The Steroids Era June 27, 2007
Posted by jason4jc in Sports.trackback
I love sports. Along with loving sports I am sort of old fashioned in my love for sports. I love the games played like they used to be played. I love the records too. There are certain records and milestones which are impressive to me. Baseball is best known for those milestones. You have your 3,000 hit club, the 500 home run club, and your 300 win club. reaching one of those milestones nearly ensure being enshrined in Cooperstown. Certain records draw the attention of people more than others. Records are made for breaking, but some last a long time and some will never be broken like Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak.
I have to admit the whole steroid controversy has put a damper on my love for America’s past time. I love baseball, but it is hard to get excited about records that may be bulked up by the use of steroids. The steroid argument is coming into the spotlight once again as the most well known record gets broken. That is Hank Aaron’s home run record. Most likely before too long Barry Bonds will pass Hank Aaron for the all time record. The question we have to deal with as fans is how will history handle these guys. The guys that set amazing records. You know guys like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. Their statistics alone make them Hall of Famers, but a lot of people are saying they shouldn’t be. A lot of others are saying they should go in with an asterisks beside their name.
I am not in favor of steroid usage. I think it has tarnished sports. I think it is shameful. I think rules should be in place to prohibit it and punish violations harshly. However, these guys never broke the rules. There is no proof. There is a lot of speculation by people, including me. I suspect Bonds juiced, I mean come on, look at his physical development since he entered the game.
Do steroids make you a better player? They may make you hit harder and further, but they certainly can’t make you hit a 100 mph fastball. Bottom line is these guys who did steroids are still the greatest talents in this era. They put up great statistics. I am a huge baseball purest, but I can’t see how you can keep Bonds, Sosa, or even McGwire from the Hall of Fame without proof, without a failed test, without an admission. I am not a Barry Bonds fan, but I think he deserves a little more attention for what he is about to do. He is about to break baseball’s greatest record and Bud Selig, baseball’s commissioner is debating on whether to be there, come on. Again, I don’t support steroid use, but for a guy that loves the game, pay attention because we are seeing history in the making and we are probably still seeing some of the best to ever grace the field and that’s just the way it is, like it or not!
I agree you can’t keep these guys out of the hall of fame. The fact is is it was illegal to use steriods in the U.S. but baseball never made a rule, like the other sports did, to exclude it from their game. I agree with Giambi, baseball should apoligize. Bud Selig and front office management people in baseball had to have some clue that steriods was being used, with so many users, but they never made it against the rules. They made their bed now they can lay in it.
It’s hard to for me to accept the idea steriods doesn’t make you a better player. Why would all those players take them if they come with health risks but have no reward? Why are so many of the best of the era, so big and suspected of taking steriods? Bonds was always a great player, but why this sudden jump in his late 30′s to being uberman? It was reported Ken Griffery Jr. said he was a bit jealous of McGuire and Sosa. McGuire hit 70, Sosa had 3 years of 60 or more, Bonds had 73, Giambi was the MVP, Sheifeld was one the best. Is it a coincidence McGuire wouldn’t testify about his past? Sosa forgot how to speak english? Bonds was tied to the BALCO scandal and his trainer took the fifth and remained in jail instead of spilling his guts? Giambi admits it? Sheifeld was tied to the BALCO scandal? Is it a coincidence Ken Caminiti won an MVP and admitted using steriods? Your probably right though all this over something that doesn’t help your performance.
Bud Selig go and celebrate all you were able to accomplish by letting this go on under your nose, and give Bonds his and your props when it comes time.
All your favorite players are on drugs. 100%
If you wish to continue to follow TV sports—you must embrace Life Science, blood doping, amphetamines, cortisone, insulin and testosterone-based steroids.
George Mitchell (Disney-ESPN Chairman) would NEVER pay MLB $2.6 BILLION with INSISTING on corked bats and steroids. ESPN knows that fans LOVE doped action. Clean action is boring.
