 13 games and a season that EVERYONE ELSE missed as well? Ridiculous. He should never play again. That Bettman doesn’t realize that or is too spineless to say something if he does realize it is mind-boggling and offensive to me, especially since I can directly trace some of my dislike of hockey to that particular incident. Mind-numbingly bad leadership. The guy should be locked up or banned for life and yet there he is, skating around again. Hello, Gary Bettman. Got brains much?
I said pretty much the same thing and I’ll elaborate here. I think the big thing with steroids and other supplements is that they lessen muscle recovery time. That may not make a bad hitter good, but it would put a good hitter in a better place physically, which could (I think would) enhance their performance.
Weight training has come light years over the last 30 years. I ran track and played basketball a little over 30 years ago in high school and when I asked my track coach about lifting, he said I’d be nuts. Then, after I graduated, I watched the 1972 Olympics and listened to the interview with 400 meter stud John Smith, where he talked about his weight-lifting routine.
Now my track coach was a knucklehead, but it was pretty much accepted in those days that if you were anything other than an offensive/defensive linemen or a wrestler, you just didn’t lift. Nowadays, athletes in all sports lift because the routines are designed so that athletes can maintain flexibility and balance and add strength without bulking up inordinately.
Nady will take over in right for Cameron. Mets are moving the salary, reportedly, to make room for Delgado at first. No idea who they would trade the fish.
I think the big thing with steroids and other supplements is that they lessen muscle recovery time.
Right. This is the part in Mac’s argument where I get lost. Most in the “I’m not sure steroids help” camp will readily admit that weight training works and is somewhat responsible for the power spike in the last decade. Steroids allow you to have better, more frequent workouts due to thier muscle recovery effects and make those workouts have better results due to their muscle building effects. They essentially amplify your weight training. But somehow this doesn’t show up on the field I guess.
I agree a million percent. I don’t know if this was said already but its hard to say how offensive numbers have benefited when there’s pitchers failing tests.
Anyway, the union let congress bully the by making them think there was something they could really do about it. THere’s no way anyone can tell me that if a team owner wants to suspend a guy for, say, 25 games. There’s no way John McCain can come into an owners stadium and tell him that he has to suspend HIS player that he’s paying that he’s not allowed to play. Or what…. you gonna arrest him? Anyway, enough of that, I agree with one part specifically, when we all get old and talk about the “Golden age” of baseball in the 90’s and 2000’s, we’ll look at ‘Roidsand ask what the big deal was. I think.
Mac, I can’t understand why you’ve abandoned your laser-like rational analysis for running out logical fallacy after logical fallacy to defend steroid use. “I don’t care” is in effect “go for it.” If someone used these same straw men arguments on you, you’d ridicule him off the site.
Did Babe Ruth use steroids? Wow, pulling from that great critical thinker Jeff Kent. Uh, no, he didn’t, and we know that with 99.99999% certainty. You’re being silly. (Hint: Gehrig? No.)
I think it’s absolutely certain that this is not going to look like Reefer Madness to the next generation. It’s going to look like there was no one who gave a damn about the integrity of the game for 20 years, and as a result, we’ve completely devalued the true giants of the game. There’s a reason that Mark McGwire didn’t shoot up in the ondeck circle: he knew that if America knew about his fraud, that he’d lose the opportunity to fleece kids and fans out of their money. You think the Maris family would be out their celebrating his “record” if they knew the truth? I would think as a stathead, you more than the average fan would decry the cheapening of records that have stood for decades.
Bud Selig is no commissioner, but the true Prince of Darkness is Don Fehr. It is stunning to see unions, which grew out of, among other things, a desire to make a safer workplace, completely turned on their head to ENSURE an unsafe workplace. Fehr sought to protect those who were using steroids because they made more money that way. What about the guy who doesn’t want to jeopardize his health or has some minimal integrity, and feels it unfair that Player X gets paid more because he buys his home runs at BALCO by the gross? That guy was completely unrepresented by Fehr and the union bosses in favor of Bonds, McGwire, et al. The owners played Sergeant Schultz, no doubt, as the turnstiles rotated, but the union had a duty to protect the players from harmful workplace conditions, and instead they fought like demons to PRESERVE those conditions, at the behest of the top players. Meanwhile, the guys in AAA were at a competitive disadvantage because they were tested out the wazoo.
It seems pretty easy to deduce that if I can make myself stronger, that more of my flyouts are going to leave the park. Buty I think you’re right that an equally valuable part ot steroid use is staying in the lineup. McGwire is a perfect example, if you look at his injury record.
If baseball is the “religion of America,” then these records ought to be accorded more honor. And to see guys like Babe Ruth, Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron passed by guys like Sosa, McGwire and Bonds is simply appalling. There isn’t anyone who views himself as a steward of the game: if there were, Congress wouldn’t have to step in. I applaud them for doing so.
Wow, lots of good comments. I think Mac made several good points, and ububba & 50PH & nyb made several of the counter-points I had thought of.
A couple things I wanted to add that I hadn’t seen mentioned:
AAR mentioned the Rob Neyer column about difficulty in comparing numbers across eras and Jenny mentioned the “unfairness” inherent in not having everyone the same way (ie. all users or all clean). I got to thinking that one guy in particular who has suffered from being clean is Dale Murphy. I don’t think anyone ever would accuse him of having used ANYTHING (esp. given his Mormon beliefs about not taking anything, even drinking coffee or things with caffeine). Many people who showed up on comp lists for him ended up being productive players for much longer than he did. And the sad thing is, we’ll never know how many of them had an unfair advantage over him because they delayed the aging process (or whatever term you want to use) in a way he never did. Think it would be a little easier for Murph to get into the HOF if he didn’t look so bad in comparison to others his same age who continued to be productive? I’m obviously not covering everything there is to say about this, but think that this had an effect on a specific player that most everybody on this site had/has a lot of affection for.
2nd thought is – I’m reading Ball Four now (for the 1st time – just never got to it before). And Bouton does talk about the greenies & gives a lot of details of the clubhouse culture from that time period. One thing I thought was interesting was his description of the “feeling” you get w/ the greenies. It wasn’t so much that the players actually played better (ie. hit for higher average, more homeruns, higher K totals for pitchers, etc), though that was also something that I’m sure has never been measured with any type of scientific or statistical accuracy. But his point was that they FELT like they could take on the world, throw 105+ MPH, hit a homer every time out. You look at the numbers for the era and they don’t bear that out. And, I think an argument can be made that those drugs actually harmed the performance of those who took them (made them antsy, more aggressive at the plate, swing at worse pitches, make dumb decisions on the base paths or on defense) – though again that would be nigh upon impossible to verify. Obviously different drugs will have different effects (users are trying to do different things). Amphetamine (sp?) users are looking for the pick me up, steroid users want to be stronger, etc – just because that’s the goal doesn’t mean they actually are successful in what they are trying to acheive.
One thing most fans tend to forget is that baseball, more than any other game, is predicated on failure (especially for hitters). If a hockey goalie was only successful 40% of the time or a QB completed only 40% of his passes, they’d be out of the game in no time. If a baseball hitter is successful 40% of the time, he’s a multi-millionaire on his way to the HOF.
I think one of the advantages to these supplements is that they make the player “feel” good, as Jonathon said, and enhance confidence. They clear the mind of doubt to some extent. It would be hard to quantify that in any way, but confidence is clearly part of the game.
I wonder what the difference between a greenie and two Red Bulls is?
If you think that taking steroids has more to do with becoming a better hitter, than smaller parks, better video study, better weight training, better dieting, more offseason conditioning, a lower mound, and thinner handles on the bat, then you have been blinded by the steroids mirage. I am not saying that steroids has less of a factor, just saying that maybe all these things should be looked at with equal suspicion.
Ken Caminiti didn’t die because of steroids, he died because of dependance on concaine and alcohol.
I am not defending anyone who has used steroids, I am merely trying to get you to see that it is really just one of a number of things that have created this new baseball.
BTW – 50PH & ububba – you guys have the 40 & 50 yr old cranky demographic. I think I could capably fill the 30 yr old codger spot, given the opportunity…
I wonder what the difference between a greenie and two Red Bulls is?
You’re still thirsty after the greenie.
“Anyway, the union let congress bully the by making them think there was something they could really do about it.”
There absolutely is something Congress can do; they can pass a law. If baseball is interstate commerce, Congress can regulate it. I see no reason why Congress could not mandate specific penalties for steroid use in baseball, just as they provide federal laws on drugs. It might be a stupid law, but they could do it. They could set up a federal baseball commission and regulate the game. Don’t kid yourself that Congress can’t do anything–and that’s not even talking about repealing the antitrust exemption which the owners are deathly afraid of.