They even dope in Olympic Badminton!
You are probably right that everyone is doping in most sports. I have heard athletes say that most of them are so competitive and want so badly to be good at what they do that they would still use ‘roids even knowing it can take years off your life and have serious side effects. My question is, how much of an edge does it give these guys…and if everyone is doing it than the ground is back to level isn’t it? Why can’t a guy like Barry Bonds legitmatley make a run at a home run record?
A huge edge. (5% to 30% and increased durablilty)
1) over night recovery
2) power & strength, speed
3) endurance (blood doping)
4) alertness (amphetmaines)
5) anti-fatigue (amphetamines, corticoids, EPO)
6) increased function (eg: anti-inflamation, vasodiliation)
7) mood (heroin, morphine)
Clean atheltes have ZERO chance against doped atheltes–which is why NO clean athletes are employed in to-level sport.
Olympic medalists, NFl, MLB, NBA, NHL and college football are reserved for dopers.
Longterm—-many adverse problems. From Jim Otto’s immune system, Lance Pharmstrong’s Cancer, Barrett Robbins Roid rages with police, spousal abuses of Chuck Muncie, Michael Strahan, Rod Martin, Dana Stubblefield, to murders by Dariet Ford, OJ Simpson to Chris Benoit to Marion Jones brakcruptcy.
There are ZERO clean athletes featured on TV.
In addition to illegal doping is sports–many other forms of cheating are present as well.
In baseball for example, we have:
corked bats
juiced balls
pine tar
variable strike zones and funny calls
friendly pitching
unfriendly pitching
drunk pitchers (Hancock, Welch, Rogers, Drysdale)
fixed game outcomes
illegal gambling
The $1 BILLION New York Yankees ALWAYS feturing in post season.
George Mitchell on the BODs of Boston Red Sox, Florida Marlins, Disney/ESPN and is also the MLB steroid auditor too.
MLB is a total fraud. It’s records are fake. The WWE is cleaner.
Doping is NEVER fair or level.
Some people dope more–or respond better to peptide hormone therapies than do others.
Chris Benoit vesus OJ Simpson. Simpson did not kill himself.
Lance Armstrong versus his doped USCF teammates Greg Strock, kaiter, Lechuga. (Only Armstrong recovered from illness)
It is a Polypharma lotto outcome as to who is best.
There are many ways to cheat, that is right. Baseball is filled with those stories. I forget, but I think it was the Giants in the Willie Mays era that had a system to tell them what pitch was coming and that’s how they supposedly won the World Series.
I don’t think 100% cheat, but I think what gets people angry is that Bonds is going to hold a sacred record by cheating. While the perception is Babe and Aaron held those records without cheating.
I just don’t see the arguement that says they don’t do much to improve your game. And while a lot of players in the steriod era did use steriods, or maybe another form of cheating, a lot didn’t and their career numbers and play took a back seat to the ones who did cheat.
100% dope, that is an absolute. Bonds is hardly unique in that.
With 600,000 to 1,000,000 USA high school athletes on steroids—you can bank on 100% of the 3,000 minor leaguers and the 750 MLB players are juiced. No exceptions.
Insofar as corked bats—-maybe only the branded stars. (Pete Rose used a corked bat)
ESPN-MLB baseball is fake. Pure theater.
The Club owners and Disney-ESPN are the biggest cheats of all.
The players are exploited as needed. Stars are invented.
MLB is much like WWE only with a corrupt union.
Donal Fehr and George Mitchell stay under the radar and let used car saleman Bud Selig or Baroid Bonds take the heat—but they turn a blind eye to the ubiquitous doping. Privately, they love steroids, corticoids and amphetamines. It makes them BILLIONS.
ESPN (Disney) would NEVER pay MLB $2.6 BILLION unless steroids and corked bats and cheating were included in the deal.
MLB is theater of the absurd. It is fake!